My Political History
Yeah…I updated my blog. First time in about 8 months too. Oops, sorry ’bout that.
Considering the massive amount of coverage about the presidential race on both sides of the aisle, I thought it’d be fun to add my own views, just for the hell of it. And also with amusing anecdotes about my past venture into “politics”.
Starting off, I am a liberal. I believe that a free market economy, left to its own devices, is detrimental to the good of all society. I have no problem paying taxes, when I know that the funds will go to worthwhile causes and benefit the greater good. If my taxes go towards helping get pay raises for teachers who excel in the classroom, I’ll be happy. If my tax dollars go towards assisting a single mother get health care because she can’t afford it with her two jobs AND pay day care bills, I’m happy. If it helps a high school student who can carry a 3.5 gpa and who works part-time go to college when they normally wouldn’t be able to afford it, I’m happy.
I’m not happy when my taxes go to buying bombs.
I grew up in a home that was not religious. My dad was confirmed Catholic when he was young, but my mom never had any sort of church attendance. I’ve been with my parents inside of a church maybe 7 times in my life — all weddings or funerals. I will support anyone’s right to worship how they wish, so long as they respect my views of skepticism. I won’t try to convert them, so don’t try to convert me. As long as somebody arrives at their faith on their own, after thought and consideration, I will respect and appreciate their beliefs. (Different story if they have faith because “my parents thought I should” or something like that)
For the record, the main things on my mind this election cycle are : education, health care reform, and the environment. This country will improve in every facet with improved education. There are teacher shortages everywhere, largely due to poor pay and poor recruitment of qualified teachers. I concede that in America, people will often approach a career with the monetary gains in mind, and teaching is not as rewarding financially as it ought to be. A good teacher should be recognized socially and financially in similar regard to doctors or mayors or other high-status positions. A strong educational background improves the economic sector via innovation and technology, which can create jobs and solve problems.
Among those problems is the problem with health care. I approve of a single-payer health care policy. Everyone should have access to good health care when they need it. Period. Nobody should (cliche warning) have to choose between eating or medical assistance. Large health care companies tend toward profitability rather than service, asking everyone to pay in, but paying none of the benefits back to the community. They look out for the shareholders first, the shareholders second, and the shareholders third. Somewhere around in the twenties will be where you find the patients. Yes, I pay into health care now, because, well, just in case, I have to have something there. But for the amount I pay in now, I can’t imagine I’d pay much more in via taxes. And the services would be much improved, much more universally applied, and more beneficial to more people more often.
I found a book for a customer today about global warming which implied that it had ways to refute global warming as a true phenomenon. Terribly irresponsible. Scientific data and observation more than show the validity of global warming as a true crisis. And it’s getting worse. I hate to think of a generation that has to deal with our mistakes, with our inaction.
I was born in 1980, maybe six weeks before Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter. Nearly 27 and a half years later, I’ve only seen 8 years of a Democratic president. I grew up and still live in Kansas. So it’s somewhat unique that my views are different from the prevailing opinions in this state.
My first recollection of any noticing of politics came during the Oliver North hearings. I had no idea what this Iran-Contra talk was, but it seemed like bad news to me. I also remember the video for “Land of Confusion” by Genesis, and vaguely recall having a sense of the message behind it.
In 1988, I rigged an election.
When I was 8, my dad and uncle ran a bowling alley. On Saturday nights when he’d work late, I’d walk around, play video games, eat free food, and most nights I’d keep score for the more casual leagues (I forget what the technical term was, but if a male got 9 pins on their first throw in a frame or a female got 8 pins, I’d change it to a strike — and got hella tips out of it too). Somewhere in the late summer or early fall of 1988 I thought I’d take it upon myself to do some informal polling. I walked around each lane and, since most of the people were regulars, I felt totally comfortable asking them if they wanted to vote for president. All they had to do was write their vote on a piece of paper and drop it into the slot in the lid of a shoebox. Standard fare.
Well, I was disappointed with how the results were going. So I did some recruitment for my campaign. I gave a 6 year old a candy bar, so long as he wrote “Dukakis” on ten small pieces of paper.
And what do you know…Mike Dukakis won the bowling alley election! What a country!
In 1991, the Gulf War broke out. I threw the expected support to the president and troops, as best I could at 11 years old. I despised “Sa-dumb InSane” and the Iraqis. And had no idea that we had any other reason to fight other than to help those poor Kuwaitis. I even had Gulf War trading cards.
Then in 1994, a weird thing happened. I officially became a Conservative Republican. Myself and maybe 2-3 other kids in my 8th grade class decided we wanted to be the Kennedy Middle School Conservative Republican’s Club. So we did. On a field trip. I couldn’t tell you the issues at the time, or my positions on them. I just knew some of my friends (and let’s not lie, the group was comprised of friends I already had) thought Republicans were cooler, thus…
Still, when we had opportunities to “vote” via Channel One News, I was voting for Bill Clinton. And I think it was about the time of the impeachment hearings when the shift occurred, not only from “Republican” to Democrat, but from uninformed to, at the very least, engaged. I thought it was absurd for Clinton to be under investigation to the extent that he was, and certainly saw no reason to drag through impeachment attempts. It didn’t make sense, and I soured heavily on the Republicans.
I had a cynical view of things (still do really) and thought Congress was a waste. Nothing ever happened, it seemed. There would be no progress. I hated seeing Clinton try to pass legislation and have it hit a wall of opposition simply on party affiliations. To me, I saw it as Republicans blocking the way for progress. I started to read up and realized I saw things like the Democrats saw things. Civil rights, economic policies, and reaching out to help others were important in forming my views at the time, and I didn’t see that coming from the Republicans…and well, still don’t.
In 2000, I voted for Gore. My roommate at the time was very much in support of Bush. It was awkward. And on election night, I was up until 4am watching the coverage. It was wild, crazy, unheard of. I’d never seen anything like it, and I loved every second of it, even though my side didn’t get the victory (officially).
After 9/11, I thought there was a great opportunity for the partisan squabbles to pass. I think that a different leader would have been able to accomplish such a feat, and we’d be better off for it. But it didn’t happen.
In ‘04, I watched Kerry crash and burn, but got started in the blogosphere, viewing dailykos and Atrios more and more…and still feel betrayed by the exit polls showing good news for Kerry in Florida and Ohio.
I support Barack Obama. Though, I do feel good that not only do we have a great trio of front-runners running for the Democratic nomination, but those who have dropped out are good Democrats as well. Looking across the way…I see confusion, incompetence and a lot of slime.
Quite giddy, I am, actually.
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