When in the Course of [Online US Government 2305], it becomes necessary for one people to [blog about] the political bands which have connected them with another [we know it’s the end of the semester].
(tortured sentence from the Declaration of Independence, double-checked on ushistory.org)
This time, I am to write about who I would vote for to be our next President of the USA; President Obama or one of the challenging Republicans.
At the time of the last presidential primary I was a Republican, and I voted for Allan Keys, who had already dropped out of the race. I voted for him because I didn’t like the way the Republicans locked him out of any publicity or debate, and I just like the way he sticks to his guns. Plus, I couldn’t in good conscience vote for any of the others. In the presidential election itself, I voted for McCain, because he was Republican. I know, I know, but so did 48% of the other voters, so there.
I am no longer a Republican, because most of them are horrible. Same with the Democrats. Deciding this question before me was hard, as I expected to decide on a Republican challenger. Romney is entitled and pretty, and though he talks about helping the middle class financially, he also speaks about how they don’t really matter. Not the kind of guy I respect. Ron Paul is actually more my style, sharing my opinion that abortion is not a constitutional issue (Abortion is a privacy right? Really? Then why can’t I have chickens in my backyard?), currency should be backed by something other than wishes, and the federal government should not bail out corporations, especially those that abuse their workers. He also started opposing forms of immigration in 1990, saying “We're in worse shape now because we subsidize immigration. We give food stamps, Social Security, free medical care, free education and amnesty. So you subsidize it, and you have a mess. Conditions have changed. And I think this means that we should look at immigration differently. It's an economic issue more than anything. If our economy was in good health, I don't think there'd be an immigration problem. We'd be looking for workers and we would be very generous." (2012.candidate-comparison.org)
Shockingly to me, however, President Obama is the one with whom I agree on the most issues. Beyond issues, Paul is 76 years old, served in the military (drafted), grew up working for everything he got, is a doctor, and lives in Texas. Obama is 50 years old, hasn’t served, grew up in different states/countries and schools, got a law degree and worked in mainly law and politics, and lived in Chicago. Both fit my rules for not being entitled tits, but Paul fits better, as he’s had to get his hands dirty. Paul is all about reduction of federal power, which I believe in moderately but not to that degree. He also wants to be friends with Cuba, which seems a bit radical. He wants to stay out of other countries conflicts, but I think Obama understands international policy better, having traveled in his youth as well as throughout his career.
I feel the best for our country will be President Obama. According to my textbook he’s been very prolific in taking unilateral actions-things that affect policy without waiting for Congress etc. (Losco/Baker, 2011, p.310). Looking to the candidate-comparison.org website again, he’s made large strides in turning our economy right-side-up again, he supports quality education and making higher education available to more people, he supports leniency in not deporting illegal aliens who have no criminal record, he wants to ease up on taxes for the poor and raise taxes for the rich proportionally, he has a great health care plan that got a little messed up in congress but that will bring relief to a lot of people who need it and he supports clean energy, opportunity to unionize, clean energy, and getting rid of wasteful spending. Plus, when he gets pissed at someone he just turns and walks away, which I bet he started doing in school when the other kids would make fun of the new guy since he traveled so much (and didn’t have a dad a lot of the time). Beats punching the guy in the face and getting in trouble. And as for him being a Commie, I’d rather have a Marxist in office (which theory has great stuff in it) than a National Socialist (or Nazis, for those of you who don’t read). And these days, a lot of politicians look to me as if they should be wearing a tiny black mustache. The best advantage to re-electing President Obama is that there won’t be the period of turmoil that a “changing of the guard” could have, thus allowing him to continue his work unabated. Except for the wee problem that congress has their heads permanently up their own tailpipes, and won't do anything that's good for this country without bribes that are known as campaign contributions.
Darn my teacher, now that I’ve written this, I actually feel inspired to vote for the first time since 2009. My right to privacy at the polls has been totally invaded! I’m okay with that though, this time.
Works Cited
"The Declaration of Independence." Ushistory.org. Ushistory.org, 4 July 1995. Web. 09 May 2012. <http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/>.
Losco, Joseph, and Ralph Baker. "Obama at Midterm: Unilateral Actions." Am Gov 2011. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2011. 310. Print.
"Paul vs Obama on The Issues." Candidate-comparison.org. Candidate-comparison.org. Web. 09 May 2012. <http://2012.candidate-comparison.org/?compare=Paul>.
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