Between yesterday and today, a lot of blogs have posted their feelings on the elections. I had wanted to write a post on my take but felt that it took away from the purpose of my blog which is collecting sports cards on a dime. But the dust has settled and we have a new President Elect. I read Gellman’s post at Sportscards Uncensored, and decided to write a post on my feelings towards the election.
Let it be known that I am a card carrying Democrat. It wasn’t always that way. When I first registered to vote in 1989 I was a Republican. I liked what Regan did for our country. For those of you who didn’t grow up in the 70s and 80s. The country, for lack of a better word was dismal in the 70s. Then the 80s rolled around and it was like a big party. Much like the mid 90s. Somewhere around the late 90s / turn of the century, religion started rearing it’s ugly head into politics. As a non religious person, this scared me. Our country was founded on a belief of separation of church and state. However, a born again Christian, G. W. Bush won the presidency, and things started to slide for our country. I started hearing more and more the word God in speeches and on TV. “I’ll pray for this and that” started speckling sound bites. For me this election meant trying moving away from religious backed politics.
In the weeks and months leading up to the election I was torn, as many Americans were, as to how to vote. Our country has become so polarized that the candidates didn’t speak for the majority anymore. They spoke for the minority. The only candidate that was more centered as far as political views was Ron Paul. However the minority groups led the majority to believe he was insane.
My view on the election is simple, there are things that I think Obama brought to the table that were important. First ending a “war” that for the most part has been haphazardly run. This “war” is draining our country of dollars that we can no longer afford to sit back and wait for a “winner”. Our presence in the Middle East is escalating hatred toward our country. I do believe that we as a country have a strong military. I just feel as though this “war” is doing nothing for our country except generating another generation of militant Islamics. The time has come to bring back our troops.
I also agree with Obama on his views of the health care system. For those of you who believe the political machine in saying that government health care would be horrible, you should actually talk to people from other countries that have free health care. I have spoken to all of my Canadian friends who are thrilled with Canada’s health care system. Or my boss’s son who needed surgery in Germany while attending school there. His total hospital bill was $50. Before writing off something, please read about it. There are too many people in the US that can’t afford to take care of themselves. This isn’t a situation where they are unemployed, or living off the system, it’s a situation where their illnesses eat up every dollar they have.
That being said, McCain’s take on illegal immigration is dead spot on. We can no longer turn a blind eye to this issue. It is single handedly destroying our health care system. Not to mention losing jobs to people that shouldn’t be in the country is wrong as well. Unfortunately for McCain and the Republicans, the old hat approach to business as usual has to stop. We can no longer afford to let religious views dictate our laws. Stem cell research has to be advanced. In this day and age we need to find cures for diseases that have riddled this country for too long. If this type of research can cure one disease that has plagued us for decades it is well worth it. Again, it’s important to remember that his country exists because of the ideology of a separation of church and state. So when you come to argue make sure you can back up your arguments with scientific fact and not what our “creators” feel is bad for us.
We as a society need that division of church and state again. We are given a freedom of religion in our constitution. We should never be governed by religion or religious beliefs. We should be governed by what’s best for our country and not what’s best to protect our faith.
As for those of you who are questioning Obama’s experience and saying that he is just a man of well written speeches, I just say, give him a chance, a person who can unite a country by good speeches, is worth taking a chance on. Was he the perfect candidate? Absolutely not, but there were no such candidates. I just say, before saying how horrible a president his is going to be, to sit back and see how he does. The best part about living in the US is being able to change the President every 4 years. If you don’t like him, he’ll find out in 2012.
That’s just my 2 cents. I’m sure there will be a lot of comments, and as long as the remain free of derogatory epitaphs, I promise to post them all. I promise this will be my only political post for the rest of the year and that we can go back to card collecting on a budget.
I couldn’t have said that any better. Nicely worded!
Our country wasn’t founded on a belief of speration of church and state in the sense that it has become today. Our country was founded as One Nation Under God and in whom God We Trust. It is a fact that our country was built and founded on Judeo-Christian principals. Our founding fathers did not want to be governed by a tyrant that rejected these principals and formed his own church to accomodate is moral indescretions.
We have moved so far left in this country that we have now elected a Muslim Socialist. You do not surround yourself with the likes of race baiting haters (Jeramiah Wright), domestic terrorists (William Ayers), totalitarian dictators (Kenya’s “President”) marxist and socialist professors and maintain any bit of moderate or centrist beliefs.
We have gone from abortion on demand to infanctide. Obama himself believes (based on his voting record) that a baby born having survived an abortion does not have the right to medical care to save it’s life. Call it what you want but that is murder. Forget the argument of conception and when life starts, this is a baby that has breathed air outside of the womb and then is suffocated after being thrown into a plastic bag (the preferred method of medical technicians who encounter this)
Would you want a teacher teaching your children who has never taught?
Would you want a doctor to perform hear surgery who never has?
Would you want a first time trial attorney defending you in a wrongfully accused charge?
The why would you want someone who after one term in Senate (who purposely chose to abstain from numerous votes to deny the public the knowledge of his beliefs on issues concerning taxes, health care, 2nd amendment rights, judicial activism) to lead our country?
Trust me the honeymoon will be over in 2 years and the swing voters, independents, and undecideds who voted for him will be smacked in the face with a cold hard dose of reality as they begin to see the erosion of their civil liberties, loss of control of the affairs of their children, government interference at all levels of society and increased taxes.
We have been blessed in this country with freedom OF religion not freedom FROM religion.
There are no more moral absolutes in this country and the only group of people permissable to show intolerance towards in this politically correct era of tolerance is Christians.
Actually You Need a History Lesson, “One Nation Under God” was created in the 1950s:
From Wikipedia:
Addition of the words “under God”
The Knights of Columbus in New York City felt that the pledge was incomplete without any reference to a deity.[4] Appealing to the authority of Abraham Lincoln, the Knights felt that the words “under God” which were from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address were most appropriate to add to the Pledge.[citation needed] In New York City on April 22, 1951, the Board of Directors of the Knights of Columbus adopted a resolution to amend their recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at the opening of each of the meetings of the 800 Fourth Degree Assemblies of the Knights of Columbus by addition of the words “under God” after the words “one nation.” In the following two years, the idea spread throughout Knights of Columbus organizations nationwide. On August 21, 1952, the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus at its annual meeting adopted a resolution urging that the change be made universal and copies of this resolution were sent to the President, the Vice President (as Presiding Officer of the Senate) and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The National Fraternal Congress meeting in Boston on September 24, 1952, adopted a similar resolution upon the recommendation of its President, Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart. Several State Fraternal Congresses acted likewise almost immediately thereafter. This campaign led to several official attempts to prompt Congress to adopt the Knights of Columbus’ policy for the entire nation. These attempts failed.
The Knights of Columbus tried repeatedly, but they were unsuccessful in their attempts to persuade the United States government to amend the pledge. Bills were introduced as early as 1953, when Representative Louis C. Rabaut of Michigan sponsored a resolution at the suggestion of a correspondent. It was a Presbyterian minister who made the difference in 1954 by preaching a sermon about Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The minister was George MacPherson Docherty, a native of Scotland who was called to succeed Peter Marshall as pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church near the White House, where, in 1863, the same year as the address, Lincoln attended and even rented a pew. After Lincoln’s death, the pew that he rented became something of a national monument. It became customary for later United States presidents to attend services at the church and sit in the Lincoln pew on the Sunday closest to Lincoln’s birthday (February 12) each year.
As Lincoln Sunday (February 7, 1954) approached, Rev. Docherty knew not only that President Dwight Eisenhower was to be in attendance, but that it was more than just an annual ritual for him; while President, Eisenhower had been baptized a Presbyterian. Docherty’s sermon focused on the Gettysburg Address, drawing its title from the address, “A New Birth of Freedom.”
Docherty’s message began with a comparison of the United States to ancient Sparta. Docherty noted that a traveler to ancient Sparta was amazed by the fact that the Spartans’ national might was not to be found in their walls, their shields, or their weapons, but in their spirit. Likewise, said Docherty, the might of the United States should not be thought of as emanating from their newly developed atomic weapons, but in their spirit, the “American way of life”. In the remainder of the sermon Docherty sought to define as succinctly as possible the essence of the American spirit and way of life. To do so, Docherty appealed to those two words in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. According to Docherty, what has made the United States both unique and strong was her sense of being the nation that Lincoln described: a nation “under God.” Docherty took the opportunity to tell a story of a conversation with his children about the Pledge of Allegiance. Docherty was troubled by the fact that it did not include any reference to the deity. Without such reference, Docherty insisted that the Pledge could apply to just about any nation. He felt that the pledge should reflect the American spirit and way of life as defined by Lincoln.
After the service concluded, Docherty had opportunity to converse with Eisenhower about the substance of the sermon. The President expressed his enthusiastic concurrence with Docherty’s view, and the very next day, Eisenhower had the wheels turning in Congress to incorporate Docherty’s suggestion into law. On February 8, 1954, Rep. Charles Oakman (R-Mich.), introduced a bill to that effect. On Lincoln’s birthday, four days later, Oakman made the following speech on the floor of the House:
Rev. Dr. George MacPherson Docherty (left) and President Eisenhower (second from left) on the morning of February 7, 1954 at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church; the morning Eisenhower was convinced that the pledge needed to be amended
Last Sunday, the President of the United States and his family occupied the pew where Abraham Lincoln worshipped. The pastor, the Reverend George M. Docherty, suggested the change in our Pledge of Allegiance that I have offered [as a bill]. Dr. Docherty delivered a wise sermon. He said that as a native of Scotland come to these shores he could appreciate the pledge as something more than a hollow verse taught to children for memory. I would like to quote from his words. He said, ‘there was something missing in the pledge, and that which was missing was the characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life.’ Mr. Speaker, I think Mr. Docherty hit the nail square on the head.
Senator Homer Ferguson, in his report to the Congress on March 10, 1954, said, “The introduction of this joint resolution was suggested to me by a sermon given recently by the Rev. George M. Docherty, of Washington, D.C., who is pastor of the church at which Lincoln worshipped.” This time Congress concurred with the Oakman-Ferguson resolution, and Eisenhower opted to sign the bill into law on Flag Day (June 14, 1954). The fact that Eisenhower clearly had Docherty’s rationale in mind as he initiated and consummated this measure is apparent in a letter he wrote in August, 1954. Paraphrasing Docherty’s sermon, Eisenhower said
These words [“under God”] will remind Americans that despite our great physical strength we must remain humble. They will help us to keep constantly in our minds and hearts the spiritual and moral principles which alone give dignity to man, and upon which our way of life is founded.
Docherty’s sermon was published by Harper & Bros. in New York in 1958 and President Eisenhower took the opportunity to write to Dr. Docherty with gratitude for the opportunity to once again read the sermon.
- just a history lesson.
Also to address your comments on Christians being the most tolerant.
Are you kidding me?
Who are the first to bang on abortion? Which as far as I’m concerned has been deemed legal in the court system.
Who is the first to bang on anything racy on TV? Which is allowed under our constitution.
My point is the born again Christian cult is the minority that for the last 8 years dictated the politics of this country, I for one am happy that has eneded.
For the record Obama is not Muslim (an error never corrected by the media), and as far as Socialism, let’s see what happens. The tax plan he is planning on implementing is the same one that was used in the Clinton administration. I didn’t think that was Socialist.
Time to learn things for yourself and stop quoting TV pundits. This is what is wrong with people trying to make arguments in either directions. Get your facts straight and stop quoting the media.
I sometimes wonder if the Democrats would have such sour grapes if Obama had lost. It seems to me like Republicans are so bitter about losing that they just make crap up. They did it during the race and they’ll continue to do it.
I consider myself to be an Independent (voted Rep last time but Dem this time) and it saddens me to see the lengths that some Republican supporters have gone to try to paint Obama in a bad light.
I know damn well when Under God was instituted and before you cut and paste your knowledge of the constitution read the following books first and get back to me:
John Adams
By David McCullough
Patriot Sage
By Gary Greg and matthew Spalding
Founding Brothers
By Joseph Ellis
The Coming Collision
By Dr James Hirsen
America’s Lost Dream
By Tom Dooley
The Pilgram’s Progress
By John Bunyan
Global Deception
By Josepg Klein
Also I didn’t say that the Christian right was the most tolerant (unfortunately many aren’t) I said the only group of people that it is politically correct to be intolerant OF is Christians
The sheepeole have spoken.
Enjoy the next 4 years because the pendulum is going to swing well right of center when people realized they were duped by a socialist
First off, it’s very easy to get down on “the system” and politics when your party LOSES. Next before you call the man a Socialist, shouldn’t you wait until he takes office? That would be like me calling you a nazi. I don’t even know you, how do I have the right to say that? Just like how do you have the right to say he’s a Socialist before he ever has a chance to do anything.
This is what is wrong with the extreme right wing Christians. The only difference between them and extremest in the middle east is that they don’t blow themselves up to make a point. Right wingers never want to see your point, they never want to admit they are wrong, it’s their way or no way.
I think I will enjoy the next 4 years. Hey if we were wrong we can all vote Republican, but to harass the guy who hasn’t even taken the oath of office yet is asinine.
Also you had no idea when Under God was placed into American history because you said, “Our country wasn’t founded on a belief of speration of church and state in the sense that it has become today. Our country was founded as One Nation Under God and in whom God We Trust.”
I am not slamming born again Christians, I know a lot of ex junkies who have become them. The thing is, it’s ok to have your idea of what the world should be like, but why do they always try to impose their beliefs on all of us? As if their beliefs are the correct ones? Who the hell knows what religion has it right, or for that matter if any religion has it right.
Just remember that the USA was founded by people escaping religious persecution. So if that is true why do I feel as though I am persecuted everyday because I don’t believe in what the Christian Right has to say.
By the way your IP address has you from Waterloo, Ontario, so I’m not sure what you are bitching about anyways. Of course if you want to defend yourself or have an email conversation with me, you could leave a working email address and not hide behind the shadow of anonymity. You can reach me at the email listed on the front page.