I Don't Want To Be Friends, part 2

It's not just politics or who won the presidency that has left me so disappointed and disillusioned today. I haven't "unfriended" people over bitterness that my candidate lost.

What hurts the most is that so many people in this country have chosen to go against everything that we stand for. How can you teach your children that being a bully is wrong when you elected one? How can you say you want to defend the constitution when you elected someone who would dismantle the first amendment if given half a chance? How can you tell me you love and care about me when you chose someone who bragged about sexually assaulting women; who calls women who disagree with him disgusting pigs; who wants to deny women the right to make decisions about their own bodies; you talk about following the rules and pulling your own weight and yet this man hasn't paid taxes in decades. You speak of respecting our veterans, and this man has mocked POWs, glorified war crimes, dodged the draft, and disparaged a gold star family. He's someone who wants to deny equal rights to just about every one who isn't rich, white, straight, male, and over a certain age.

Yes this is one man, but you chose him. You feel this person is fit to be the leader of the free world. If these are values that you hold, that you agree with, that you feel are not a big deal... It's not that I don't want to be friends because Trump is a bombastic asshole, it's because you are.

On Political Ground... A Quick Opinion Piece

Its an election year folks, and that means things are about to get ugly. Whether you live in a red or blue state or lean to the left or right, everyone seems to have an opinion of who is the better leader of our country. My focus here isn't to tell you who to vote for, your political affliations aren't my business, much like your religion or your sex life. What I am going to talk about, and maybe get a real conversation started, is about how American (and maybe the world, my scope of experience is pretty limited) Politics is completely disgusting and we need to change our process if we're ever going to make it a better country and do our part to better the world.

In my opinion a politician should put the people of his (I'm just going to use the pronoun "his" for the sake of keeping things to the point, I fully support women in politics) country before special interest groups. He should protect the Constitution above any religions, even his own. Freedom of Religion also gives his constituents a Freedom FROM Religion that should be protected just as vigoriously. When science makes break throughs that could save the lives of millions it shouldn't be discouraged because The Church finds it "icky" and "against God's plan." People say that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and they look at our Pledge of Allegiance as an example, however a quick glance at wikipedia will tell you that the section that states that we are one nation "under God" wasn't even added until 1954, when the Pledge was originally written in the 1892 and many of our founding father's didn't even believe in organized religion. George Washington wasn't a Christian by today's standards... does that mean he was a bad president?

Freedom of Speech comes at a cost. This means sometimes you have to hear things that you don't like or may not fit your "One Million Moms" mold, but if you can speak out, so can your opposition. Assholes like the West Borough Baptist Church have just as much of a right to protest on public grounds as the "Occupy Wall Street," and "Pro-Life/Choice" movements. Are any of their opinions morally, logically, ethically correct? It's your opinion against mine. It doesn't really matter, as long as they are behaving in a non-violent manner they have the right to make their voices heard. If we silence one of them, we have to silence them all.

I feel like politicians should stick to the issues at hand (health care, welfare, unemployment, national debt, on going wars in the Middle East, etc.) and tell us what their plan is to fix it, instead of telling me why their opposition is wrong. Tell me why you are the best man for the job and not why the other guy is a loser. Show me your intelligence without stooping to name calling. Prove to me that you're honest without telling me that everyone else is a lying crook. I want to be inspired, I want to pick the best possible candidate, not the lesser of two evils.