Sunday, September 27, 2009
Political Parties & Other Contradictions
Labels: Compromise, Government, Politics, Society
Is it any wonder someone like myself, that was raised by Cmdr Spock of Star Trek, would be confused by all the contradictions set forth by our two primary political parties? The Democrats - aka Liberals - supposedly are in favor of personal freedoms as laid out in the Bill of Rights. Yet they seem to fixate on the first while ignoring the 2nd. They believe in free speech and use it as justification for burning the very flag that protects their rights, and they are also in favor of a woman's right to choose. Yet they seem dead set against our 2nd right, being the one where citizens remain armed just in case the government gets too full of itself.
Meanwhile over on the Republican front - aka Conservatives - you have a group of people determined to turn their religion into law. They are against abortion and same sex marriage because they claim it goes against their God (a clear violation of separating church and state - we can blame Ike for that). And yet, their Savior was supposedly a humanitarian, living in poverty, giving all he had to everyone around him, extolling the virtues of brotherhood, community, caring and sharing. Sounds a bit like a socialist liberal doesn't he?
They claim that taking God from school is why kids misbehave versus the true problem - parents who do nothing about their smart mouth brats and even go so far as to defend their rotten behavior (Actually democrats are guilty of this too). They even think the way to solve all the worlds problems is for every country to just do their own thing - that may be fine for a while until someone over there poisons the ocean or the sky and kills us all.
My own brother told me there is no such thing as the middle ground. Sure he meant what good old Rush said about wasting your vote. It is all screwed up and we have only ourselves to blame. We choose the side we mostly agree with and ignore the other parts of the agenda. Rush is living proof that my article called The Big Picture hit the nail on the head. Rush doesn't believe that we as a species could have the impact on the planet claimed by so many Ecologists. Whatever drugs he is on...I want some. Yes, the special on Discovery did make it clear that if humans did not exist it would take the planet less than 100 years to retake the land. But that is the trick isn't it? No more humans. Humans have technology which impedes nature from just shaking us off.
Technology is used to keep buildings and cars from rusting. We use it to fight off disease which would naturally keep our population in check. We use tech to extend life again adding to the population. I will happily concede that it is possible that the Earth is warming on its own as part of a cycle. That doesn't change the fact that even if what we are doing to the planet is causing about as much harm as punching your mother in the arm - we still have to live here and whatever is happening to the planet is definitely not being helped by humanities emissions. Everything has to work together that is why they call it an ecosystem. When you frak up one part of it you frak it all up.
And then we have the world wide contradictions. It would seem that personality is by far the most important factor in getting your way politically. Bush failed miserably because he always came across as a dumb-ass that didn't read his speech once before going on camera. Often he seemed surprised by his own words. Sometimes he even seemed to just make it up as he went. The entire world seemed to hate this country all because Bush rubbed them the wrong way. He didn't discuss with his allies his desires in the Middle East before taking action. I suppose that is the same as picking a fight in a bar before you are sure your buds have your back.
On the other hand, the world seems to adore Obama, even if the country that elected him seems wishy washy about it. Of course when the population is split down the middle you will always have a 50% rate of bitterness no matter who is elected. So why does the rest of the world like him so much? He is charismatic, he doesn't babble and he seems to keep the other politicians from babbling as well. More importantly he seems willing to address global issues with the input of the rest of the globe. The contradiction being that all the things Bush did to Iraq that the world hated him for are the very things they are now URGING Obama to do in regard to Iran.
Oh I am sure that he too will eventually be a huge disappointment like every single politician before, but for now, having a leader that the rest of the planet doesn't see as a huge joke is a nice change of pace. After all what good is a leader if no one listens to him?
Life is full of contradictions. If we have any hope of ever reaching an accord globally, political parties should have nothing to do with a certain way of voting, rather they should be the celebration that comes after a solution of compromise is attained.
Thank You For Reading!! ~99
