You Have an Obligation to Vote

I’m afraid that enough people are still drinking the Kool-Aid when it comes to Republicans and security. The President’s and his staff’s lies are so ingrained in his supporter’s heads that despite a less safe world today than it was six years ago, Republican candidates here in Minnesota and around the country still want to follow his agenda.

The atmosphere of threat and danger, or the possibilities of it, has successfully kept these people in power in Washington.

Despite the approaching number of 3000 dead Americans soldiers, tens of thousands wounded, and no plan to change, somehow I am labeled a defeatist, a cut-and-runner, simply because I want to change something that isn’t working to protect our soldiers and our country.

I know the Republicans have no platform to run on other than security, well, that and Bill Clinton, but the relevance in this election is not solely the war. It is lost opportunity, lost pensions, skyrocketing medical costs, the near poor – less able to support themselves, war profiteering, deep seeded corruption in congress, and an executive branch loaded with incompetence and cronyism.

That’s where we are two weeks before this election. We need every vote to change the country. There are a lot of people who feel they don’t need to vote. That their district is safe, or there is no chance their candidate will win, but those of us who feel there is concern for our country need to get in the habit of voting in every election regardless of the conceived meaning. The truth is, many people died and risked their lives for our freedom, it is more than a right, it is an obligation to vote.

Aliens abducted me. Yeah that’s it.

I think a lot of people are asking themselves what happened to the Republican Party. What happened to controlled spending? What happened to less taxes? What happened to deficit control? What happened to the party of personal responsibility?

Right now Republicans are blaming everybody but themselves. It is Clinton’s fault North Korea is working on a bomb. It is the media’s fault the Mark Foley scandal came out. It is Nancy Pelosi’s fault Mark Foley is a pedophile wait no, it is the gay’s fault. It is everybody’s fault but the people looking in the mirror.

The current Republican world doesn’t even know what personal responsibility is. Right now, the Republican Party is the party of uncontrolled spending. Think of Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere,” the 223 million dollar project to build a bridge nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge and higher than the Brooklyn Bridge, to connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) to the city’s airport on Gravina Island (population 50). That’s right, if you do the math, we are spending $24,916 for each person between those two places so they don’t have to take a ferry to the airport.

A lot of people don’t know this, but there were two 200 million dollar-plus bridges for Alaska in the transportation bill. The other connects a small island with a handful of homes to Anchorage. That was a bridge even the city council rejected, but the rest of the country is paying for it thanks to the Republican party.

And here, Mark Kennedy is running on the issue that he wants to make sure the line item veto is established so that the President can take pork like this out. Maybe Mark Kennedy should have voted against the 295 billion dollar bill, rather than crying about not being able to help himself from voting for it.

Quick help him before he spends again, it isn’t his fault. Just like it is not Mark Foley’s fault he solicited pages. He, and the Republican leadership have dragged out every possible excuse. He’s an alcoholic…he’s gay…he was molested…what’s next? Aliens abducted him? Where has the personal responsibility gone?

Appropriately Angry Al

On more than one occasion, I have mentioned being angry. I had foreseen it being the Republican’s main issue for dismissing Democrats. I’ve been wrong, but it came up at an Al Franken talk at Barnes and Noble in Burnsville on Tuesday night.

Speaking about the war, he said: Conservatives dismiss liberals as angry, “If you’re not angry at the waste of lives, what’s wrong with you?” he said. “It doesn’t mean you’re angry all the time. It just means you’re appropriately angry at things to get angry about.”

I like that.

Moral Compassion

I heard Chris Matthews say something that really annoyed me. I don’t know the exact quote, but he said Democrats are the party of compassion and Republicans are the party of morality.

He was specifically talking about the Mark Foley scandal (yes it is a scandal – if Republican leadership sat on it for two or three years, as has been reported, to protect their power as a group, rather than people – kids actually, it is definitely a Republican scandal) implying that this will really damage their party as a whole.

The real problem I have with that comment isn’t that the Republican party only talks morality to woo the religious right, rather than lives morally, it is that compassion is moral.

Jesus taught us to be compassionate toward the poor, the despised, the “least of these.” It is not moral to expound tax breaks for the rich to help build a business. It is moral to give as much as we can to those who need our help, and while it may not be a perfect solution, the government and the taxes we pay to support it are what we have to do that right now.

Morality and compassion are intertwined and cannot be separated.