Taking a political stand isn’t something that is easy for me to do. By writing this, I don’t intend to offend or alienate any of my friends, family, co-workers or customers who might support Mitt Romney. But I feel that this is something I have to say. Although I don’t have the energy to cover issues of tax policy and health care, I’ll try to explain some of the other reasons why I’m supporting the re-election of Barack Obama.
A majority of my small business’s customers are from China, and half of my family is from Iran. We are at the brink of military and economic trade wars with both of these countries, and this causes me great concern. I have considered which of these candidates might best deal with these conflicts, which will not escalate them to a point which will harm my business or my family. I’ve considered which leader will do better for education, which will in turn lead to a better qualified american work force. It’s my belief that my small business, as well as the United States economy in general will do better under Barack Obama’s continued stewardship rather than handing the reins of power back to a leader within the party which has proven throughout history to not be able to do as good a job at handling the economy.
Many immigrants in my family got special treatment because they were Jewish and living somewhere where Jews faced persecution. My immigrant wife would have gotten a better chance at becoming a citizen because she was lucky enough to marry me, an American which would have earned her citizenship. My Indian immigrant friend, who was on a path to becoming a citizen was not so lucky, his married an Indian woman and Our government will not let her come here, it wants to keep his family separated for many years while her application for a green card is slowly processed. My friend has decided to moving with his wife to Canada. This is just one of many losses that have resulted from our backwards and broken immigration policies. We need real Immigration reform and I think the best chance of that occurring is to re-elect Barack Obama.
I support LGBT rights, and specifically the right for LGBT people (including LGBT immigrants) to marry. My elected representative in congress is Gay. Despite being in a committed long term relationship with his husband, both our state and federal system disavow the existence of his relationship. They instead make him a second class citizen. He’s doing OK, but not every gay person or gay family is. I want his family to have the same rights, and same legal status that my family has. When it comes to hateful bigoted religious dogma, weather on the Westboro Baptist or the “Pray the gay away” sides of the spectrum, the end result is a huge amount of suffering and pain inflicted upon onto LGBT individuals. The defense of marriage act is a clear violation of the constitutional right to equal protection under the law. I don’t suggest a slippery slope to polygamy/bestiality/pedophilia, I simply support the right for LGBT couples to have the exact same classification that me and my wife enjoy: Married.
Consider what happens when LGBT individuals are dissuaded by their church, their families and their government from being in committed long term relationships. You have that many fewer Loving homes which can raise children. Children that are not adopted into loving homes will become wards of the state, will facing orphanages and foster homes. Significant elements of the social conservative movement want to see that ineffectual abstinence-only sex education is all that is available to some children, that contraception is not supported by the government, that pre-natal care and STD screening is in no way aided by the government. Extreme right wing elements of the republican party want every unwanted pregnancy that results from their misguided policy, even in cases of rape and incest, to come to term. All our churches, even with their tax-exempt status, do not have the resources or capacity to handle all of this Human “fruit”. Horrible abuses will happen to some of the un-loved products of these sexual policies. Barack Obama will be the candidate who stop this extreme agenda and protect our freedom of in addition to our freedom from religion.
Sure, it may be that Romney has allowed the extreme right-wingers of the Republican party to glom onto him because that is the only possible way that he could have a chance of winning this election. It could be that on January 20th 2013 Mitt Romney might show up to office as a fiscally conservative socially liberal centrist. It could be that he would nominate thoughtful non-partisan justices to the supreme court. It could be that Romney might support immigration reform and amnesty for undocumented immigrants. It could be that Romney would not declare China a currency manipulator, that he wouldn’t start an isolationist trade war in a futile struggle against the globalization that he was a big part of perpetuating throughout his tenure at Bain capital. It could be that Romney might veto the Paul Ryan budget that gets run through the senate with budget reconciliation. No morphing that Romney might do would surprise me, he is like a T-1000, whose liquid metal who can quickly assume whatever form might yield him maximum political advantage with a dissatisfied voter.
I could live a socially liberal, fiscally conservative Mitt. But weather we’ll actually get that is completely unpredictable. He is a random function, a coin flip, a plastic bag blowing in the wind. And Romney would always be a heartbeat away from Paul Ryan who we could count on to be a more consistently extreme right-winger. I can’t allow my country to play Russian roulette like this. And that is why I am writing this blog post. I don’t want somebody who is a wildcard to have their finger on any sorts of big red buttons.
I know that Obama has been a disappointment for many in the Left Wing. Even though the collateral damage has dropped by orders of magnitude those who want peace are not happy with the robotic death that we rain onto our enemies in Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia. Those who want progressive environmental policies are not happy that more attention has been paid to climate change. Even some supporters of LGBT equality are unhappy that he has not taken a bigger stand for their rights than he has so far. I know a lot of these people are either not voting or voting for a 3rd party candidate. But consider the possible alternative we face here. We face a massive increase in military spending if Romney gets elected. We face somebody who could favor subsidizing oil and gas companies instead of supporting any development of renewable energy. I will take somebody who uses drones like scalpels over somebody who could very possibly engage in another reckless invasion and occupation. I will be satisfied with re-electing our bookish left of center Technocrat.
Normally, I would embrace my apolitical leanings, just shut up and let this go, but things are so close in my state of Colorado. Despite this, I know many who are voting for a third party or not voting at all. Our electoral votes could very well hang in the balance. I understand that the two-party system is broken, and that voting for a third party seems like a way to express dissatisfaction with the status quo. However, the state of reality is that we are subjugated to the ill-conceived electoral college system, which has left us with a binary decision to be made here. Considering how much of a tossup our electoral votes may be, if you’re not voting, or you’re voting for a third party, that is essentially a vote for the same sort of random outcome that Romney’s election may lead to. If I might change even one of these peoples mind after they read this, I I believe it could have a real positive impact on all of our futures. We need electoral college reform, we need instant runoff elections, we need campaign finance reform. And we need many more things, but none of us is ever going to get everything we want.
In closing, Lets us forget about the campaign and forget about the issues. Consider the people of Massachusetts who elected Mitt Romney their governor with 50% of the vote, while 45% went to his opponent. Massachusetts was governed by Romney for for years from 2003-2007. Despite some popular legislation that made its way through during his tenure, Massachusetts is now currently polling at 58% to 38% in favor of Barack Obama. This is a state that knows the difference bet campaign Romney and non-campaign Romney, and I would trust their opinions a lot more than any whose decisions have been swayed by based upon anything that has been said during this brutal campaign.
Thanks for reading.
