Am I Just Completely Wrong?

Americans vote for dumb reasons. I know it’s politically incorrect to say it, but it’s true. I wasn’t old enough to vote in the 2000 election, so I wasn’t part of that whole fiasco. I do remember that Gore won the popular vote but lost the election. Funny how a country supposedly run by the people didn’t listen to the people. It was in 2000 that I learned that every vote counts, but not really. Some people live in states that don’t matter. I am fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to live in a state that matters. I bring up the 2000 election because I met a guy who said that Clinton was a great president and he loved the Clinton years, so I made a comment about him voting for Gore. He quickly told me that he voted for Bush. I asked him why and his reason was that he had no doubt Gore would have been a great president, but he’d seen what the Clinton administration could do and he wanted to see what a different administration could do. I found that interesting. This guy was telling me that he traded an administration he was completely satisfied with for one he knew nothing about. Talk about rolling the dice. I wonder what that guy is saying now. I’m not voting for McCain (unless he becomes a different person), but I will say this, if you love the Bush administration and you think they’ve done a kick ass job (I mean that both literally and figuratively), how can you vote for Obama? I guess I just don’t understand being a risk taker when it comes to my country.

In 2004, people were mobilizing and I, along with half the world, thought that Bush was going to lose the election. How could he win after the things he had done? The country was immersed in an unpopular war and it just seemed like there was no way he would win re-election. The Bush administration lost my vote when they disrespected the UN. How can we expect other countries to abide by the rulings of the UN if we don’t? I remember the United States petitioning the UN to go to war with Iraq and when it became clear that the UN was going to say no, we rescinded our petition and went to war. Nobody talks about that anymore, but to me, that was like a big F U to the UN. So the dumb reason I heard from one person for re-electing Bush, was “He got us in to this mess (Iraq). He should get us out of it.” Talk about not making sense. Bush was not some child who needed to be taught a lesson. I’ll put it this way, if a plastic surgeon botches your surgery, and you go back to them to fix it, I have less sympathy for you when you die on the operating table.

I realize we were fighting two wars in 2004, Iraq and Afghanistan, but only one bothered me. Don’t get me wrong, I am a peace loving citizen but I understand the war in Afghanistan and I’m mostly for it, but I never fully understood the war in Iraq. Perhaps there are secret files that are too confidential for my eyes to see and that’s why I’m ignorant about the issue. All I can go on is the information that is released and in that information, one war makes sense while the other does not.

Now what sent me on this horrible tirade about Americans voting for dumb reasons? I was reading an article today in which a former Hillary supporter said she was voting for McCain because Palin was on the ticket. Are you kidding me? Politically speaking, the policies of Hillary and Palin are diametrical opposites, which tells me that the woman was just voting for Hillary because Hillary was a woman and thus will vote for Palin because Palin is a woman. That’s as bad as a black person voting for Obama because he’s black. Being president involves a lot more than gender or race and if that’s all it takes to win your vote then I’m not sure if you should be allowed to vote. Heck, I’ll take the people voting for change over people voting on something like race or gender any day. At least the people voting for change are voicing their disagreement with the Bush administration. Voting for Palin because Hillary isn’t on the ballot is like voting for Ann Coulter because Nancy Pelosi didn’t make the ticket. Hey they’re both women, right? All women are not the same.

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong on every level. It's been known to happen before.

Okay, enough of that mess. I wanted to also write about this other article I saw today, but I guess I’ll write about it tomorrow because I wrote much more than I intended to write on this topic. I guess it upset me more than I realized.

Status: Upset that some people don’t take the election process seriously enough.