The way I felt about Bush was simply that I am afraid of having a born agian Christian president. Just as I wouldn’t want a fundamentalist Muslim president or a paraniod president who’s afraid of salt water. Note: I am not trying to compare bush to a mentally ill person. It’s just that the muslim fundamentalist will spend all his/her money trying to convert people to islam jsut as the person afraid of salt water would spend a bunch of money trying to fight it. I don’t want to have a president who involves the personal matter of religion on the international scene. I believe that it is impossible to sympathize, understand, or negotiate with a country like Palestine or Israel if you feel so strongly about religion simply because you are constantly blinded by your disagreements ona fundamental level with their belief systems.
I know this could anger a lot of people, but I also don’t think Bush is a true Christian. Christianity is a good thing in it’s raw essence. It promotes love, happieness, truth, morality, generosity, family values, and most importantly, peace and acceptance. Bush has not attempted to understand, negotiate, or communicate with terrorists, Islamic Fundamentalists, et cetera. that isn’t very accepting. In his defense, it IS pretty hard to negiotiate with someone who hates you enough to kill themselves to kill you, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a try. Bush has been supporting corporate values from the start, which is far from generous to the people who need it. His morality is up for debate, although I think very little of someone’s morales if they have chronically lied about major issues in the world to millions of people. I can’t quote scripture since I don’t have a bible, but i will bet that lieing isn’t veyr Chrisitian. Has Bush attempted to reach out with love or acceptance to Palestinians? What about Russians, who are in the grips of serious terrorist problems, nucler arms control, and poverty. What about the Chechens? The average Chechen and Palestinian doesn’t want to blow up everyone. It’s just a few who do. Nor does teh average russian want to kill the average chechen or the average israeli kill the average Palestinian… wait, I take that last one back. To attempt to understand the perspective of the Chechen people and reach out to them with aid and morality rather than with AK-47’s would cut down drastically on support for terrorists.
There’s also this small technicality of “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Bush has the blood of over 1,000 American soldiers and 10s of thousands of iraqi on his hands. that is not very Christian.
I don’t agree with Bush on abortion policy simply because I am a man. I cannot give birth. I will never be faced with the dillema of a baby I don’t want. I won’t be pregnant. I cannot understand the feelings of a woman in such a situation, so I feel that I am too ignorant to pass judgement on such a person. Also, I don’t have the right to decide how that woman will live her life. So thus, I shouldn’t tell that woman not to have an abortion. With this in mind, i do feel that simple compassion and ethical rights direct a woman who plans to have an abortion to have it early in the pregnancy. I think she should abort the baby as soon as possible, so as to minimize what the baby will feel. The baby won’t feel pain if it doesn’t have a nervous system, so one could simply have the abortion before it has developed so far. Another aspect of this situation is that abortions will not end. Just as people smoke marijuana although ti’s lillegal, people will have abortions even if it’s illegal. The only difference is that there won’t be licensed doctors and more women will die in the proccess.
I thinkt he gay people have just as much right as anyone else to marry, simply because they should have the right to the benefits that come along with it. If Christians don’t want such unions to be religious, so be it. Leave that up to the preacher, not the government. On the other hand, I don’t feel that I need the government to sanction my parents’ relationship in order for it to be valid. I have gay parents, who have been together for 18 years, and no matter what any government says, they are still my parents and we are still a family. I don’t lack any persepctive on life because of gay parents and dont feel as if a piece of my life is left unfufilled. So all you folks out there who complain that kids of gay parents are lacking in something, I can tell you from firsthand experience that we aren’t. Also, having gay parents does NOT make you gay. 1/10 of the kids who have gay parents are gay, compared to 1/10 of the kids who have straight parents.
The war in Iraq was wrong. Hussein was bad, but to quote a retired senior military general, “To attack Iraq in response to 9/11 would be like FDR attacking Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor.” Hussein was dangerous, but we didn’t have the money, need, military, or, most importantly, exit strategy required to have a successful war in Iraq. Also, a basic rule of thumb in contracting is if you want a good price, you have open bidding on a contract. If you only have 1 bidder, then they can charge as much as they want, which is what halliburton did.
The budget deficit of America is ghastly. Over 20% of american tax money goes to paying interest on the debt. Bush is giving tax cuts to the rich as the poor only get poorer and the deficit only grows larger. That is just fundamentally wrong.
Bush appointed an EPA president who advocating allowing more arseninc ito America’s drinking water. That is just wrong. There’s no two sides to it, you do NOT allow a person who wants to relax the laws governing deadly poisions in water to run an Environmental Protection Agency.
Under Bush, OSHA has only grown weaker, and entire sectors of industry workers qare paying the price. The amount of corporate exploitationof non-unionized workers is horrific. Injuries no longer go punished. Safety standards are unenforced. I notice this inmy every day school day. The ladders in my school, wihc i must climb on adaily basis, are illegal because they are unprotected from the 60 foot drop to the stage below. But the OSHA is too weak to enforce such things.
I won’t continue, since by now I’ve probably lost the attention of everyone who’s read this. But the above is just a few reasons why I disagree with Bush. I haven’t even mentioned the Patriot Act.
I don’t think Kerry’s foreign policy would be any better than Bush’s, except Kerry would be better to our allies and might be able to do better with north Korea. But both candidates have the same terrorism policy and policy on Iraq. Kerry would be less in corporate pockets, and would have better environmental, fiscal, and social policies. But then agian, I could be completely wrong. Too bad we’ll never find out…
Edit: I am also afraid because the Bush administration currently controls all three branches. They have congress, and the presidency. Now they will have the supreme court, too, since at least one of the justices is soon to die, if not two, and because of the republican dominated congress, bush will be able to appoint whomever he wants. I don’t ever want any party to have the freedom thqat the Bush administration currently has. It just isn’t right. Democrat, republican, Green, I don’t care, there should be something to slow down the party, and there currently isn’t.
So what are the requirements to qualify as outlined in your constitution? Can anyone from North America qualify, or do you have to be a Canadian, eh. I am almost a Canadian, I was born in MN.