TexProdigy

Republican and Democrats and Greens... Oh, my!

I am affiliated with neither the Republican, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, or any other party out there. Why? I prefer to make my own decision and vote for the candidate whose views most suite my own. If people feel so strongly about a particular political party that they must always vote the party line, that's their choice. I think they are selling themselves short. I will not blindly vote for someone simply because they have an "R" or a "D" by their name. If a Democrat has done a poor job of representing me in which ever office they may hold, I'll vote for someone else. The same goes for Republicans, Greens, or whoever else is running in an election.

That said, the Republican platform of Texas leaves much to be desired. I disagree with many of their views from gun control to reproductive choice. The problem with Texas Democrats is that, until recently, they had no back bone. Since going to Oklahoma and New Mexico, they've started to get one.

Nationally, Democrats and Republicans differ, too. Republicans, for the most part, follow Reagan's 11th Commandment - "Thou shallt not speak ill of another Republican." Someone should throw the clue stick to the Democrats.

Normally in nomination processes, the front runner will be attacked. More and more, those attacks are of a personal nature. Instead of attacking the candidate's position on issues, they are attacked for personal issues. From what I've seen, Dean has been attacked by pretty much most of the other candidates running for the Democratic nomination. Get a clue, people! Neither Dean, Lieberman, Clark, Sharpton, Edwards, or any of the other candidates are your enemies. They are members of your own political party. When asked, "Do you think Dean could beat Bush?" all of the candidates should have said something to the effect, "Any of the fine candidates standing before you could beat Bush, hands down." By attacking each other instead of Bush, they have drawn attention away from their goal - beating Bush.

In my opinion, Ralph Nader did a smart thing by not running as a candidate on the Green Party ticket. During the 1992 election Perot siphoned votes from Bush I. In 2000, Nader siphoned votes that may have helped Gore to win. Is it Nader's fault? I don't think so. This is all part of America's political system. If Gore wanted those votes, I think he should have done more to convince Greens he and Bush were not similar. (As RuPaul would say, "You better work!") I think after three years of Bush being in the White House, the Greens can see what he's done and decide to vote for the candidate that best suits their needs. Will that be Bush? Probably not. Will it be a Democratic candidate? Maybe. If that candidate can convince the Greens to vote for him (Looking at the polls, I don't see how Carol Moseley Braun can get the nomination.). Will it be a Green Party candidate? Maybe. My Magic 8-ball is not working right now.

I think we need more diversity in our political system. I lived in Europe, Germany to be more specific, for about eleven and a half years. Germany had many political parties - The CDU, FDP, SDP, Greens, and other small parties. Sometimes one political party had enough votes to control the government, sometimes not. The one thing I admired was that when one party did not have a clear majority, it would have to form a coalition with other parties. They would have to compromise to make their coalition work.

Was the political system in Germany perfect? No. I don't think such an animal exists. I do think it is a much better system than what we have in place in the US now. As it is, we are for the most part polarised to either Democrat or Republican. Most people, though are centrist; they don't like the wackos on the left or the nut jobs on the right. Democrats and Republicans try their hardest during elections to appear as centrist as they possibly can while portraying their opponents as being either too left or too right. After they get elected, they proceed with their agenda and enrage the other side. It's like a wildly swinging political pendulum. This should not be a Pepsi or Coke world. I just wish there were more choices. So, who will I vote for? I don't know just yet. I'll see what's happening in November. If one of the candidates speaks to the issues that are important to me

Some thoughts...

On Saddam Hussein - Am I happy that he was captured? Sure. The guy jailed, tortured, and killed many of his own citizens to keep a hold of power. Does that mean what the US did was right? Not necessarily. For the start, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, et al. all said Iraq had WMDs and they were a(n) (imminent) threat to the US. After we went in, we didn't find any. We still haven't found them. Why didn't we go into Liberia? Taylor did some of the same stuff to the Liberians, yet we didn't send in a huge force to liberate the country. I can cite dozens of countries around the world ruled by undemocratic regimes. Yet we don't send the Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Army to go in after them - and rightly so.

Lying - Why has it become alright to lie? I'm not talking about the answers to unanswerable questions like "Honey, does this dress make me look fat?" I'm talking about lying about reasons to go to war. Lying about the tax cuts going to the middle class. Allegedly buying illegal prescription drugs (Limbaugh). Writing glowing reviews of corporations and organisations after you or your wife has been paid a ton of money (George Will). I can go on and on and on. Both sides, Republican and Democrat, seem to do it. Was honesty ever a part of politics? It's been so long, I can't remember (and I haven't been alive all that long.) It's so sad.

Mixing of religion and politics - I alluded to this in my post about Hypochristians. In my opinion, religion is a wonderful thing. It can help us explain and cope with the world around us. For me, Buddhism helps me gain insight into what's going on with me and why things happen. I'm sure that's true for Christians (since I used to be one), Hindus, Mulims, etc. I've been observing politics since the first time I can remember voting (It's been that long? My, how time flies). I've been noticing that conservative Christians have been yelling and screaming that their rights are being taken away. I don't see it exactly that way. I see them more as imposing their view on the rest of America. They want the 10 Commandments displayed everywhere. They want (mandatory) prayer in schools. When I was in school, you could pray. I was never stopped. I knew many of my fellow classmates who prayed especially hard just before the big test landed on their desk. If we continue down the road many conservative Christians want to take us on, we will end up with a twisted theocracy like Iran has or like many countries during the Inquisition - burning people on stakes because they didn't accept God. I think people should be free to practice their religion as they see fit. The state should not impose its will on the free practice of that religion. Conversely, the religion should not impose its views on the state.

On a lighter note... If you get a chance to see Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, do so! It is such a good movie. It's one of the best endings I've seen to a trilogy in quite a while. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy New Year (and anything else I left out).

Hypochristians

I spent a wonderful, amazing four days at the happiest place on earth, Walt Disney World, with Charlie (who is also wonderful and amazing). I'm now visiting my parents and sister for the holidays.

My sister told me a term that I hopes becomes part of the Oxford English Dictionary one of these days: hypochristians. She said it means all those people who say things should or should not be according to the Bible, yet do not follow those same directives. My family lives in the same place one famous hypochristian, John Ashcroft, is from - southwest Missouri.

I used to call them "Sunday Christians." People who would act holy, pious, and devout on Sundays, yet during the other six days of the week would lie, cheat, steal, and break every other scriptural commandment.

Hypochristians also love to selectively use Bible quotations to condemn people. The condemned blacks, women, gays, and just about everyone else they could with selective quotes. I find it quite interesting they pull quotes from the Old Testament to condemn people. How many of the hypochristians actually follow all the rules and laws on the Old Testament? Probably not many. They eat bacon, wear poly-cotton blend clothing, don't sell their daughters into slavery, etc.

So why is it that hypochristians do that? Well, pulling quotes out of a book and using them out of context is easy. Plus, how many people are really going to go back to the Bible and look up the quote after their minister or preacher just read it to them and told them what it was about? People's lives are just too busy! I think we're going back to a time when the person on the pulpit told you what you were supposed to think. He would say that's what the Bible said. Only back then most people didn't know how to read.

If hypochristians actually took the time out of their busy lives to read and understand the message they were given, I think the world would be a much safer and better place. Christ, as I remember, preached forgiveness and tolerance. He asked us to love our neighbours as we would love ourselves. He prevented the stoning of Mary Magdalene, saying, "Let you who is without sin throw the first stone." If the stoning would have gone through, Mary Magdalene probably would have died; the goal of stoning is a slow, painful death. It's a shame most hypochristians don't take Christ's teachings to heart.

Is he really a uniter?

Here's how I see what's going on in Iraq:

It's sort of like having a neighbour, we'll call him Herbie, in the next town who makes blustery, threatening speeches. Herbie claims to have weapons. You get your neighbours together and all convince them that if he doesn't let people come and inspect his place for weapons, you'll go over to his home and find them yourself. All your neighbours agree inspections need to happen, but won't go over and kick him out until the inspections find weapons. You say, you can't wait that long. Herbie's a dangerous man and is liable to fly off the handle at any moment. You tell them they're either with you or they're against you. So, without waiting, you go over to the house and smash windows, break furniture, and basically wreak the place. You spend quite some time looking for the weapons, but can't find them or Herbie.

Now, Herbie has a big family and they need help. They didn't cause you any problems, but were bullied by Herbie. So you go and hire your friends to rebuild the house. The only problem is your "friends" do shoddy work and charge you out the wazzoo. So you decide to open it up and see if anyone else wants to come in and fix up Herbie's house. Everyone except your neighbours who told you to wait and didn't want to go over to Herbie's house to kick his ass.

On top of the busted up house, Herbie's family owe lots and lots of money to your neighbours. Now you're asking the neighbours who you just shut out of fixing up Herbie's house to lower the amount they owe or forgive the debt completely. I don't know about you, but if one of my neighbours refused to let me help out and then asked me to do that, I'd be kind of upset.

During the 2000 campaign, President Bush proclaimed he was a uniter, rather than a divider. With recent events happening with the reconstruction of Iraq, it seems to me like he's fulfilling his proclamation. He's doing a pretty good job of uniting world opinion against the US. The memo Paul Wolfowitz released basically made the point that if countries did not contribute troops to fight Iraq, they could not compete as the prime contractor for bid to rebuild Iraq. Then President Bush sent out James Baker to try to get foreign countries to restructure Iraq's debt. He even made calls to France, Germany, and Russia. I wonder if he really thinks they will do that. We'll have to wait and see what China, Russia, German, France, Canada, and quite a bit of the rest of the world plan on doing. They may not be there when we need them. There's only so many times someone can turn the other cheek before they turn their back on you.

Linked

I check Google every now and then to see if anyone's linked to anything I've written. Although I've read blogs for quite a while now - even before they were called blogs, I'm fairly new to writing blogs. The little things in the blogsphere still get me excited in a Homer Simpson-kinda way. I know I don't get nearly the readership of Instapundit or Atrios, but I was pleasantly surprised to be linked by "boifromtroy." Yay! Thank you.

Viet Nam and politics

It seems to me quite a few politicians place quite a bit of political capital in having served in Viet Nam or the military. Sometimes, but not always, serving in Viet Nam gives politicians their bona fides. Politicians who have never served in Viet Nam, or the military for that matter, are not looked on as favourably.

Dean has had a bit of controversy about not serving in Viet Nam. He had a deferment because of a bad back. Quite a number of people had deferments from serving in Viet Nam. Even Rush Limbaugh had a deferment from serving in Viet Nam. As a Slate article says, "And most of them avoided the war one way or another. They did this by signing up for some safer form of service such as the National Guard, by falling into one of many draft "deferment" categories (marriage, graduate school, unconventional sexual preference, ingrown toenails, allergies to fish, excessive fondness for novels, and so on), or by the luck of the lottery that replaced those deferments toward the end.

As of yet, I haven't heard Rush talk about Howard Dean's deferment. If and when he does, it'll be another in a string of hypocritical statements he's made (Oxycontin, anyone?). He wouldn't have a leg to stand on in that argument. Sure, he'll probably say something about Dean skiing in Vermont. What did Rush do? If he sat on his ass at all, he could have served.

And then there's Dubya, aka AWOL. The Boston Globe did a great job researching his National Guard service, or rather lack of service. If Dean becomes the Democratic candidate, and Bush attacks Dean because he received a deferment, Dean definitely should come back with the "missing year" or Bush's service.

In any case, does military service equal strong support of the military? Not necessarily. Military service does give political candidates an insight into the way the military works. However, if the candidates educate themselves and get good advisors, lack of military service can be a non-issue. The last time I checked, military service was not a mandatory requirement to become president. In fact, the Constitution clearly places civilians in charge of the military to prevent things like military coups from taking place.

E-voting

As a techie kind of guy, I like gadgets and gizmos. When I first read about electronic voting I was really excited. I thought, "Now here's a way to bring voting into the 20th (now 21st) century!" I've even used them in elections here. They are fast and easy to use. It should have been a no-brainer. Well, it was, until people started foisting their political ideologies on their companies.

The best example of this is what happened with Diebold Election Systems. (see: Diebold Backs Off Legal Challenge) The CEO of Diebold, Warren O'Dell, said at a Republican fundraiser that he was, "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Only Warren O'Dell knows if he meant his voting machines were going to do that even if voters had voted for someone other than Bush. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but with something as important to the very fabric of our country as free and fair democratic elections, I cannot.

Now, Ohio, the state Diebold is headquartered will not even use e-voting. (see: Ohio Halts E-Voting Machines) Until all the problems such as security issues, easily altered MS Access (!?) files, etc. are resolved, all the other states should discontinue the use of e-voting machines.

Here's what I think needs to happen to make e-voting safe and secure. First, get politics out of the machines. The CEO of Diebold has every right to donate money to any party he wishes to. But, he should do so as a private citizen, not representative of his company. Second, Diebold's and any one else's e-voting systems need to be independently reviewed by an independent organisation. The code and hardware would only be shared between the independent organisation and the company submitting the product. If they complany did not want to share its source code or design schematics, that would automatically disqualify the product. Finally, I know e-voting is supposed to save trees, but the voter has to have assurances their vote is being counted. The e-voting machine should print out the results of the vote and then had those results to an election worker. In the event of a recount, etc. the paper copies would be compared to the electronic records. If a discrepancy existed betweenthe electronic record and the paper copy, the paper copy would be counted.

These suggestions are relatively simple and easy to do. Politics needs to stay out of e-voting. It would allow voters to feel safe and secure in the notion that they were participating in a free and fair election.

Rights and Wrong

For someone who is a lawyer, I would think Ann Coulter would know a little bit more about what she writes about. In her column, Massachusetts Supreme Court Abolishes Capitalism, she toes the party line blindly. How can she know about marriage? As far as I know, she's never been married. Maybe there's a reason she doesn't get married right now. Hey! If she goes to Massachusetts in six months, she might.

As someone who worked at the Center For Individual Rights, a public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of individual rights including civil rights, Ann should know that gays and lesbians in the US are denied some of the very same rights most people in the US take for granted. Gays and lesbians have been fired from their job, not because of poor job performance, insubordination, or any of the usual ways of getting fired. Rather, they were fired for who they chose to love. Gays and lesbians can be denied housing, loans, etc. If someone denied a Hispanic, Asian, African-American, Jew, or Catholic housing based on their race, religion, national origin, sex, etc. they would be in court and losing a case so fast they wouldn't know what happened.

As it stands now, the disparity between heterosexual couples and homosexual couples, in the eye of the law, is tremendous. Heterosexual couples enjoy 1049 benefits homosexual couples do not. Some of the benefits include child custody, making medical decisions for your partner, receiving property on the death of your partner, burial decisions, etc. Most of the benefits are monetary, such as filing joint taxes (joy!), Social Security survivor benefits, assumption of pensions,insurance benefits, etc.

Many of these rights are passed to heterosexual couples automatically. While Ann is correct that much of these functions can be accomplished through powers of attorney, wills, and other legal documents, she misses the point completely. Straight couples do not have to write all these documents to get the benefits they enjoy. If straight couples were smart, they would have these documents as back up. Other benefits, mainly the financial ones, may not necessarily pass from one partner to the other.

The other thing Ann has to know as a lawyer is that wills can be contested. If a family cannot accept that their son was gay or their daughter was lesbian, they can contest the will and potentially get whatever property or money should go to the surviving partner. I have seen or read numerous television and newspaper reports that illustrate that.

Ann, it's not that gays and lesbians want special rights; they just want the same ones all Americans have