I believe in America. I believe in the system. I work the system. I benefit from the system as much as I possibly can. I'm extremely fiscally conservative. I pay as little in taxes as I possibly can. I believe giving money to the government is worse than burying it in your backyard. I give to tax-deductible charities and you better believe I deduct it from my taxes. I hire a very sharp tax preparation guy and have done so for years.
I am not a "tax and spend liberal". We need rich people and we need for people to know they can build meaningful wealth for themselves and their children if they work hard in this country. Somehow people associate these ideals with Republican presidents, which baffles me. In my lifetime at least, Republican presidents have spent this great country in to massive debt every chance they've gotten.
To me, John "Bomb Iran" McCain represents more wasteful spending on totally unnecessary foreign wars. Bush, like both his father and Ronald Reagan, has failed to uphold any reasonable standard of fiscal conservatism. He has wasted billions of dollars and destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives. The repercussions of his foolish, selfish, illegitimate presidency will be felt for generations. Blah, blah, blah. That is self-evident and not news. How did I even get started on Bush? Ish.
Anyway, John McCain seems like he will continue Bush's policies. I'm not much of an Obama fan (well, I am on facebook, technically) but I think he will, at the very least, probably not continue the Republican pattern of egregious wasting of money and lives. If Obama raises taxes a bit, so be it. At least he won't bury it all in the distant sand.
Seriously, that is all. I promise. I've made up my mind. By now you probably have too. Politics out.
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Good post and I totally agree. Here are a couple other reasons:
ReplyDelete1. Sarah Palin
2. It's my littlest granddaughter's first word: "Obaba!" That must be a sign.
If you're interested here are Brian McLaren's 3 reasons:
(from his website brianmclaren.net)
1. I believe McCain’s old warrior narrative is simply too dangerous to live by any more. That’s the first reason I am voting for Barack Obama. He would be the first to say that he’s not the Messiah, and he isn’t perfect, but he represents a turning a turning away from the fear-based Bush-Rove-Cheney-McCain warrior narrative, and a turning toward a narrative that seeks peace through reconciliation and creative collaboration rather than through domination and a go-it-alone cowboy/bomber mentality.
2. I am voting for Barack Obama because I value personal integrity in leaders. Personal integrity requires a leader to repudiate falsehood, hate hypocrisy, and pursue fidelity to justice and truth, in private and in public. A person shows a pattern of integrity through fidelity to his or her spouse, through his or her refusal to employ falsehood for personal advantage, and through his or her willingness to admit mistakes and forgo excuses or blame-shifting whenever lapses occur. Sadly, tragically even, Senator McCain has not repudiated the proven dishonesty and deceit of the Bush-Rove-Cheney years. In fact, his campaign has been outstripping even Bush-Cheney-Rove in misleading the public with a straight face while claiming straight talk. It seems clear to me that Senator Obama surpasses his counterpart on all counts.
3. I take very seriously Jesus’ words about caring for “the least of these.” I don’t believe a nation’s moral greatness is measured by how many tax breaks it gives its richest individuals and corporations, or by it's kill-power in terms of weapons and readiness to use them, but rather by how it cares for its most vulnerable people – its children, its sick, its disabled, its unemployed, its minorities. I don’t doubt that Senator McCain would make national defense his top priority as president, and I don’t doubt that he would be most ready to sustain or expand our war-making activities around the world. But I’m ashamed of our nation being known for rushing to war. I would like to be known for helping the poor.