Are You Serious?

There are many things that disturb me about humanity. Among them are people that society generally shuns, such as child molesters, hunters of endangered animals, and mass murderers. There are others that scare me more, because they are so disgusting yet society accepts them as leaders and oracles. I’m talking about the wealth of douchenozzles on Fox News.

No, I’m not a Republican, so you can call me a liberal radical all you and your sorry ass want, but take a step back and look at what your media is doing. MSNBC is liberal and they know it. They are fair to Republicans and moderates, however. CNN is probably the fairest of the major cable news networks; they take a legitimately journalistic approach to the news, something that has been missing for years. But you guys take conservatism to such a level that sometimes I literally laugh out loud.

How can you call yourself a news network when you only tell the stories and the sides of stories that please your ears? How can you, Sean Hannity, say that you want Obama to succeed when you interview the comedic failure of a political commentator, Rush Limbaugh, who openly declares that he doesn’t want Obama to succeed, and agree with him? How can you dedicate a segment of your show to mocking “liberal scare tactics” when in fact every other point you make is dedicated to making Americans scared of those who don’t agree with every single ignorantly conservative policy you promote? And, my good friend Bill O’Reilly, do you really think it is a good idea to invite John McCain onto your “program” and attack him for attempting to break down the “white Christian male power structure” of America? Do you guys make those decisions with clear conscious or are you trusting Christians to subscribe to every part of the conservative agenda because you think that everybody who isn’t pro-life supports baby-killing?

What Drives Your Political Views?

I've thought about it long and hard, used my personal experience, and tried to observe others' behaviors, and I've come to the conclusion that the two most important factors in somebody choosing their political color are faith and family.

I personally adopted my parents' political views, of the Democratic Party. I have few friends that disagree with the politics that their parents raised them on. What I find most interesting are my friends with parents of conflicting political views. A friend of mine has a conservative mother and a liberal father. She has adopted a mix of the two views, liberal on economic policies but pro-life.

I have other friends that are Republican solely because of the teachings of their church, or more specifically, because they see being pro-choice as against God's will and baby-killing. A friend of mine who is very strongly religious is also very conservative in terms of politics.

Does this mean that God is pro-life, against gay marriage, but also believes in a small government? Not quite. Does this mean that gays have to believe in strong government? No. Well, it shouldn't, but in reality, that's how it works. I've come to believe that both sides of the economic debate are virtually equal in their merit. Economics is based off of tradeoffs and when both sides are equally right and wrong, you have to find something other than economics to form your own views, unless you want to draw your beliefs out of a hat. People turn to how they were raised or their faith to decide which side of the aisle to stand on. Its a shame that people don't have the balls to be pro-life and in support of reasonable government control or Atheist but in support of a minimal government. George Washington warned us of the demons that are political parties, and here were are, in the modern day, with millions of people voting for an array of beliefs based upon a few - or just one, as is often the case with strong pro-lifers.

We live in a society in which people will happily vote for representatives that only agree with one belief of theirs. God help us all.

Of Obamarama

I, like the rest of the country, watched Obama's ascent to the presidency and was impressed by the intensity of his following, both in excitement and numbers. It was amazing to see the massive crowds that poured out to watch his DNC acceptance speech, his Nov. 4 speech, and his inauguration. His public speaking skills are superb and the magnitude of his following is astonishing. Millions of people fleeing to see Obama, thousands upon thousands brought to tears. Millions and millions of campaign donations and tons of Obama fanboys/girls, of which I was one.

But where has all this energy gone? This "dawn of a new era" feeling that I felt on Jan 20 seemed to last until about midnight. What all will his millions of supporters do? The only role of the citizen in government is to elect representatives, and that's been done. Will crowds of people fix the economy? Will rallies help us find Bin Laden? Will the excitement and energy that got a black man with a name like Barack Hussein Obama elected do anything for our country before he runs for re-election? I haven't seen it happen yet and I fear it never will.

I (think I probably) Believe In God

Yeah, there ya go. I'm not an atheist, and I'm not sure I ever was. Atheism seems asburd. I'm not a really strong Christian and I doubt I ever will be. I don't attend church regularly, but I go to a religion class. Its just really easy to not go to church when Sunday is the only day of the week I can sleep in. I figure believing would be the first step to this whole Christianity thing.

My beliefs, mainly political, scientific, ethical, and moral, clash with the teaching of Christianity in general. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out.

I haven't changed my lifestyle to the Christian one that my friends tell me about. I don't think about God and Jesus regularly. I don't make decisions based off of what Jesus might do. I believe and do things that the God I believe in wouldn't approve of.

Its still in the back of my head that religion might be a hoax to instill morality and ethics into society and purpose and role models in individual's lives, but I don't really think that kind of a hoax would be a bad one.