So in this election I have thought long and hard about the division of the country right now. Staunch support for one side over the other. IMHO it comes down to Doubt and Faith. Doubt got us our nation, our constitution and our strive for something better. Faith, while in the personal sense is comforting, in the public sense can be and has been many times over, damaging. The medieval times is a great example of exploitation of faith. Rebuilding Iraq while the doubters are dead or have left their country because of doubt (or fear that their educated selves and family will be destroyed) becomes nothing more than a social experiment. Democracy for those who strive for it due to doubt of a regime is a worthy component of change. Democracy thrust upon warring religious tribes without the benefit of forward, prescient thinkers is a set up for disaster. I won't get into what I think of W or what he has cast about in the last years because it is time to look forward and cast our vote for a new leadership. I have looked hard at McCain. There I have said it, written it and it is now public record. I have liked where he has come from, the fact that Rush Lim... and Ann Coult... hates him makes me want to like him by default. He took on his party's greed and (every politician has a sketchy voting record so I am not going there) and he has stated the use of lobbyists as an issue in DC - I don't need to argue this either (even W. supporters would have to agree at some level). Go back to NH - both bids, and you will hear the real McCain. He is there. He really is in this due to his beliefs. I don't doubt that at all. But McCain went for the gimmick, Palin, and his campaign trail has painted them as a Reagan loving, abortion banning conservative and I feel that he missed his calling as a centrist that may have been the person to help heal a divided nation. I am extremely disappointed in this decision to follow the conservative vote (I am not making a judgment here on the right, just that he will get their vote by default) and leaving out the undecided and the "independents". I think he would have it in the bag if not for that and it shows weak leadership and not the forward thinking I expected. He would have brought one of his more centrists original picks, the election times would be different. Now back to the topic: Doubt versus Faith. So Obama brings the doubt and McCain brings the faith. And at this time of division and extreme selfishness of greed and the haves in our society, I have to side with doubt. What we have now is not working. And if I am called a liberal in an argument with staunch "Faithests" because I would rather support my community - or strive to have one, have a desire to protect our environment and fight for balance here on our shores, then I guess I am a liberal. If that phrase is cast about in angry consternation, then I accept it as I feel those are the values, morals, and ethics of an educated society that has the ability to choose Doubt or Faith. Maybe I am Ferdinand the Bull sniffing the flowers in the fighter's rink, but all out aggression has not gotten us too far either. I am definately not one to run this country. I expected McCain to be that person for me. I thought Obama was too soft...but now I see him as the one that has stayed true to his core beliefs. I mean, he voted against the war... right? Does't that show forward thinking? Here is an excerpt from a book I am reading on Bruce Springsteen "Two Hearts" by Dave Marsh where he is describing the writing of the "Nebraska" LP. He is a writer and I am not, and I think he sums up this post_Enron era beautifully and supports my desire to side with Doubt: “Anybody who traveled through America in 1980 and 1981 would have been thrown out of kilter. Double-digit unemployment was only the most accessible measurement of the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression. The United States was no longer the land of plenty, it was a land of limits; it was no longer the home of a dream of equality but of a nightmare of inequity…. ….An ugly spirit ascended, the most perverse rendering of “every man for himself.” The greed behind it all wasn’t anything new – in part, it was as old as the earliest European settlement on the continent – but it had rarely stood so naked and unapologetic. In this world, men saw each other not as brothers but as incomprehensible, threatening aliens."
Yeah, moving with Doubt 'cos sitting down together over a beer with Faith has really turned us into lambs before the slaughter.
