I Really Hate Politics

I know this may be hard for some people to believe, but I have never considered myself a political person. I don't like politics and I really have very little interest in the subject. Of course I have always had my opinions, which I will admit have evolved over time, but I have never really even shared my views on most subjects, not even with the people closest to me. I was told by my family as a teen-ager that while it was nice that I was forming my own political beliefs, I should from that point forward always remember to “keep them to yourself”. Literally, that is a direct quote. So, I always have kept my beliefs to myself.

I have voted in most of the elections since I became eligible to vote. I have voted for Democrats, and I have voted for Republicans, and at the local and State level I have voted for a LOT of independents or third party candidates. But I have never supported, or “campaigned” for any candidate. And while I have studied our system of government, and I know how it is supposed to work, the only real interest I have ever had in government is in keeping it out of my life! Which is exactly why I cannot keep my opinions to myself anymore. There is too much at stake, not just for my life, but for the lives of my children and everyone else's children. The same outspoken minority that came out of the closet spewing hate and cruelty in the name of their “God” in the 1980's here in the US, the “Moral Majority” {who were never anywhere near a majority of anything except crazy), have returned with a vengeance and it appears to me that they are trying to bring about Armageddon so that they can “prove” their religion is right and they can all be raptured up to heaven and “live” happily ever after.

I would have preferred to stay out of the whole election conversation all together this year, but when everything I hold Dear about this country is being attacked at every turn I just can't sit idly by anymore. I have to speak up. And even if no one ever hears me, I have to keep talking. I cannot just watch these people trying to force their hypocritical, judgmental, holier-than-thou BS done the throats of every man, woman and child in this country, and around the world. I have to speak out against the hate, the intolerance, the shear stupidity that all of the Republican candidates for President are spewing, because I know I could never look my children in the eyes and tell them I remained silent in the face of what I see as an all out assault on everything that I believe the United States of America should stand for. I don't think I could look myself in the eye anymore either.

I hear people talking about the “Republican War on Women” all the time. What I am seeing though is a Republican War on America (and the rest of the world for that matter). I know I am crazy and all that, but I thought that the foundations of America were built on Personal Freedoms and Responsibilities. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Am I misinterpreting those words? Do they not mean what I think they do? Yes, I know it says “men” and it would certainly seem that the GOP would like that to be taken literally, and I know that it actually only really included “white men” in it original application, and again it seems to me the GOP would like to return to that definition as well, but the main basic concept of those words have always signified Personal Freedom and Personal Responsibility to me. The “right” to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, requires that we do not infringe on anyone else's rights by exercising our own.

Like I said, maybe I am just crazy. The Republicans seem to be telling me that anyone who does not want the GOP to micromanage their personal lives while permitting them to rape and pillage the world in their business lives, is somehow “crazy” or “immoral”. I know I cannot be the only person who finds it extremely offensive to have a Republican candidate tell me that I have no morals, that my children should be turned into slave labor in exchange for an 3^rd rate education, that I should not even be allowed to raise my children because I do not worship the almighty dollar and that I should be put to death for taking responsibility for my own medical care when he refuses to provide any care of any kind for anyone, has divorced, not just one gravely ill wife for a younger “prettier” women, but two now, and has lied, cheated and stolen from the American tax payers for decades on end! I am sorry I cannot stay quiet when I am being personally attacked at every single debate and in every single speech. And, yes, I realize it is not really personal, he doesn't even know I exist and he has certainly never called me out by name in the horrendously disgusting way that some unfortunate individuals have been personally attacked by some of the GOP membership. But when everything you care about and everything you believe in is being threatened and attacked at every turn by someone who has never met you, and has no factual basis for his claims, it really becomes quite personal.

So, they brought me into this. I didn't want to be involved, but they didn't leave me any choice. As much as they may try to claim that an Atheist has no morals, I feel an extreme moral obligation to speak out against their hate-filled, judgmental hypocrisy. I owe it to myself. I owe it to my children. I owe it to my country, and the rest of the world. If we are to ever have a future that we are proud to leave or children with, we must all stand up and speak out for Love, for Freedom, for Humanity, otherwise their hatred and greed will be the end of us all.