Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Election Day 2008 - Get Your Vote On!!

Amy and I got out and Voted today! I realize that this isn't exactly exciting news, but it felt good to contribute to the cause - especially when you feel like your candidate is the underdog and could really use the help.

By reading that last sentence ( and seeing my red shirt), you can probably guess who I voted for. My sister recently chided me as being "Dad's last Republican Hope" and you know what? I'm damn proud of it.

I see nothing wrong with standing for a government that believes in God, the Constitution, Freedom, lower taxes, punishing criminals instead of law abiding civilians..... and the list goes on. Benjamin Franklin has been credited with saying, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." I am not a "right wing conservative" by any means - heck if I ever met a democrat who didn't believe in abolishing my freedoms and trampling the constitution, I might even vote for him (actually, I voted for a Democrat Congressman today becaues I believe in his ideas). However, in our highly divisive political system , I haven't seen too much of this lately.

I concede that Barack Obama will most likely win this election - the presidency has practically been handed to him on a silver platter. However, I sincerely hope that those who vote for him do so for the right reasons. I have heard more and more rhetoric about what a "historic" election this is, and I find it ridiculous. May we all vote for the person that we think is right for the job, not the person who will make the history books. I am not any kind of racist, but I really don't care if our president is Black, Hispanic, White, Asian, etc. I care that he will make the right decisions for this country. I think regardless of today's results, we can consider the "glass ceiling" shattered forever, and I am proud of our country for that.

I should note that while I have expressed my own views very strongly here, I respect the differing views of others - the freedom to express our own differing views is one of the protected rights that makes this country great!

If this post offends too many people, I will take it down. I am just sick and tired of keeping my feelings inside on this one - if any of you are offended, post a comment and I will remove this.

And I promise to keep the politics off the blog from here on!

Thanks - Jim

6 comments:

Christa Jeanne said...

Way to speak up, Jim! Great Ben Franklin quote. And God bless America - you have to love living where people can be polar opposites on politics and still, at the end of the day, be friends.

april said...

nothing offensive here, bro. i kept debating whether or not to do a politics post myself. i did like your point about why should this be historic just because of race. naive me actually thought they kept calling it historic because of the number of voters turning out. HA! i did think of writing a post on my blog about how the way to get great voter turnout is to have a horrible president so that people flee to the polls to put their say in (don't worry even i voted for "w" four years ago - i thought a republican would be better since supreme court justices needed to be put in). i found myself today almost voting for mccain, but i just couldn't vote for palin (now you know who i voted for). i do like mccain a lot too and glad he earned your vote. amazingly, i was happy with both choices (call me naive here if you want, but i do think they are both much better choices than we've had in other recent elections.)

p.s. fritz happened to be in red fleece pants and a red shirt today. i smiled to myself earlier about that one.

Jenn Hansen said...

Way to speak up and be proud of your vote Jim!

korth fam said...

Don't you DARE take this down! This is your blog and your place to say whatever you darn well please! Plus we agree with you, so that's good too :)Well, get ready for lots of CHANGE!

april said...

BTW - am i the one who told you that you were dad's last hope?

Andrea said...

I agree with the Korth's, don't take it down no matter how offended someone might get. In fact, I too often won't put my own feelings on the blog for fear of doing just that but since you spoke your mind so will I... I hate wedding receptions in the cultural hall! There isn't enough tulle in the world to make me forget that I'm on a basketball court! (No offense to my wonderful friends that did this)