free rommy New York → Kansas City → San Francisco → Stockholm → Berlin

Ref'election' 2008

(I'm sure I'm not the only one that came up with that stupid blog title)

A few friends have said it, and I couldn't agree more:

I have never been more proud to be an American than I was this week. I can't remember the last time I felt this proud of my country.

I've have never seen so many proud, freedom-wielding citizens take to the polls for something they believed so strongly in...

...on both sides of the ballot.

Regardless of whether you voted Democrat or Republican, Americans should feel an immense amount of pride in the fact that they, passionate about their future took to the polls to debate political ideologies, in the face of an extraordinarily difficult world situation, with the hopes that they would make a difference, make the world a better place for themselves, for others, and for the future.

I was cynical. I truly believed that Americans had become complacent in their system, that they'd become wealthy, spoiled, lazy.

Then it occurred to me. That thing that makes a great President. It's not political ideology, fiscal policies, or even moral stance.

It's a great man.

A man possessing intelligence, determination, motivation, honesty, and personal drive.

It's the ability to overcome the impossible. The ability to look adversity in the eye and to charge through it without looking back.

When humans see an individual overcome adversity, it motivates them to be great individuals themselves. This has been the course of history. Humans live to follow a great person and to emulate everything they see in that great person because it's proof that personal greatness isn't impossible.

My hope is that Americans will spend the next four years not putting their faith in a single government or man, but rather in themselves to be the change they want to see in the world.

Because that was what electing Barack Obama was REALLY about.

(I happened to be listening to the Rudy soundtrack as I wrote this.)

Rommy is supporting No on Prop 8 and so should you…

Reasons why to me this is such a brainless decision:

• The US Government has made the issue of same-sex marriage a moral one, plain and simple.
• The US Government is not the religious or moral judge of its citizens.
• Marriage should not be seen as an institution (especially not a government institution), but rather as a sacred bond between two people.
• The US Government should rather concern itself about (and spend our tax money on) key issues like education, healthcare, poverty, security and the overall welfare of its citizens.
• Tolerance in all forms is critical to the survival of a free society, one that prides itself on the basic civil rights of all its citizens and of all human beings.

I am an independent and as someone who is very fond of American history and very familiar with philosophical government ideals, I find it funny to think that the GOP can pride itself on its age old philosophy of being the party that supports individual opportunity, freedom, and the hard work ethic; that everything is earned and nothing is free; that determination, common sense, personal ambition with unlimited freedom as its underlying foundation is critical to survival of a free society. The Republican Party under its founder, Abraham Lincoln, never wanted to play God. On the contrary, it was founded on the Libertarian premise that the government serves to protect the nation from internal and external threats and to foster a free society conducive to diverse opinions, beliefs, and lifestyles.

Thus the modern GOP has done such a fantastic job of shitting all over this guiding principle these past eight years. It somehow evolved its philosophy by trying to play God, by being the self-proclaimed moral compass of mankind using God as the rallying cry for America against all the moral forces of evil, that Abe Lincoln, the publicly agnostic President, is probably rolling around in his grave at this moronic sensibility.

Abe Lincoln once said himself "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma." He for one believed that common sense is a greater guiding principle than religious ideologies or ethical beliefs could ever be.

And the Democrats aren't blameless. In fact, they are perhaps worse, because of their fear of alienating the this (very un-American), religious/moral contingent that the GOP has managed keep tucked away in their back pocket. Thus their lack of balls on this issue causes them to behave in an even more deplorable way.

Therefore, if I'm going to concern myself with anything regarding the US elections, it won't be on some dramatic celebrity banter happening between two self-serving presidential candidates who are unlikely to fix squat shit at the federal level, being guided by their own political ideology where there is a right and a wrong; where homosexuality and the right to marriage are considered 'less equal'.

My concerns will remain on the things I have the power to change, in my own local society. I may not be able to vote, but I will do anything I can from here to get the message out to my friends and family about such an important measure.

...a measure that should never have even been a measure in the first place.

It makes me truly fucking ashamed to be a citizen of a 'free' society that can't instantly recognize the personal freedom and universal civil rights of all its citizens.