Why I'm Voting for Obama and You Should Too: Part Deux

My last post has received a lot of action on Facebook so I feel it's time to offer clarification. While I do vote based on issues such as abortion and gay marriage those are not my only reasons for voting. Nor do I cease investigating candidates because of their stances on these issues. My calling out those people who do vote solely on those issues was for two reasons: 1) to vocalize the difference between standing for something and zealotry and 2) to engage in a thought experiment expressing why such zealotry is wrong.

This is the important part so everybody listen:

I do not lose sleep at night over abortion or the possibility of it being made illegal. I am aware of its complexity legally speaking. Abortion laws have suffered mightily in the past eight years, however, so to say that it is a non-issue is as fallacious as to say it is the only issue.

I do not think that Obama will reconstruct the country in four years either through gay marriage or any other social policy. I do think that the next President will have a significant impact on our policies and our economy, however, so to vote without considering how the candidate will handle the economy, education, health care, or equality seems a bit narrow-minded and I hate it when I'm narrow-minded.

The biggest arguments I see against Obama, excusing the silly ones like terrorism or racism, seem to be that he is a socialist and will force his socialist views on everyone and he is just like every other politician and won't change anything. Let's deal with socialism first.

Socialism is a highly charged term in our country that has been used since the cold war to frighten people into protecting Capitalism. Obama has no plans that anyone has heard him say or reported on to take the wealth of the rich and redistribute it to the poor. He does have plans to offer tax breaks to those who make less money instead of those that make more money. This is not redistribution of wealth, this is maintaining of wealth. Trickle down economics doesn't work. It didn't work under Regan and it isn't working now--the housing market collapse shows that. The poor and middle class will borrow attempting to live the American Dream, but when you tax them disproportionately to the rich they cannot sustain their viability in the economy. Offering tax breaks to those who make less than $250,000 a year makes the most sense--unless you make over $250,000 a year or believe (falsely) that you will soon. I don't want someone else's money, I want my money because I have less money to give away. This isn't a socialist take over of the economy. Healthcare receives the same treatment. I know those of you who are doctors or work in the healthcare industry have a much wiser and more educated view on this, but I do know that we are the only country of our size and development lacking in universal healthcare. England, France, and Canada all seem to make a go of it without losing their freedoms or rights. I'm just saying.

As to the charge that Obama is just like every other politician--full of empty rhetoric. I feel this was the greatest achievement of the Republican campaigning. The people that believe the terrorist stuff are the people that would vote Republican anyway, but many, many people who heard Obama speak and were moved by his words changed their minds once the empty rhetoric idea was bandied about. Everything is rhetoric--we all can agree on that. But not all rhetoric is empty; that's an important distinction. Obama's rhetoric, therefore, is not empty because it's "only" rhetoric; this was the same ploy used against evolution because it was "only" a theory. Obama has discussed issues, like race, in ways no politician to date has. No one that I have read speeches from or seen clips from has spoken so clearly and honestly about their beliefs as Obama. Yes, he is a politician; yes he is running a campaign. Concessions have been and had to be made because he has to persuade people who are uneducated and thoughtless. A great many of the people that vote do so based on ads they see on t.v. and soundbites on the evening news. When catering to that reality--a reality that must be accepted and dealt with if he wants to win, and he must win if he wants to affect change--his tactics had to adjust themselves. There is no real way to predict his presidency aside from the knowledge we have that he is intelligent--that's all we can know for sure. He appears to also be a moral, free-thinking individual willing to listen to advisers. He may affect no real change, and he may change a lot. But I do think we have reason to believe he will not make any decisions hastily without considering the consequences, because of his religion, or because he can't understand the complexities of the situation. That's a lot more than we can say for some past Presidents and I firmly believe he will make better decisions for this country and for me then will John McCain.

As a side note, Obama has also received criticism for some of the programs he wants to fund in the government, and I think it is erroneous to believe he will institute these programs without finding proper funding through balancing. Adding or revising programs does not negate revisiting old ones and streamlining.