You know, I realize nobody's holding their breath waiting for me to post again on this blog, but I must confess that allowing almost three months to pass before my second post is a bit deplorable. But c'mon, you gotta know that like you, I'm a busy douche with a day job and lots of personal shit keeping me busy at night and on the weekends, so it's tough getting around to writing posts that only a smattering of strangers are gonna read.
Three very short months ago, I thought my second post would reveal more details about my personal life and give you some real reasons to love me or hate me. But then I realized that all I have to do is write an honest opinion about politics, religion, sex or the human condition for you to love me or hate me, so my personal life doesn't really matter (unless there is clamoring from the masses to reveal such details, and yes, I'm sure that will happen very soon). Besides, I don't give a monkey's ass explosion if you love me or hate me, just that you come back again to read me. And since you're reading this ass explosion, let's start off with the easy one: politics.
First of all, I love talking about religion, sex and the human condition. For that very reason, politics is important to me, since my nation's public policies are directly related to my freedom to talk about religion, sex and the human condition. And when we talk about politics, we can't help but talk about national and regional ideologies, which govern how we are ruled by more powerful classes than ours (and there are only a handful of people in the most powerful class). I may get into regional ideologies a bit later on this blog, since they are so dominant in our personal manifestation, but this post is about national ideologies and the influence they have on our day-to-day life.
Last week, Barack Obama was inaugurated into his second term as the president of the United States. I was happy Obama won reelection because, quite simply, Mitt Romney posed the greater threat to issues that are important to me. Before you agree or disagree with me, you must understand the issues that I believe are most deeply affected by the person who serves as our president.
When it comes to U.S. presidents, I don't vote based on economic issues. Sure, the national economy is influenced by presidential economic policy, but let's face the facts: our national economy is cyclical and the next recession is always just around the corner. We've had 13 of them since the Great Depression (about one every five years), and only Bill Clinton didn't suffer through one during his presidency. And taxes are taxes; I strongly believe in tax reform, but we're always going to think they're too high, even when they're not (and if you research countries with the highest and lowest taxes, they're not).
The only form of taxation that really bugs me is annual property tax. The fact that even after paying off a mortgage, I can't own a home without paying thousands a year to the government is repugnantly unfair. I would support any initiative that shifts tax revenue away from property and income taxes and towards sales and luxury taxes (for that matter, can we go ahead and legalize and tax gambling and soft drugs?). But when it comes to the national economy, a president can only do so much to compel it to follow his whims, no matter what policies he implements or helps push through Congress.
There's even less reason to vote for a president based on his foreign policies. The United States' progressive imperialism is so ingrained in our national fabric that no president would dare to move against the tide. It is absurd to claim that any president would falter when it comes to protecting the nation's sovereigncy or the safety of its people unless through some egregious oversight. Of course, egregious oversights do happen. But when something like 9/11 comes along (once in a generation), it propels the government to overreact and enter a period of extreme aggression and weakened civil liberties (see the Japanese concentration camps after Pearl Harbor). We are still suffering from the consequences of 9/11 on both a global and personal scale, but it's folly to expect much change from the leader of our executive branch.
So, if you minimize economic and foreign policy from the equation, how the hell do you choose a presidential candidate? My answer: choose a president who aligns with your beliefs on social policy and who nominates ideal candidates to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is where I lean in the strongest way to Barack Obama. Because I believe in a woman's reproductive rights. And equality among all races and religions. And free speech and personal privacy. And protecting our environment. And a bunch of other issues that you would expect from a tree-hugging liberal (I've never actually hugged a tree and imagine it would not be especially pleasant, but I do love trees).
I think anyone with a brain would agree that Obama is more socially liberal than Romney. Regardless of how I might believe that Romney would benefit the economy or tenaciously protect America's international interests, there's no question that Obama is more likely to push the national social ideology to benefit the objectives of liberal-minded Americans. And the social ideology of the United States is far more important to me than any other faction of national politics. The economy will fluctuate as it always does and we will inject puppet governments where we mistakenly feel we need puppet governments (and they will all end up corrupt anyway), but our commitment to personal freedom and saving the world from self-destruction should be sacrosanct.
There are nine justices on the Supreme Court. You may not remember this, but Obama has already successfully nominated two of those justices. But five of the current ones were appointed by Reagan or George H.W. Bush. There are four justices who are over 74 years old, including one liberal judge who will soon be 80. The other five are under 65, including three appointed by the senior George Bush. The balance of power in the Supreme Court for the next two decades could be determined by the appointments that come in the next four years, which might mean as many as four justices (though more likely to be one or two).
As you may have surmised by now, Supreme Court justices are critically important to my view of the future of the United States within my lifetime, and I believe my interests will be better served by the nominations that Obama makes compared to those that Romney would have made if he had been president. Even though Obama has done everything he could to ameliorate the perception that he is a hard-core liberal, the right wing knows what he will do when it comes to nominating Supreme Court justices. They won't be happy with his nominations and there will be much political debate when they happen, but the fact remains that Obama will get liberal-leaning justices appointed, and that will make me happy. Hopefully he nominates some really young justices that can serve for two or three decades.
I recognize that this obscure blog is less than a drop in the bucket of national opinion, and I understand that anyone who was raised in a typical brainwashed childhood (whether on the right or on the left) won't be influenced in the slightest by my ranting. But I am here to contribute one more voice to the many who posit that our country is a mess right now. And perhaps I am one of the few who will declare that we will always be in a mess, and that is actually what makes us such a great country. If you want stability, move to Switzerland. I'm sure you'll be happy there once you overcome the language issue.
As for me, I hope this post will open a floodgate to many other posts about shit I've been pondering. Because I have a lot of shit I've been pondering, and I don't think it will take three more months before I'm compelled to offer my opinion. But don't hold your breath.
