I have two questions for the tea party today. I’m sure I have more but these two just make me twitchy.
From what I’ve heard in some random news bytes there is at least one candidate running that would make abortion a criminal offense even in the case of rape or incest. I’ve heard that there may be as many as four or five candidates with this same mindset. Now my broad understanding of the whole tea party platform is that they want less government. They want the government out of their business. They don’t want government bailouts for businesses. They don’t want taxes to cover healthcare costs. They want the government to be as minimal as possible.
If you want less government regulation then how could you want to make a medical procedure a criminal offense? It seems to me that they are selective in where the government control would lie. In areas that they want control then allowing the government to step in would be fine but in other cases it wouldn’t be fine. Somehow that doesn’t add up for me. Can anyone explain this to me? Rationally?
My second question is about the candidate in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell, who was accused of “dabbling in witchcraft” at some time in her past. Now in the case of Ms. O’Donnell the question is complex and multi-faceted. Let me start out by saying that I don’t support her politics but I DO support her right to practice Wicca.
Here again we Americans can’t quite face reality. We have freedom of religion here. We are allowed to practice any religion we choose; or no religion at all. Wicca is an actual belief system and the reality of it in many cases is that it is very spiritual that respects the natural world and tries to find where us humans fit in that world. There is no crime in being Wiccan, in fact it’s my understanding that Arlington National Cemetery now allows Wiccan symbols on grave markers there.
So if Ms. O’Donnell was or is a practicing Wiccan so what? Really, so what? There seems to be some underlying belief that although we are granted freedom of religion in the constitution that the founding fathers didn’t really MEAN that. They really meant freedom of religion as long as those religions were Christian or maybe Jewish but all that other stuff, nah, they didn’t mean those religions. Or maybe the people who believe this don’t believe that there are any religions that don’t fall into the Judeo/Christian categories hence if someone claims to believe something else it isn’t a “real” religion anyway.
So I have multiple issues with this. First, I don’t think that Ms. O’Donnell’s religious affiliation should have been a campaign issue. I think her opponent dug it up and aired it, bad form there. But then her response in many ways supported the slur campaign against her by having her frantically try to deny it in some fashion. The real response should have been that her religious affiliation, whatever it may be, is supported by the constitution of the country she is trying to serve by running for public office.
We’re nuts here in the US. We really are. Political campaigning is now not much different than any other form of bullying. It’s no longer about the issues but about how much you can tear down your opponent. I care what you’ll do to keep my taxes within reason and what I’ll do about healthcare if I lose my job. I don’t care what your campaign workers dug up about your opponents in their far distant past. Once we get to a certain age we’ve probably all done a few things in our life that we’re just not too proud of, we’re HUMANS, WE’RE FLAWED, deal with it!
Remember US citizens go out and vote tomorrow it’s a privilege you should use.
From what I’ve heard in some random news bytes there is at least one candidate running that would make abortion a criminal offense even in the case of rape or incest. I’ve heard that there may be as many as four or five candidates with this same mindset. Now my broad understanding of the whole tea party platform is that they want less government. They want the government out of their business. They don’t want government bailouts for businesses. They don’t want taxes to cover healthcare costs. They want the government to be as minimal as possible.
If you want less government regulation then how could you want to make a medical procedure a criminal offense? It seems to me that they are selective in where the government control would lie. In areas that they want control then allowing the government to step in would be fine but in other cases it wouldn’t be fine. Somehow that doesn’t add up for me. Can anyone explain this to me? Rationally?
My second question is about the candidate in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell, who was accused of “dabbling in witchcraft” at some time in her past. Now in the case of Ms. O’Donnell the question is complex and multi-faceted. Let me start out by saying that I don’t support her politics but I DO support her right to practice Wicca.
Here again we Americans can’t quite face reality. We have freedom of religion here. We are allowed to practice any religion we choose; or no religion at all. Wicca is an actual belief system and the reality of it in many cases is that it is very spiritual that respects the natural world and tries to find where us humans fit in that world. There is no crime in being Wiccan, in fact it’s my understanding that Arlington National Cemetery now allows Wiccan symbols on grave markers there.
So if Ms. O’Donnell was or is a practicing Wiccan so what? Really, so what? There seems to be some underlying belief that although we are granted freedom of religion in the constitution that the founding fathers didn’t really MEAN that. They really meant freedom of religion as long as those religions were Christian or maybe Jewish but all that other stuff, nah, they didn’t mean those religions. Or maybe the people who believe this don’t believe that there are any religions that don’t fall into the Judeo/Christian categories hence if someone claims to believe something else it isn’t a “real” religion anyway.
So I have multiple issues with this. First, I don’t think that Ms. O’Donnell’s religious affiliation should have been a campaign issue. I think her opponent dug it up and aired it, bad form there. But then her response in many ways supported the slur campaign against her by having her frantically try to deny it in some fashion. The real response should have been that her religious affiliation, whatever it may be, is supported by the constitution of the country she is trying to serve by running for public office.
We’re nuts here in the US. We really are. Political campaigning is now not much different than any other form of bullying. It’s no longer about the issues but about how much you can tear down your opponent. I care what you’ll do to keep my taxes within reason and what I’ll do about healthcare if I lose my job. I don’t care what your campaign workers dug up about your opponents in their far distant past. Once we get to a certain age we’ve probably all done a few things in our life that we’re just not too proud of, we’re HUMANS, WE’RE FLAWED, deal with it!
Remember US citizens go out and vote tomorrow it’s a privilege you should use.
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