Youth Politics

Because the Democratic National Convention is on, I’d like to throw in this little promotional bit towards the Carnival of the Liberals. For all you liberal-minded folks, I recommend you read some of their articles, as they are pretty fascinating. For all you conservative-minded folks, I still recommend you read their articles, because how much could it hurt to get to know a bit about the other side of the issues? Additionally, I’d like to thank jasonbuckley.com for hosting this week’s carnival.

Enjoy.

When I look through the net all I see is McSame this, Barack Hussein Obama that, or Obama bin Biden. Or some other name used to describe Barack Obama that I’m not going to look up at this moment, because I don’t care. My point is that using any of these names is stupid.

First of all, McCain is not George W. Bush. He’s not. McCain has always leaned more moderate than a lot of the Republican party. Yea people are going to tell you that he’s voted with Bush 90 percent of the time. But what does that really mean? Someone could have voted against the war in Iraq, tax cuts for corporations, and for the privatization of Social Security and still have voted 90 percent with Bush. Don’t let these percents fool you. It’s about what is agreed upon and disagreed upon that matters, not on how many bills a candidate and the president have agreed upon. However, McCain has fallen victim to the Republican machine, and he’s being transformed and twisted into another Bush. He is not like that; the Republicans made him that way. At best, he is a McSimilar, not a McSame.

What is with the emphasis on Barack’s middle name? Why are we calling him Barack Hussein Obama instead of just Barack Obama? Why aren’t we calling McCain by his full name, John Sidney McCain? Oh, are people trying to emphasize the Hussein part of his name? It’s a name, get over it. I like how people try to hide their racism through these insignificant facts. Even if Barack were a Muslim, which he’s not, what difference would that make? I thought America was about freedom, the ultimate melting pot. I guess to a lot of people Muslims are not to be included in this melting pot. And then they wonder why extremists are against America? If there’s one thing I absolutely cannot stand, it’s bigotry. I’m done with people who still value a lack of melatonin over intelligence, who value ancestry over smarts. I’d appreciate if these people do not vote at all. That may sound harsh, but if you’re not voting with your head, then you’re wasting the country’s time.

Where do all of these attacks get us? Nowhere. I, for one, care solely about the issues and how to combat them. No amount of McSame or Barack Hussein Obama is going to convince me one way or the other. I simply do not care. No one should. How am I to be convinced to vote for Obama if his argument is that McCain is the same thing as Bush!? Let me use a rather extreme example. If Hitler was calling out and saying not to vote for “McSame”, would that convince you to vote for Hitler? I would hope not. And don’t even try to use my example as a way to bash Obama, because neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are sporting a “Hitler” as their candidate.

Where does name calling get us when it comes time to debate? Nowhere. I notice that intelligent debates becomes rants and then purely insults as soon as someone lets a name out of the hat. It’s as if Americans are addicted to political attacks, almost as much as America is addicted to oil. People love conflict and bashing others for their different beliefs. It’s incredible, and it proves nothing. No amount of name calling will get me to believe in the other candidate, because name calling doesn’t provide credentials. It’s nothing but slander. I recall McCain telling everyone that he will not run a negative campaign. What happened McCain? I guess the Republican party changed his mind on that, as well.

Some Democrats are annoyed that Obama is simply not fighting back hard enough. I think Obama should fight back, but I don’t think that fight should be conducted by attacking McCain back. The best way to attack McCain is for Obama to simply state what he believes in, and have the American people hear about what his agenda really is. McCain will have nothing but attacks under his belt while the American people figure out what Obama is all about. Not to mention that Obama can take the high ground when it comes to negative campaigning. To do so otherwise would be stupid; this is a good opportunity for the Democratic party to show America what it’s really about.

I hope that when election day comes, people remember solely the issues. All of the candidates have their own plans for fixing America’s issues. Go for the candidate who you feel has the best plan and stick with that person because you believe in that plan. Remember that you can never convince me to vote for a candidate based on attacks on the other candidate. It’s just not going to happen. I vote with my head, and if you’re not going to tell me what’s so great about your candidate, then why should I vote in that direction?

Okay, let’s talk about the past.

Obama accused McCain of not being in touch with the average American. He would be correct. McCain couldn’t remember how many houses he owns. He owns seven. The average American owns 0-1. But how in touch is Obama with the rest of the population? Not any better.

Let’s face it, the guy owns a mansion. How can you make fun of someone when you’re accused of the exact same thing? That doesn’t make any sense. If I make fun of someone for say, going to jail, and I had gone to jail before (and I’ve never been to jail, this is an example people), then who am I to poke fun at him? That person is only going to fight back with the exact same words, and that’s exactly what McCain did.

This turned out bad for both candidates. One, McCain couldn’t remember how many houses he owns, which sort of hints at how well he’ll be able to remember other facts while in office, especially the more important facts. As for Obama, he’s attacking an elderly person. That’s not going to fly well with the older voters. I’m not saying it’s wrong to attack the guy because he is old, but it’s just a fact of life.

You see the same sorts of attacks on both sides, and it’s annoying at best. I mean how shortsighted can you be to attack your opponent on an issue that you yourself have? It’s best to attack the issues, not the person. Think about it, we’re not voting for someone because of their wealth, we’re hopefully voting for someone who shares the same beliefs and values as us. At least ideally, this should be true. People get so passionate about their candidate that they’re willing to spread any sort of attack that hurts the other candidates. However, these same people don’t do their research to cover themselves. One simple attack isn’t going to hurt a candidate’s reputation forever, and it’s possible that your candidate will go down even harder with a well-placed counterattack.

If you take the time to notice, you will find various flaws in both candidates. These flaws will create an abundance of attacks, and the media is going to make sure that each of these attacks becomes at least visible to the public. The public gets to decide which of these attacks are effective, but why settle for random chance? Make a legitimate attack that cannot somehow be traced back to your candidate, and you will soon figure out that the counterattacks are either non-existent or terrible. This is true for any kind of attacks, so naturally this makes sense here. It’s obvious. In a real war you wouldn’t make an assault that leaves you vulnerable to obvious counter-assaults, would you?

As the election comes closer and closer, the attacks will continue to increase in number and magnitude. I expect tons more ill-advised, ill-constructed attacks, and I’m going to criticize each and every single one.

I was in Peru a few years back, and I was driving up to the beach with my family in a bus, as my extended family was also coming. It was a rented bus with a driver, so all of us could sit back and just sleep because it actually takes quite a while to get from the city of Lima to the beaches. Anyway as we’re headed up to the beach, we make a stop at a tiny convenience store in practically the middle of nowhere, and there were a bunch of kids sitting around. They were poor, and as soon as we stopped they began to gather around the front of the bus. A few of these kids came on board and were asking for money. I was told not to give any of them any money.

I would have loved to help them out and give a little bit of money to some of the kids, but I couldn’t possibly give money to every single one. And what if more kids came, hearing that we were giving money away for free? I could not selectively give only some of the kids money and expect to be able to leave easily. Yes, I suppose one argument is that helping some kids is better than helping none of them, and that is true. However given the circumstances, by giving money to some and not the others, I’m putting myself in the difficult situation of being unfair to the others who really also need the money. And who am I to judge who gets the money and who doesn’t?

The whole point of my story is that the United States puts itself in that exact same situation all the time with its current foreign policy. The only difference is that America actually does choose to single out some “kids” and help them without helping everyone else, and that’s bothersome. Who are we to pick and choose who gets to receive our help and who does not? Who are we to decide who to invade and who not to invade, simply because there is a dictator running the country or that the country is not democratic enough?

As the lone superpower in the world, the United States has taken on the role of World Police. This means that whenever any kind of trouble arises anywhere in the world, America feels compelled to help resolve the troubling situation. Can anyone see the problem with this mentality? America does not have an infinite number of resources. It’s bound by a finite number of troops, a finite amount of money, and a finite amount of goods. We cannot help everyone; there are too many people who need help. We also cannot pick and choose, because then others who do not receive our help will feel discriminated against in some fashion, and we cannot have that either.

So what is the US to do? Certainly we should help out with crisis’ that occur throughout the world, but we should do so with the international community. When attacking poverty in a nation, how does the nation tackle it? By individually contributing money to random strangers on the streets? No. A plan is formulated that the community can agree on and then it is enacted. The same deal should apply with our foreign policy, except instead of individual people you have individual nations. One man cannot do it alone. One country cannot do it alone. We do not have a monopoly on doing good and being righteous. Solving the world’s issues as a team seems like the best way to go, and you’d have a hard time convincing me otherwise.

Another big problem with declaring ourselves as the nation to solve the problems of the world is that we too have our own problems. We are not the ideal superhero that a lot of comic books depict. We are not incorruptible, or unbeatable. We are not the essence of what is good. We may think that because our viewpoint is one such that we are correct and everyone should follow our example. But this is not how everyone else sees us, and they shouldn’t. We started a war in Iraq based on a lie. Is that what good is? We ignore the Constitution at our convenience. Is that good? We ignore the international community for our own national interest. Is this what it means to be good? Point is, nothing the United States does is pure. We still stumble on our own hypocrisies. Georgia can attack its own territory and Russia is not allowed to step in, but Saddam Hussein can attack the Kurds inside his territory and the US is allowed to invade. What is the basis for us being correct and the Russians not? Is it because Georgia is our friend and Iraq was not? How does what we did look any different from the Russian perspective? To give the argument that the reason is that Iraq is not a democracy is an absurd one at best. It’s to say that democracy is the only form of government that should exist and that it is the correct one. Yes Saddam Hussein was oppressive towards his people. Yes his dictatorship essentially denied basic human rights to his citizens. But isn’t North Korea doing the exact same thing? Why haven’t we invaded North Korea? Why haven’t we invaded Cuba? Why are so many countries in the same situation being ignored?

The answer is that we simply cannot help everyone. I keep coming back to this point because it’s something I believe the next president of the United States needs to realize, and soon. The international community, in general, does not think too highly of us right now. Our foreign policy has been a dismal failure at best. The world is laughing at us because they know that we cannot solely save the world, even though we think we can. Take the “War on Terror” as an example. How can you possibly win such a war? Terror isn’t an object. It’s not a thing. There’s no entity behind it, and it has no leader. I think David Cross (a comedian) put it best when he said that “fighting a war on terror is like fighting a war on jealousy”. At what point can you finally say, “there are no more jealous people, we have won”? Can you ever get rid of every last jealous person on Earth? No. Can you get rid of all terrorists on Earth, no. Terrorism is a tactic. Tactics cannot be eradicated by any amount of force. You could dismantle the entire Al Qaeda network and terrorism will still exist on Earth. Wars based on ideologies never work, because an ideology is not something you can win over, it simply exists. What America can do, however, is to join the international community in preventing terrorist acts and undermining plots and protecting people. Those are tangible ideas that can be “fought” against. But again, it has to be a community effort, or it’s useless.

I’m hoping that whoever becomes the next president of the United States throws away the book Bush has written on foreign policy and begins to write an entirely new book, a book that speaks of cooperation and teamwork, a book that cuts out hypocritical acts and makes America look more like a righteous leader and less like an arrogant police force. America needs to regain face amongst the international community and needs to stop thinking of itself as the world’s superhero and more like the world’s greatest ally amongst allies.

Following up my last post I’d like to share a blog article I read from the Carnival of Politics. Bob Barr brings up good points that I have myself made and I think is a good listen, even if you do not agree with Libertarian views. If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the Libertarian party, pay closer attention to the last video clip.