Friday, October 10, 2008

How to win my Vote for Obama (by Kurt Williamsen)

Here's a great article on the complexities of voting for a president in this country. It always seems to me like a choice between two or three evils. By the way even though I occasionally blog about political or religious things on rare occasion, this is not a political or religious blog. Feel free to give me voting advice in comments though because I just got my absentee ballot. And I encourage everyone to vote and to think outside of just what you've been told to think. Just don't waste too much time on the "who's gonna be the next president" thingy because really, since I live in California, whether I like it or not I'm voting for Obama. I wish we had a popular election instead of an electoral college. Now which state assembly people should I vote for?

Since I broached politics I may as well broach the economy too. Invest in Cash (the under your sofa kind (jk), in a reliable bank is fine), possibly bonds, though those (bonds) are not doing great either. Don't invest in political candidates. :P

And lastly religion, or rather a religious issue: Prop 8. Think about it outside discrimination terms and also include the rights of children to have a father and a mother. Even from a scientific researched standpoint (very secular) this makes sense. Children do better when they have a father and a mother. And that is the weakest argument I could put forth, but the one most people are likely to agree to. The stronger arguments involve the loss of rights of the majority to save the rights of the minority. Do we really want to take away the right to get marry people from all the religions in the US except a small handful which capitulate on this issue? Sheesh.

What was the other No-no issue you should never bring up in the office? Race? I don't have any race issues, but if you have any let me know. I love all people, I just don't always love their actions.

Ok I promise the next ten posts will be about MMO stuff and/or the game we're making. Sorry for the side track to reality. :P

5 comments:

Oakstout said...

Let me start by saying, I'm all for a popular vote rather than an electoral college vote. People's vote should be counted. The Electoral college was something decided upon by our forefathers, they are dead now and I'm sure in this age and time, they would have wanted us to evolve instead of stand still when it comes to government. I mean, women and blacks can vote, so why can't we just make it a popular vote, so everyone gets counted?

Also, isn't there suppose to be a separation of Church and State? If so, then marriage either needs to be defined by one or the other, not both. Either the State needs to stop giving rights to married couples, no more need for legal documents of marriage and no more laws governing married people or the Church needs to stop bitching about Gay couples and the state needs to pass laws to let Gay's marry and have equal rights under the law as other married couples.

Again, we are in the present not the past and marriage need not be defined by something between a man and a woman. Laws are meant to reflect the times in which we live in, not to carry the same misconceptions our forefathers had.

On a side note, since you live in California I wanted to ask this.I saw on the news this morning, where Gov. Arnold will be ramping up the selling of bonds because California is just about out of money. Now, when a large portion of rich people live in California, how can this happen? I see Hollywood stars donate time and money to all kinds of causes by why don't they help bail out the state that a majority of them live in?

I'm just curious.

Man, thanks for letting me vent. lol

Thallian said...

Hey Oakey, anytime you wanna vent, feel free. Its still a free country on my blog, even though the state of California may not be free for long lol. We'll have to see.

Glad to hear someone agrees with me on the electoral college. I also agree on the separation of church and state. You cannot have true freedom of religious otherwise. I personally don't think the state should give benefits to married couples. Instead if they have to give benefits it should be to domestic partnerships, of which married couples qualify. Controversial as that may seem. Marriage is a moral issue, whereas equal partnership status is a political/social/discrimination issue. As long as it has no legal implications I have no problem with gay or lesbian couples naming their (in my mind unholy) union as a marriage. However since it is currently tethered in a messy ball together with benefits and rights and not only that but will implicate
1. Age-appropriate Marriage/Sex Education that is taught in schools could acknowledge same-sex marital relationships as a recognized norm.
2. Religious adoption agencies could be closed or lose funding if they refuse to place children with same-sex couples.
3. Religious agencies could lose tax exemption if they refuse to perform same-sex marriages.
4. Activist judges will continue to make law instead of judge stuff. Congress (elected by the people) is supposed to make law last time I checked.

Obviously, sadly, church and state are not yet fully separate. We can try to separate them but in the meantime we have to deal with the fact that they are not separate and do the best we can with what we have.

I love your comments on our forefathers and totally agree we need to adapt. The constitution was not meant to be an end all be all and that is why there have been amendments.

Anyways to delve into your question about California's budget. Here goes. California is, you ready for this? The WORST fiscally managed state in the Union. (heres a reference: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-06-22-state-spending-cover_x.htm)

That is how that happened. Incidentally Utah is the best managed state in the union for staying out of debt. (Granted it doesn't have anywhere near California's population, but good management scales well, so we could learn a few pointers from them and stop spending money on things we don't need) We love debt here and its coming back to bite us in the bum. Nobody will bail the state out cuz a. nobody is THAT rich. and more importantly b. if anyone did the state would promptly say thank you, I can now overspend my budget again. We love to vote for programs and junk bond measures in this State (both congress and the people) They keep proposing junk bond bills instead of cutbacks and then wonder why they are in debt. That is why. :P

California need to eat more like a pauper and less like a princess. (Mind I said 'more') They need to stop spending money like water and start paying off the debt. Come to think of it, this reminds me of the federal government, but that's another story.

Sorry for the wall of text, and in case anyone wonders, I voted for green party this election cuz I want to vote for options instead of monopolies. But really, since I live in California, I voted for Obama. Lastly I voted for a number of Republicans and democrats for the other offices. And I think our (California's) congress needs to decide things better on its own and stop sending the people votes on junk spending bills. They know their budget a lot better than we do.

Aaron Miller said...

Though I can be as frustrated as anyone by losing my vote to voting pool, I still think an electoral college of some sort is smart. The majority of citizens in any nation are fickle, short-sighted, and self-serving. Winning the popular vote is more about charisma and diplomacy than actual substance and issues. Everyone's involved, as they should be, but the power of the mob is not direct.

Marriage is pre-cultural. Though every culture celebrates it in a particular way, the basics (such as being between a man and a woman, and being consummated by sex open to children) have been the same in every culture throughout history. No society in history has not had marriage. Marriage is the very first act of community (civlization), and thus is the cornerstone of society. Just as when messing with the foundation of a house, great care must be taken whenever you mess with that cornerstone... because countless other parts and aspects of our society are built upon it.

As I said on Cuppy's blog, I expect Prop 8 might get appealed to the Supreme Court if it passes. Marriage licenses are written in the U.S. Constitution as falling under state jurisdiction, but we all know there's a difference between what's supposed to happen and actuality.

Thallian said...

@aaron points 2 and 3 of your are great ones. the first thing you said though about the electoral college is pretty much how the founding fathers felt about it and I'm gonna just have to agree to disagree on that one.

Oakstout said...

@Aaron The system is flawed for sure.

The states are suppose to pick electors to cast the vote, dependent on the out come of the popular vote for that state, right? So it's still a popular vote, but we hand the ball off to x number of electors, who by the way, don't have to vote for the canidate that the state chose.

Its all a matter of trust. You don't trust the population as a whole to be well educated on the issues enough to elect a president and I don't trust elector's to vote for the right people or that the state legislature will even choose the right people to cast my vote.

It's "My" vote. I want it to count and the only way to make sure of that is to elect a president by popular vote. I'm sorry, its imperfect and as stated before very flawed.

On the subject of Marriage, my wife brough up a point that I completely missed. The law has alwaysndefined Marriage as a union between a man and woman, so the law it's self has to change for anything to really work. I'm sure the states can do what they want to circumvent the federal laws, but in the end, the Gov. has to change their interpertation of married.

A Government, that, even though promotes separation of Church and State, was, at its heart,founded on religous principles.

So, until the government is for all people no matter race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, it won't matter what we want, the government will have to change.

I'm sure the founding Father's didn't know how far their document would take us or if we would still have it after so many years, but I think it's time to make changes to reflect the state of the nation today rather than a few hundred years ago.

Good topic for discussion though.