(no subject)
I never, ever thought I would say this, but I will take the chance of provoking ridicule and scorn: if I was forced to vote for a Republican for president (and this would be on threat of a fiery death), I believe I might just have to vote for Ron Paul. I know, I know, he is bizarrely right-wing in most things, but the thing is that he seems to be so right-wing he has come full-circle to being more liberal than the other candidates. I don't agree with most of his social policies, his stance on immigration or on gun control (or the lack thereof) and it seems like his view of the federal government is more suited to the Articles of Confederation than the current Constitution, but there is one indisputable fact. He is the only Republican candidate with, in my opinion, even a semi-realistic view of foreign policy and the government's various wars. Actually, I watched bits and pieces of the New Hampshire Republican debate (bits and pieces were all I could stomach at the time) and he made several lucid and well thought-out observations about why the US is hated all over the world. He made the point that the U.S. was not attacked because we are prosperous (as Bush and his cronies would have us believe), but because we force our presence on other countries with cultures very different from our own. Furthermore, he asked how we would react if China came all the way over here and stated that they required us to let them build military bases in our country and pressured us to live the way they live and adopt their economy and political system. Clearly, most of the U.S. would take issue with China's foreign policy if this were to happen. Furthermore, why are we, the "most powerful" nation on earth so fixated on the perceived threat of developing nations? You wouldn't believe how the other candidates jumped on him and accused him of everything from being ignorant of the real situation to being unpatriotic. On his website he points out the fact, which those in power would have us forget, that we overthrew a regime which was at odds with the "Jihadists", thus opening up Iraq for an Al Qaeda free-for-all.
My parents are both registered Republicans and though my dad will not discuss politics, my mother told me she will not vote for a Republican in this election. She did ask me, however, who I would vote for in the primary if I had to vote Republican. She says she might vote for Huckabee. My main problem with Huckabee (among very many other things, his eyebrows among them) is that he, as an "evangelical" (a term which I loathe), openly admits not to believing in evolution. I would never, ever vote for a person for dog catcher who holds a strictly Creationist viewpoint. It is not the subject of evolution itself that really bothers me (though I think he's retarded for it), but what that viewpoint says about the way his mind works. It shows that he arbitrarily adopts a viewpoint at odds with every bit of physical evidence that can be observed and is obviously completely unwilling to inform himself about a subject before he forms an opinion. Clearly he knows nothing of the subject or he would know that many evolutionary scientists do not hold that religion and science are mutually exclusive and that a belief in a supernatural being is contradictory to the "theory" of evolution. Yes, there are your Richard Dawkinses who deride any religious belief, but there are also your Stephen Jay Goulds, who argue that science and religion are two completely separate, NONOVERLAPPING MAGISTERIA (meaning, two seperate things having nothing to do with one another--for more information I refer you to the eminent but deceased Stephen Jay Gould's article of that title). Both of my parents hold doctorates (plant genetics and invertebrate zoology) and obviously believe in evolution, but are also religious. My point, however, is that I can't have any respect for a person who doesn't let the facts interfere with their personal opinions.
And I really didn't mean to go off on the evolution tangent, but I can't help it. It is a pet peeve of mine.
One other thing: I didn't have a strong opinion of Bill Richardson either way until I watched the Democratic NH debate...he seemed to be the only one up there with the rudiments of a sense of humor. But I guess he's out now. I do say it's time to get someone other than an old white man in there, be they a woman, black man, or hispanic man. Clearly the white men have proven themselves unequal to the task.
My parents are both registered Republicans and though my dad will not discuss politics, my mother told me she will not vote for a Republican in this election. She did ask me, however, who I would vote for in the primary if I had to vote Republican. She says she might vote for Huckabee. My main problem with Huckabee (among very many other things, his eyebrows among them) is that he, as an "evangelical" (a term which I loathe), openly admits not to believing in evolution. I would never, ever vote for a person for dog catcher who holds a strictly Creationist viewpoint. It is not the subject of evolution itself that really bothers me (though I think he's retarded for it), but what that viewpoint says about the way his mind works. It shows that he arbitrarily adopts a viewpoint at odds with every bit of physical evidence that can be observed and is obviously completely unwilling to inform himself about a subject before he forms an opinion. Clearly he knows nothing of the subject or he would know that many evolutionary scientists do not hold that religion and science are mutually exclusive and that a belief in a supernatural being is contradictory to the "theory" of evolution. Yes, there are your Richard Dawkinses who deride any religious belief, but there are also your Stephen Jay Goulds, who argue that science and religion are two completely separate, NONOVERLAPPING MAGISTERIA (meaning, two seperate things having nothing to do with one another--for more information I refer you to the eminent but deceased Stephen Jay Gould's article of that title). Both of my parents hold doctorates (plant genetics and invertebrate zoology) and obviously believe in evolution, but are also religious. My point, however, is that I can't have any respect for a person who doesn't let the facts interfere with their personal opinions.
And I really didn't mean to go off on the evolution tangent, but I can't help it. It is a pet peeve of mine.
One other thing: I didn't have a strong opinion of Bill Richardson either way until I watched the Democratic NH debate...he seemed to be the only one up there with the rudiments of a sense of humor. But I guess he's out now. I do say it's time to get someone other than an old white man in there, be they a woman, black man, or hispanic man. Clearly the white men have proven themselves unequal to the task.