New Port Richey is Bushy, but not quite Bush country
I do not support President Bush. I also do not believe that if he is to be re-elected, which to me looks inevitable, that it will be or lead to the end of the world. My biggest concern with the man is that he brings his personal religious faith into his administrative policies, and that is dangerous and therefore I will not vote for him.
Leaving aside my political convictions, I was excited about President Bush's appearance at Sim's park in New Port Richey this morning. Is he good for the country as a whole? Maybe not, but to have the current President of this Nation adress our people is the biggest thing that has happened to our little town and I'd be damned if I missed it. Besides parking, police and having to skip both of my very important classes today, there was only one problem: What to WEAR!?!?
Luckily, I managed to pull a few things out of the closet:
The hat would assure that my democrat friends would never again speak to me
Domenick(Domenator) thought it would be a good idea to leave USF at 11. That would have given me time to go to my Intro to World Religions Class, learn about the Jews, possibly get my paper back, and duck out during the midway break. It would also give us no time to make it to see the President because traffic would be, as I called it, a "clusterfuck".
And what a clusterfuck it was! I've seen cars in better order on Monster Truck rallies, drivers so bad that Bubb Rubb would put them to shame. Somehow, we found a beautiful little parking spot in front of somebody's house, blocking a large, sky blue van.
Already we could see and hear the commotion. There were christians holding out fliers and children holding up signs. I remember seeing a young girl with one that had written on it, in purple glitter, "Hey President Bush, I'm running for President to - Of Hudson Elementary!" How cute. So does your school plan on bombing Deer Park for lunch meat, little girl? Har har har. Moving forward, we stood at the shore of what was a sea of people. There were many I recognized, but most of which I had only realized I knew until later on. Like sitting on a bed of nails. With our tickets in hand, we tried to get closer, though the police informed us that we wouldn't be getting any closer. You know what that means:
PROTEST!
I had a ticket to this event and had no plan of protesting. I think this sort of loud-mouthed foolishness brings out the worst on both parties. When I went to see John Kerry speak, I politely ignored his protestors and listened to him, so I should give Bush the same opportunity. My voice will be heard at the voting booths, not to a bunch of people who do not choose to listen to begin with. Seeing both sides bicker like that made me ill and uncomfortable, especially because I had friends on the left and the right. As I stood in the middle of the road, the police officer told me I had to choose a side and get out of the street. My buddies were on the left, but the people on the other side were nice too.
Tax the Rich!
I wandered around the corner to the point where Bush's voice was most audible. Hearing his familiar inflection was surreal; it felt as if I were listening to a very large radio broadcast, not a man speaking only hundreds of feet away from me. There were much fewer people by me than there were watching Bush or over where the protesters stood, most of them quiet like me, applauding when they heard something they like (hell, I applauded for "all volunteer army"). They didn't seem partisan, just ordinary people like me who are, if anything, simply curious.
As the crowds left, Republicans yelled at Democrats and vice versa. An older woman with a Kerry-Edwards sticker on her car found herself in the wrong way of traffic, facing a blocked exit and unable to get out. Her windows were rolled down and she was verbally attacked; the most disturbing offense was a child, no older than seven, yelling "KERRY SUCKS" with such hatred in his eyes as his father held his hand, laughing. I didn't realize until I just wrote that sentence as to why that image made me so uncomfortable: because that child should have been the only one with an excuse to behave that way, on either side.
Being there also made me realize that there is no shame in not voting. Perhaps it was because I saw so many of young potential voters on the Bush side of the fence, though the overall aura of ignorance made me realize that I would rather only a select few educated people vote than a bunch of stupid kids with one-sided opinions. Of course, if things really worked that way, or could, we wouldn't have this ridiculous two-party system. Pfleegor(iceshark182) sums it up best in his profile: "Hey, BUSH and KERRY supporters. Neither candidate will bring about any sort of real change. Don't even kid yourself and get behind either one of them. Vote for any third party and show your disgust at the Two-party monopoly."
Amen, brother.
We drove back to college, ready to wake up the next morning at 7 to meet Leonardo DiCaprio and hear him talk about early votes. We're really just in it for the free doughnuts.
Alex