Mood:
chillin'Now Playing: Semper Fidelis - John Philip Sousa
Many aren't happy with the outcome of the elections on Tuesday. Neither am I, but I wasn't going to be either way. I'm horrified, however, at how people lose perspective in these circumstances.
Last night the Yale Political Union had a debate on the topic "Resolved: American has made a great mistake." While some people brought up the point that this is what happens when you have democracy - the majority wins and the minority may be less than happy, but as far as our system works, this is not a mistake but at the most an unfortunate outcome. Others pointed out that the democrats should have had a decent candidate to start with. Both were good points.
However, many seem to be going to more of an extreme over this. This extreme, moreso than disagreement over the president, is what will divide the country. Previously we had the t-shirts claiming "not my president" which were less than effective but still showed a scary sentiment. Just because you don't agree with the outcome of a democratic procedure you're going to refute the system altogether? It seems immature to merely be a sore loser. You don't have to agree with Bush, I certainly don't on many issues. But at the end of the day, he is the president. That's the way it is. Many claimed last night that people voted on the wrong issues. That their votes were uninformed, made for the wrong reasons, or just plain bad. There's a problem with that. I'm horrified at the attitude on the left that claim "the American people are clearly not qualified to make a decent decision" when we spend so much time fighting for voting rights for all. So suddenly we want everyone to vote - as long as they vote with us? Suddenly we need to decide for people which issues should matter most to them?
Many are quick to point to the gay marriage and abortion issues as reasons why religious Americans voted for Bush and claim that these Americans ignored foreign policy, budget expenses, etc. "People should not vote based on religion."
That's sad. While I agree that religion should not play a big part in politics, i.e. not passing laws based only on religious merit, many of these issues can be grounded in things not religious. If whether or not we're allowed to have abortions is more important to the family down the road than foreign policy is, then let them vote based on that issue. Ideally, Americans will vote based on many issues. And I still think they do. The claim that most Americans voted only based on religious issues is lame and ungrounded. While I'm not happy with four years of Bush, it was clear from the beginning that the Democratic party did not try hard enough for something they seemingly felt so strongly about. They put up a weak candidate, made a poor attempt at getting him elected, and *shocker shocker* lost. And now, many are whining like babies that its unfair and trying to place blame anywhere but themselves. While being politically moderate myself, I usually end up seeing both sides and conceding that both have partial truth (or are both blatantly wrong, depending on the issue) but in this case, I can't seem to help but look at the left and feel a bit disgusted. It seems at this point the thing to do is try to work with the system and get done what we think needs to be done instead of complaining and trying to say the system failed.