Bear with me. I wrote this piece to exemplify my opinion that changing the country means changing policies. To do that effectively, you may find that you have strange bedfellows in politics. I use the abortion issue to make a point.
I got into a debate with a friend. As a set up, he is your typical NRA supporting, ex-marine who occasionally goes to church. He said to me, “If you believe that abortion is killing and so wrong, how can you vote for a candidate that is pro-choice?” I explained to him that I do not vote for a man or a party but an effect on the system. I said, “Because while the Republicans mostly represent ‘pro-life’, their policies of ‘no sex-ed in school’ and ‘abstinence only’ has lead to no change and a net increase in abortions over the past 8 years.”
There has actually been a slight increase in teen pregnancies over the last 4 years even as funding for the “abstinence only” programs has seen an increase. One place it didn’t work was in the Palin household. I said, “If I had to pick between two candidates: One guy who says he holds the same beliefs I do, but his policies end in a result of more abortions. The other guy who says he disagrees with me, but his policies lead to less abortions. I am picking the second guy."
The point was this. I believe in saving as many human lives as possible. We have had a “pro-life” president with the full backing of the legislature the first 6 of 8 years. He has done nothing to save those lives and instead chose to needlessly go to war and take many more lives. It is a net loss in life. You can spin it however you like, but the math is still there.
Comprehensive sex-ed classes have been shown to reduce the pregnancy rates as well as STDs and other related side effects. So the results are what I want but the way there is not what I was hoping for. However, in the end education deals with the “what now?” factor. If you ended abortion tomorrow, are children going to stop having sex?
The math is the problem. People like to take complex algebra problems and apply simple math solutions. Oil cost too much? Drill for more. A few people in another country want to hurt us? Wipe out the whole country. Economy in a slump? Send everybody money. Teens keep getting pregnant? Tell them to stop having sex. It just doesn’t work that way. It has many Americans scratching their heads trying to refigure why the answer didn’t end up like the one in the back of the book.
The issues of the day are far more complex than they were when the only thing that mattered was "who was going to stop the banks from being robbed?" Then the laws of nature had the most impact on society. At the start, we had our own plot of land that we either owned or we were a slave on it. There was no healthcare, no highways, no gas prices, no need for higher learning, no abortions, and everybody had to have a gun. Today we are a giant “Commune”. The individualism that allowed us to become “America” has been paved over. There is no more living your life with your actions completely removed from society. Every change in policy affects many other issues. However, we do less and expect more from our government. (By that I mean politically. We do less research about the topics and understanding of the issues before we vote, then expect the ignorant yahoos that marketed to us to fix problems they are not equipped to fix.) We create our own problems then spend more time fighting about who to blame than how to fix it. The truth is that the people who actually understand how to fix it are “weird” and not understandable. They would never get elected. This will ultimately not only be the undoing of western cultures, but of mankind.
So while I am “pro-life”, “pro-gun”, opposed to welfare, opposed to immigration, opposed to globalization, and conservative regarding government spending practices, I find that Obama is the best candidate because if he gets to impose his views on these issues, they will lead to the results I feel are good for the country and its future. McCain’s approach is akin to doing brain surgery with a chain saw.
