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On the Eve of the Most Important Election of Our Lifetime - Let's Hope We Get it Right
Here today, on the Eve of the great election: Do you vote for?
12.9% Revenge
70.97% For love of country
16.13% I don't vote at all
31 total vote(s) Voting has Ended!
Comments
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I am odd. And short! And Crazy for the 80s!
See you Tuesday, fuzzy-faced man. |
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Me thinks Michael finds Diane a curious oddity indeed.
I meet with Diane Tuesday, and we will not be talking about Michael - that I promise. |
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Michael, I am encouraged by your response. I'll try not to be so depressed, although the economy is daunting and my chances for a job continue to be very slim. We'll see if things turn around in North Carolina.
New Brunswick is an area I spent a good part of my life in. I moved from East Rutherford to Plainsboro to work at Princeton University. I was going to enter a doctoral program there but the researcher I wanted to work with failed to receive tenure and went to Baylor, in Texas. In hindsight, I probably should have moved to Texas. I stayed in Plainsboro for a few years until I saved up enough to buy an old victorian home in Hightstown. I got married shortly after that, had my 4 kids, and graduated from law school in 2000. After 11 years in Hightstown, we moved to Greenville (just a few days before the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001). I was a successful lawyer in Jersey but it isn't easy finding a position in intellectual property in my area of Pitt County. I enjoyed working at a lab bench in molecular biology and if I had my choice, I would love to be doing that type of work today. Again, there aren't many labs doing genetic engineering research in this area. In the meantime, I run my Tea Party group, work with the NC Tenth Amendment Center (I'm Deputy Director), and I write. It keeps me active mentally, but not necessarily physically. But I enjoy what I'm doing. I certainly admire you and your wife's generosity with Uncle Sam. While it's nice to take care of so many people with other people's money, and you have no problem with that, there are others that do. And we read about those concerns every day. I've even written about such concerns. There is a fundamental liberty implication in that issue, which as someone who has studied the constitution, causes me great concern. But there is something else that bothers me with the nation's current path and I see it with my own children and with my friend's children. I have 3 daughters and 2 are extremely bright. Both are high honor roll in all honors classes. They study hard and barely leave their desks. My eldest has to work a lot harder for her grades but she tries. All are gravitating to the science and math fields. When they talk about what schools they want to go to and what careers they want to enter, I noticed that they have downgraded their goals. Two wanted to be doctors. They don't want to pursue that path anymore because the health field scares them. With all the apprehension over Obamacare, they don't want to get involved and be regulated and have so much government intervention. They think they will be overwhelmed with paperwork and they think that will frustrate them. So now they are talking about careers with less responsibility and less oversight. It breaks my heart. My best friend's daughter, Diana (named after me !) who just started college, made a painful decision on Wednesday. She told her parents that she planned to scrap her plans for medical school and go into nursing instead. She is an amazingly gifted child who is without any doubt on her way to graduating at the top of her class. She said she didn't want the government to look at her income and tax her just because she happens to be successful. She said something really good - which I hope I can recall it with justice. She said she was changing her major as a matter of principle, even though she was giving up her dream job. She said she would rather make less money and live with a good conscience than make a lot of money and have to live with the reality that a huge chunk would go to the government to support people and policies that offend her. I went to school with her father. We were the big chemistry and math geeks !! If you live near Pitt County, then we will have to meet someday. |
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Diane, it would be great if our paths eventually crossed so we could discuss these issues. Tea would be great but it would have to be of the Long Island variety. Yep, I was born in the U.S. and likely not far from you..Englewood, N.J. I grew up in Lunenburg, MA. My grandfather on my father's side was from New Brunswick. My grandparents on my mother's side were from Nova Scotia, I believe. That family history’s a bit vague. My father's mom was from Finland.
To be honest, I think most political divisions stem from whether we were born and raised in urban or rural areas. In most rural areas, folks have lived next to one another for generations. When someone's in need of assistance, it's usually readily available from friends, neighbors, and local organizations. This isn't true in urban areas. When you're down and out, it's a dog-eat-dog world and you can only hope that some help will come to you and those you support in the form of government assistance. My wife and I received WIC after my first son was born. I was working 60-plus hours/week in kitchens while finishing up my Bachelor’s on the GI Bill. I’m exceptionally grateful for the free diapers, milk, cereal, bread, etc. we received and I’ll always be happy to give back. I’ve since earned my Master’s in information science. I’m an academic librarian and I can honestly say I can’t imagine a better profession. My wife is a project manager at a large law firm. I think she’s outrageously well-compensated and, in addition to her salary, she gets outrageously large bonuses. She’d argue with me on the “outrageous” part. But neither of us complains when 36% or her bonuses go to Uncle Sam. I know there are some who abuse social programs. In the same light, I know there are some EPA and OSHA regulations which are entirely asinine and counterproductive. This situation doesn’t necessitate the elimination of social spending and regulations. I believe some conservatives see flaws in governance and are willing to sacrifice the good for the sake of the perfect. I’m not. There’s room for improvement but the dialog needs to be honest and open. A large part of my job consists of evaluating sources for validity, accuracy, and bias. Unfortunately, most Americans (liberals and conservatives) rely on op/ed pieces from commercial sources. I believe in the value of peer review and I base most of my views on what I read in scholarly journals. What I’ve read in these publications has not supported Romney/Ryan claims about economic issues. I’ve heard the claims that academia is “liberally biased.” But where’s the profit motive? Academics stake their careers on what they publish and review for their peers. PhD’s are hard-earned and they mean nothing once credibility has been sacrificed for a political cause. I’ve read and heard plenty of personal accounts describing Romney’s character. I don’t doubt that he is a truly decent and respectable individual. However, I don’t think he’s capable of wrapping his mind around the adversities some people face in life. I think Obama has this ability. And I think it’s a prerequisite for the presidency. I also think our nation’s political discourse over the last 18 months has been entirely dishonest. I’ve yet to find a reliable source which supports the notion that oil prices will go down if we increase drilling on American soil. To see low gas prices, look at Venezuela. Its oil industry is nationalized and it has the lowest gas prices in the world. The allegedly radical and Socialist nature of Obamacare is equally questionable. The individual mandate was supported by Nixon, Reagan, Gingrich, Milton Friedman, Romney, and the Heritage Foundation. It garnered this support because it mandates individual accountability. And I have an impossible time imagining Obama as a Socialist when he has the backing of Goldman Sachs (in both presidential campaigns) and allows the likes of Larry Summers and Geithner to influence economic policies. As always, thanks for responding thoughtfully to my comments. Diane, I think you’ll always be politically engaged and you certainly shouldn’t feel depressed or dejected because of the election results. Politics swing on a pendulum. That’s part of the problem. If they could only stop mid-swing. |
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You might be right about your analysis, but voters themselves have determined the outcome. I think more should have done their homework. I know you are very sharp and analytical. You've done your homework and you've weighed the costs and consequences and come up with a decision that you believe is in the best interests of the country. Reasonable people can differ in their opinions as to what is the best course for this country. One day we will meet and have a drink (even it its coffee or ice tea) and talk about our differences and ultimately have great respect for each other. I think we already do.
I'm curious. Were you born here? I know you mentioned that you lived in Canada. If you were born in Canada, how long have you lived here. The reason I ask is because I wanted to know if you've noticed a fundamental change in this country over the course of your life. I can honestly say that the country today is nothing like the country I grew up in back in the 70's. And I miss the days when I was able to walk around a clean, safe neighborhood and apply for any job I wanted (and get it!) Everyone got along well back in my small ethnic town in northern Jersey. Everyone looked out for everyone else and the church was the center of town life. My Mom worked up to 3 jobs to keep our house and raise my sister and I, but still found time to join the PTA so she could be in the school system and keep an eye on us. My parents divorced when I was 10. My sister and I were honors students who took our education seriously, even though we often had to come home to an empty house and be responsible for ourselves. My Dad drove a truck and was gone across country most of the time. He didn't make much. Neither my mother or my father would have ever accepted a dime from the government. As they told us over and over again when we were growing up and figuring out what to do with our lives: "We didn't come to this country to take money from others. We came here for an opportunity." Mom was first full generation American (her parents came from Italy). Dad's parents came prior to WWII and in fact his father fought for the US in WWI and died many years after the war ended from complications of a wound that never healed properly. His wife, my grandmother, died from a broken heart. She refused to leave his bedside and when she finally did, she had contracted something she caught in the hospital and quickly sucumbed to it. Dad was an orphan at age 4. He quit school to work to help his foster family out and then joined the Navy. To this day, at age 83, he still drives a bus to earn some money. If my mother, back in the 70's, would have had to go on government assistance, she would have died of humiliation. It would have killed her dignity and self-esteem. She would never have been able to show her face in the community. And that's the way it was growing up in my town of North Jersey. Strong work ethic. Education was the highest priority. Personal responsibility. People got married and then had children. No one in my high school got pregnant. You didn't dare do such things. There was still an unwritten code of conduct and morality. Here is something that John Stossel said: "There's this saying that 1% of the people make things happen, and 9% watch the people make things happen, and the other 90% wake up one day and say, 'What happened?' And I think that's probably true. And the 9% and the 90% don't think that hard about issues." I think that sums up this election. Most people didn't think hard about the issues. I think it was more important that the candidate had a "D" or an "R" next to their name rather than what the best solution is for the problems that face the country. Stossel also noted that the United States is no longer the freest country in the world. It's not second or third or even fifth. It's not even in the top 10. Currently there are 11 other countries which have greater economic freedom and civil liberties than we have. Stossel's prediction is that we will continue to reject an approach based on individual liberty (this means not only have we destroyed the Constitution, but we are on the road to rejecting our Declaration of Independence as well) and will stick with a big-government approach to solving society's problems. We predicts that the dependent class will atrophy and government will have to print more money to pay for the promises that it can't possibly keep - Medicaid and Medicare in particular. In the end, he says, we will continue to have a diminished life and a limited ability to "pursue happiness." (ie, we will continue to fall further down the "Freest Nations in the World" list) This is a bleak future. I'm sure you know how hard it was for me to write this response given how the election didn't turn out as I would have liked. I'm depressed and dejected, for sure. But we must press on. Thanks Michael for keeping me engaged. |
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Diane, I can't help but wonder why your articles are accessible via this website. Your articles and the reasoning behind them are vastly superior to everything else I've found here. You and I disagree on many, many issues but I respect your sincerity. It's clear that love of country and intellectual curiosity are are your driving forces. They're mine as well. I believe I did the rational, intelligent, and responsible thing when I voted for Obama.
The Republicans should have won this election easily. However, they selected a candidate almost entirely lacking in credibility. They focused on petty issues like birth certificates and college transcripts. They labeled Obama, who is obviously in the pockets of the Wall Street elite, as a Socialist. He was heavily backed by Goldman Sachs and an endless line of millionaires and billionaires in both elections. Americans recognized these accusations as absurd, spiteful, and petty. And Obamacare..it requires capable Americans to purchase insurance from private insurance companies. This is a FAR cry from a Socialist agenda. There were countless legitimate criticisms which Republicans could have aimed at Obama. But they went with the most outlandish and lost as a result. |
| I Guess I Just Don't Get It. | In the Past, Editorials, Body & Soul, For Love of God and Country, Op-Ed & Politics, Bloodless Warfare: Politics | Election Day Notes and Notices from Civitas |
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And we need to meet Monday.
Still, "Crazy 'bout the 'Sixties'".