The Case For Obama

I’ve been considering writing a post about why I’m voting for Barack Obama in November, but I’ve been too busy to sit down and actually write it all down. Thankfully, my friend Joe has written an excellent case for Obama with positive reasons to vote for Obama.\
On top of all of the things Joe mentions, for me, this is the first time I’ve been able to vote in an election where I’m voting for someone. I like Obama. I’m happy that we finally have a presidential candidate who made it through the primaries that is intelligent, thoughtful, and stands for things I actually agree with, that isn’t entirely beholden to the party machine or big business. I think Obama is a great antidote to the last eight years, and I won’t hesitate at all to vote for him. In 2004, I voted against Bush. In 2000, I voted against both parties by voting for Nader (not like it mattered, Virginia was going for Bush and everyone knew it).\
For me, it’s all about intelligence, thoughtfulness and how I think the candidates will do actually governing, not about an individual issue. I think Obama has the perfect temperament to be president and actually fix a lot of the damage done by Bush & Company. He won’t be able to fix it all, and I don’t expect miracles, but he’ll surround himself with the best people for the job, not the ones who paid the most. He’ll make sound decisions based on facts, not gamble with lives based on hunches and forgeries.\
This isn’t a vote against McCain or his ridiculous pick for VP. I don’t agree with them on anything, or what’s become of their party and what they did to our country, but that doesn’t matter. I’m happily voting for Barack Obama.\
If you’d like to try to convince me, you can save your breath. I’ve heard them all, listened to McCain’s talking points and positions – there’s no way in hell I’d ever vote for him again. He betrayed everyone who supported him in the 2000 election (and I did) by spending the last eight years cozying up to the worst extremes of his party, and his choice of Sarah Palin proves it. She is the antithesis of everything I believe in. She doesn’t believe in science, wants Creationism taught in our public schools and is wrong about pretty much everything else… extremely wrong. How can I endorse that kind of stupidity? It’s just not going to happen, so, like I said, save your breath.\
Update: Andy asked in the comments (which aren’t showing up for some reason… I swear it’s a bug and not intentional) to re-address Palin’s stance on Creationism, and I’ve found another report from the same source as the one above that’s very well attributed that shows her stance on the subject and others. That she hasn’t pushed for it to be taught in school is small consolation: she uses all the same code words that every other creationist uses when trying to inject misinformed Christianity into public schools. That Creationism exists at all is a stunning tribute to modern American Christianity’s misunderstanding of the Bible, its translation over time and the nuance of the language it was originally written in. Instead of focusing on the parts of the gospel that are really important, like the Sermon on the Mount (you know, “blessed are the peacemakers“), the Religious Right has twisted religion to be about war, hate and shunning those that are different by selectively ignoring the many parts of the New Testament where Christ contradicts and supersedes the harsher laws of the Old Testament. It doesn’t belong in government, and I want nothing to do with it. She said even more outrageous things in her speech last night. For example, “The Iraq war is a task from God.” You have got to be kidding. The Iraq war is the biggest mistake our country has made in my lifetime, has cost the lives of over four thousand US soldiers and untold thousands of Iraqi civilians, fomented terrorism the world over and destroyed our reputation as a country. What happened to “love thy brother as thy self” or the other things that, you know, Jesus actually said:\
bq. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy … Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.\
I don’t understand how that’s not abundantly clear to any Christian of any denomination or sect. Anyone who quotes anything else is twisting the truth to suit their own desires.