lagilman | (no subject)

For once I'm not throwing this open to debate, it's just me getting something off my chest, in hopefully my last specifically political post for a while. Comments are allowed but will be screened, and odds are I'm not going to unscreen any of them unless an interesting point is made.

I really don't understand people sometimes. I look at what McCain/Palin are espousing, what their history implies they will do in the future if given power, and I really don't understand how anyone who doesn't espouse those things -- anyone who thinks that religion should be a personal affair, that women should have the right of determination over their own bodies and their own futures, that males and females in the same work should have the same pay, that an unjustified war is wrong and Big Money should not run the government, etc* -- can say that they will not vote for the Obama/Biden ticket.

Is it a perfect ticket? Fuck no. Is the Democratic party perfect? *hysterical laughter* Fuck no.

Is voting for McCain, or sitting out this election in a sulk, the answer?

Oh fuck no.

If you've ever found a political candidate you could get behind 100%, with no hesitations or reservations or doubts about their long-term truthfulness, mazel tov. The rest of us will make do with the best possible candidate, and go forward from there, because this year the worst possible candidate paints a picture that I, as a female of the educated, uppity, religious minority, fiscally-alert, ethics-minded female persuasion, find dismaying and indeed disgusting. I have a vote, by the grace of the women who came before me, and I will not shame them by not using it.

(and third-party votes are not in play this election, so they're -- to me -- the moral equivalent of sitting it out. It's an abrogation of responsibility)

As a related aside:

College-aged female on subway Sunday morning: "My friend's a die-hard Hillary fan. I mean, really die-hard. So she's not going to vote for Obama. She's voting for McCain."
College-aged male friend: "You're kidding."
Female: "No. It doesn't seem to matter to her that he's, like, everything she hates."
Male friend: "Have you told her voting for McCain makes her racist?"
Female: "That's not funny. I wonder if it would work."

*I'm not even going to get into Constitutional abuse issues, because that's not specific to McCain/Palin but rather endemic to the entire slate of sitting ~~asswipes~~ politicians, and is another Rant entirely