The Soapbox Archives:
On the other hand, I'm okay with the amendment to allow independent auto repair shops access to the same repair information as the authorized dealers. I've had a lot of crap service from dealerships so if they had to compete with independents on customer service, I think they'd be a lot better.
"Ding-dong! The Witch is dead! The wicked witch is dead!"That's how I felt at midnight after Barack Obama was declared the winner of the 2012 US Presidential Elections. At 9:00 pm, I wasn't worried that Romney showed a big lead over Obama. Ohio hadn't finished counting and I was optimistic that they would go for Obama. The left coast tended to vote Blue and they hadn't come into play yet. The center of the country was all Red, but they just don't have the numbers. This was the end of Mitt Romney's political career and it couldn't have come soon enough.
  - From The Wizard of Oz.
A lot of people were expecting Mitt Romney to come in and fix the economy like a business. However, as President, you can't just dictate orders and expect everyone to jump and do your will. The government isn't all about balancing the bottom line; it's about balancing the needs of the people. However, his only game plan was that Wall Street would flourish by his mere appearance in the White House. The word for that is "magic".
In 1994, he was a liberal running against Ted Kennedy for the senate. He became governor of Massachusetts as a moderate. He was a far right conservative running for the Republican nomination. Towards the end when he finally figured out where the country was as a whole, he became a moderate again. What does this man stand for? How could anyone trust anything this man had to stay? Even if he had supported all my favorite positions, I wouldn't have trusted him to keep his word.
Mitt Romney was out of touch with what really mattered; he forgot that all politics is local. While the economy was bad, it's only a momentary thing. What matters most is what's in the people's hearts. Women don't want to be told by a bunch of white guys what they can or can not do with their bodies. Face it: gay people are here to stay; deal with it. You use the Constitution to *guarantee* rights, not take them away. A hard line on immigrants targetted *all* Hispanics and Asians, even if most of them are here legally. While Mitt Romney's business sense made some companies more profitable, people still remembered that praying to the God of Great Profits meant that you sometimes had to destroy companies (and the jobs) and perhaps send those jobs elsewhere. Letting companies like GM and Chryser die might have made a profit sense but it would have given market share to *foreign* companies (though most of those "foreign" cars are actually made in the US). The median income in the US is about $46,000 a year; if you make less than that, you're part of the "47%". Some of us remember what it was like to be "poor". The country and the world is changing; the whole point of being a conservative is that you *don't*. The Republican Party has to change or it'll become irrevelant.
All in all, this election was pretty good one for me. I think that every candidate and ballot question I voted for won, though I'm not 100% sure about some of the local minor races.
I was less enthusiastic about this election because, like everyone else, I was experiencing election fatigue. I was looking forward to this whole thing being over. This was a pretty nasty campaign and created a lot of bad feelings between friends and family. The influence of Big Money into SuperPACs did nothing except pump a lot of money back into the economy for which we should thank all those billionaires. I knew of one person who was ready to dump all his/her friends of the opposite political persuasion (though, I'm pretty sure I could have convinced him/her that it would have been an unwise move). I hope everyone can take a moment to reflect on their personal behavior during this time and move on.
PS: I had a friend sell off her house, packed up her stuff, and moved down to some Southern-ish state (she really doesn't like cold weather). I guess there's a big difference between visiting some place and actually living there. She encountered a lot of racism down there (and she's a young attractive white woman), including flyers stapled to telephone poles announcing the local KKK meeting. She was harassed because of her Massachusetts license plates and she was friends with people who weren't 100% red-blood white Americans. She was back in Massachusetts a few months later. For that alone, I'm glad Obama won if just for the pleasure of pissing those people off.
PPS: Note to President Obama: I *do* think it's a good idea to increase the size of the Navy. China's going to be a big threat at some point, particularly to our friends in the Pacific. I suggest more money into attack submarines and ASW. To a submariner, there are only things in the ocean: submarines...and *targets*.
Being a US Citizen is a privilege, not a right (says this naturalized US citizen); they *can* kick your ass out. I hope you all fulfilled your civic responsibilities and voted in the election. Remember, if you complain and you didn't vote, you're part of the problem.