Calm
down America
5 October 2004 - Los Angeles Times
Why
do the two major parties’ adherents continue to insist that this
is the most important election in modern history, when the first
debate has made it even clearer that it is not? It’s unfortunate
that the partisans on both sides of the campaign are using this
assertion to encourage emotion over logic, intolerance
over rationality.
Over
something as petty as their preference of president, people are
getting fired, carrying grudges against family, getting arrested,
tearing down and spitting on campaign signs, getting in fistfights,
and - in the case of Knoxville, TN - shooting the windows out of
campaign offices. People are allowing rabble-rousers to get their
blood boiling rather than educating themselves on the candidates’
positions. All of this for what? More of the same no matter which
pro-war, pro-big government, Skull-and-Bones member Yale graduate
gets elected? The first debate underscored the fact that the foreign
policy positions of President Bush and Senator Kerry are exactly
the same - both felt before Iraq that intervention was needed, and
both feel even before Iraq is over that intervention is going to
be needed in North Korea and Iran in the near future. We won’t see
much difference in the upcoming debates on domestic policy, either
- both will pander to the same voting blocks and try to outdo each
other in spending taxpayer money the fastest.
So
calm down America, and if you’re going to vote, do it with your
brain instead of your rage, and have the common decency to allow
your neighbor the luxury of having his own opinion, like he does
for you.
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