I've recently been engaging in a remote debate with a past student of mine on all the fun topics. I'm wasting my time, I know, but I have time to waste. I like to disagree with people, it makes me think harder about what I believe.
I'm going to repost a comment he made recently after joining the community NObama.com:
My mission for the next few months: help keep Obama out of office and get McCain elected. Since when did being a good speechmaker make you a good candidate for President? Since when did such ethereal values as hope and change become a winning platform and game plan? Since when did "reaching across the isle" manifest itself as being the most liberal senator in terms of voting records. Since when did several short trips overseas give a junior senator foreign policy knowhow? Since when did radical change become a substitute for experience and proven competency. Since when? It may be taboo in a liberal haven like Davis to speak truth to Obama's incompetency and inconsistency and to scorn his rock-star popularity and arrogance, but watch out my Facebook friends, because that is my mission for the next three months.
My pledge: To abstain from personal or unfounded attacks, to stick to the facts and disclose when I am relaying heresay, to remain faithful to a motivation of love of people.
After a comment he made recently about how the first amendment needed to be reigned in a bit, I had a small aneurism, compared with this though, my brain started leaking out my ears.
I respect this kid, he's rather intelligent, a competent writer and one of the best saxophonists I know, so I'm indulging him in debate.
Here goes:
I’d like to concede the point that Obama’s skill as an orator doesn’t exclusively qualify him to be president, but I’d also like to point out that your political consciousness stretches back only over the past eight years, at most. At ten years old, you may not have had the vocabulary or linguistic ability to distinguish Nuke-ular from Nuclear, but as a man leading and representing a nation, public speaking, vocabulary and rhetorical skills are necessary. Any good leader must be able to speak competently for his people. A great leader must be able to comfort, inspire and rally his people with his oratory. Lincoln, Kennedy, Roosevelt; all were great leaders, and all great orators. Being a skilled speaker may not qualify you for the job, but it is a requirement, one on which we lowered the bar considerably in 2000 and 2004.
Since when did such ethereal values as hope and change become a winning platform and a game plan.
Please, sir, go read the declaration of independence and constitution of the United States. Hope for a better life, freedom from a repressive theocratic state. Oh yes, then go read the policies, platform and gameplan he clearly defines on his website.
Since when did several short trips overseas give a junior senator foreign policy knowhow?
Since when did governing a state in proximity to the outlying provincial local governments in Russia mean “foreign policy experience”. I'm sorry he suffered, but since when did rotting in a prison cell for five years qualify a man as a war hero. Since when does being a warrior for a nation qualify a man to broker peace deals and diplomacy? Sorry, that didn’t answer the question.
The answer to your question and all of mine? Never.
But how many trips abroad did Governor Bush or Governor Clinton take, acting on behalf of our nation to gain foreign policy experience before assuming the office of president? How much foreign policy experience did either have? The answer to both those questions is the same.
I have questions for you too, sir:
Since when did experience with the status quo in DC that both parties are blaming for the problems there equate to “proven competency.” And how, if the status quo is being labeled as the problem, is the idea “radical change” even considered an issue? Painting your pet elephant blue doesn’t mean you’re not still going to end up knee high in elephant shit.
Since when did running for the office of the president equate with pushing a religiously motivated conservative social agenda that is at odds with the constitution that the office is sworn to protect?
Since when did a “motivation for a love of people” mean advocating income disparity, not backing a universal health care plan, not spending government money to benefit those Americans living just above (or below) the poverty line and instead, waging exhaustively expensive wars on foreign soil, wars that promise no benefit for any involved.
Since when is it ok for a government to sow discord and fear amongst its people through mass media in order to frame foreign policy issues as it sees fit and draw our attention from our shrinking civil liberties so it can maintain its power and advocate hate and xenophobia against certain groups who make up its citizenry. (When's our next Hate Week?).
Since when has it been ok for the leader of our nation to let his foreign and domestic policy be dictated by his own personal religious beliefs?
How can you even convince yourself that pushing the conservative agenda on legislating Gay marriage is Christlike, when the agenda itself is aimed at making homosexual people “the other;” second class citizens, and unequal before the law when compared with yourself?
I have questions for you too, sir:
Since when did experience with the status quo in DC that both parties are blaming for the problems there equate to “proven competency.” And how, if the status quo is being labeled as the problem, is the idea “radical change” even considered an issue? Painting your pet elephant blue doesn’t mean you’re not still going to end up knee high in elephant shit.
Since when did running for the office of the president equate with pushing a religiously motivated conservative social agenda that is at odds with the constitution that the office is sworn to protect?
Since when did a “motivation for a love of people” mean advocating income disparity, not backing a universal health care plan, not spending government money to benefit those Americans living just above (or below) the poverty line and instead, waging exhaustively expensive wars on foreign soil, wars that promise no benefit for any involved.
Since when is it ok for a government to sow discord and fear amongst its people through mass media in order to frame foreign policy issues as it sees fit and draw our attention from our shrinking civil liberties so it can maintain its power and advocate hate and xenophobia against certain groups who make up its citizenry. (When's our next Hate Week?).
Since when has it been ok for the leader of our nation to let his foreign and domestic policy be dictated by his own personal religious beliefs?
How can you even convince yourself that pushing the conservative agenda on legislating Gay marriage is Christlike, when the agenda itself is aimed at making homosexual people “the other;” second class citizens, and unequal before the law when compared with yourself?
How is the agenda of teaching creationism and denying evolution as scientific fact helpful to the youth struggling to learn something accepted by the rest of the western world? How does this help them develop the critical thinking skills students need to survive in today's world if they are content in their faith and to never ask "Why"?
I know you are motivated to vote based on your religious beliefs. In order to actually answer these questions, I must ask you to step out of the ideology by which you’ve been interpellated. I ask you to look at the issues without your religion, so your answers can apply to all citizens of the United States, not just protestant evangelical Christians.
I know you are motivated to vote based on your religious beliefs. In order to actually answer these questions, I must ask you to step out of the ideology by which you’ve been interpellated. I ask you to look at the issues without your religion, so your answers can apply to all citizens of the United States, not just protestant evangelical Christians.
If anyone else reading this would like to answer these questions, please do.
1 comment:
I've never met this person you speak of. Never talked to them myself. For all I know, they don't fit the generalization. I will say, however, that in my experience, it is simply impossible for the christoconservatives to "step out of the ideology" -- they have drunk too deep of the Koolaid. Removing that common thread would cause their world view to begin to unravel. Things (like gay people, poor people, mexican people, atheists, etc...) would begin to come out of their defined places, and that is just too frightening.
Post a Comment