One Road To Take: The 2012 Election

Greetings all!

I’d like to wish a happy Labor Day to all my readers from the United States. I hope we’ve all enjoyed a day of rest in celebration of the many achievements organized labor has made over the years for our society. This week, I’ll be passing my first and final judgment on whom I think should win the 2012 presidential election. I have postponed making this post because I wanted to wait until the general election season had officially begun and both conventions had passed. I’ve decided to not wait for the DNC to end, as Barack Obama will be the only nominee there. It would be pointless for me to wait, as we already know with absolute certainty that he is running and how he is doing so. I specifically wanted to wait for the RNC to formally nominate someone, and that has now occurred; Mitt Romney is officially the Republican nominee for president. As such, it is time I tell you what a communist hopes for in this election. This week’s quote comes as a sort of in-joke between me and my friends, in that for many years Sweden truly has been doing better than many modern European nations both economically and socially. While not absolutely true in every aspect, we cannot deny that Scandinavian nations typically best the rest of Europe in many areas. But enough of my playful jabs at Europe.

Many people in the news media hail this election as the most important of them all. I would disagree wholeheartedly. The election of Abraham Lincoln was far more important; so was the first election of FDR. However, I won’t say this one is as unimportant as, say, the re-election of FDR for the fourth time (it was essentially inevitable at that point). This election certainly will determine some of the rules and traditions campaigns of the future will follow. This election will also determine how America has reacted to our recovery from recession, and whether we move away from our questionable past or embrace it. Either way, it’s obvious by now that the current political climate has left America bitterly divided, and this division will likely continue for years to come. When people get angry about Oreo’s supporting gay marriage, you know things have gotten out of hand (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/oreo-pride-rainbow-stuffed-cookie-sparks-boycott/).

I’ll be completely honest; if given the choice who I would vote for at this moment, it would be neither of the main candidates. Personally, I’d be casting a ballot for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Should you wish to learn more about her and the Green Party platform, check out their website here: http://www.gp.org/index.php. However, at the same time I realize that the probability of a third party candidate winning one of our elections is smaller than the probability of a butterfly causing you serious bodily harm. And so, I’ll be speaking solely on the two main party candidates.

Deciding who I’d rather see the election won by is easy. I’d much rather see a weak Democrat in office than a strong and active Republican. Specifically, I fear a Mitt Romney presidency. I can’t say that such a presidency would destroy America, or anything close to such an extreme. However, I can say a Republican victory would definitely confirm and change many things in the eyes of the electorate. Let me preface this by reminding us all of what led to the Obama presidency; two terms of a Bush presidency. This is where I view America as having declined significantly. We started two costly and illegal wars, all while driving up budget deficits and letting the classes become more and more divided. And in the meantime, we did little to nothing to advance our society; if anything, we backtracked. The reason why Obama was able to win in 2008 was because Americans had realized the consequences of running a nation like a business, and we were sick and tired of a government that neglected some of our very own in favor of others. It seems we’ve forgotten all this, because just four years later many of us are ready to revert to those exact same policies which got us into this mess. I’d very much like to look at every Romney supporter and waggle my finger at them, but I can’t do that. I can, however, explain why I would be justified in doing so.

Romney has not revealed much of his intended policies; this makes it somewhat harder for me to predict what exactly would occur under his presidency. I cannot say how extreme his policies would be if elected. However, I can predict with some certainty at least what direction his policies would take. One thing Mitt Romney has promised is absolutely no defense cuts, so I’ll start with that. I realize that many Americans have jobs in the military, and we would hurt somewhat to lose many of those jobs. At the same time, let me show why cuts in defense are in our interests. We already outspend many nations on defense, so what have we got to show for it? Not much, really. We have not had significantly more or less terrorist attacks than other developed nations with less military spending have had in recent years. Much of our military spending has been on offense rather than defense in the past decade of war, and the results so far are grim; those tracking the total Afghan war deaths in the Washington Post know by now that number exceeds 2,000 American deaths. This number doesn’t factor in Afghan military or civilian deaths, either. So let me ask; is spending so much on defense necessary if we’re just going to be letting our own people die and suffer in the process? I know terrorism is a threat, but not big enough a threat that we need to direct huge amounts of our GDP towards fighting it. We can’t destroy an idea, and the best way to protect ourselves from it is not to shoot it in the face. We must concentrate on educating ourselves about why such an idea exists, and use diplomacy to tear away its principles. If we set a better example and develop a better foreign policy, terrorism will have no legs to stand upon. And imagine the money that could be saved should cuts be made; that money could be used to pay for our debts, or could be reinvested in order to boost our economy. It’s not an easy choice to make, but it’s a necessary one. We can’t let our economy become entrenched in war economics; eventually, all wars must end.

I’ll be covering just two more points, as they are the ones I can best predict and make a point on. First is the healthcare debate. Romney has promised that he would begin the process to repeal Obamacare the day he takes office. Let me start this by noting just how humiliating this is. Really, we’re going to start a presidency by simply trying to undo what the last guy did? If we let that kind of thing happen, we’re just going to have cycles of presidents undoing their predecessors, resulting in a stagnation of policy that will ruin us. And secondly, Obamacare really is a good thing when you take a long look at it. There are flaws, of course; it leaves far too much wiggle room, and depends too much on private companies for my tastes. However, we also must take into account how many people are uninsured in the United States right now: about 50 million (http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/27/politics/btn-health-care/index.html). This is horrifying. We can’t sit here and wait for these people to get injured or sick; it will inevitably happen with a number that large. By keeping ours a system of non-universal healthcare, we can guarantee that some of these people will likely suffer or even die because they cannot afford the care they need. It sickens me to know that many of us like Mitt Romney would happily let this occur; we can’t allow our own to suffer when we have the chance to end it. Obamacare may not extend coverage perfectly, but it begins the process. And that first step is what it takes to make progress.

Lastly, I’ll be looking at education, because it matters very much to me at this moment. I’m a high school senior, and I will be applying to colleges soon. I will no doubt be applying for scholarships and loans no matter what, and I’d very much like to be able to pay off my education costs before I’m, say, forty years old. I’d also like to avoid defaulting on my loans, which many students have had to do. I say all of this because I can very much see what Romney would do to education as president; he would likely cut funding for public institutions and for public loans in cost-cutting measures. This is the absolute worst thing we could do to ourselves. Republicans complain about the debt we may be saddling our younger generation with; how can they say this and then wish to defund said generation’s education? Education is a powerful tool that allows us to rise up through the classes and make better lives for us. If only those with money at the outset can become educated, we create a plutocracy where only the rich have the education to get high-paying jobs and therefore have enough money to influence politics. We can’t allow this to happen; plutocracies don’t work, and we will fall if this path is set forth upon. We must more properly fund education; every child who is smart deserves to make something of those smarts. Every actor deserves a chance to shine, and every person deserves to become educated at least through college. If you can provide a reason why education is not a right to me, I’d be happy to hear it.

That is all for this post, and I hope I’ve provided enough for you all to go on. I can be contacted at my email zerospintop@live.com, my Facebook, Google+, Steam, Twitter, or DeviantArt accounts. Good night, and this is KnoFear signing off.