The Issues in 2008: My Own Analysis

There’s a good reason “analysis” starts with “anal”: most of the time, people are just plain talking out of their asses. They get the facts (which in a perfect world would stand on their own merits) and attempt to interpret what it all means. Leave soothsayers, oracles, and sages of the past, pundits of today aren’t content to live in the age of information, where raw data hurls itself into cyberspace moment to moment. These folks feel the need to tell you what to make of it, denying you your own abilities. Instead of reading the stars, interpreting comets and eclipses, casting the bones or reading tea leaves, they take election results and try to tell us not just who won but why they won or lost.

Occam's razor stipulates that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". In other words, keep it simple. If one candidate lost, it’s because more people voted for another candidate. As to why, there are probably as many reasons as there are voters.

My problem with these post-mortem pundits is that they attempt to simplify a complicated process in such a way as to guide the candidates to address some issues and downplay others. They want to make the election about which candidates offered the best sound bite. Call me a purist, but I think the best policy is for the candidate to tell us what they would do and would not do if elected. I’m not concerned with their gender, their race, their religion, or anything about their personal lives. If a candidate told me that if elected, they’d likely sleep with half their staff, it wouldn’t phase me a bit, so long as they managed to find time to address the business of governing in between dalliances.

So what are my issues? What would a candidate have to care about to get my vote?

• End the damn war already. Bush was right (for once): mission accomplished. We’ve established there are no WMD’s, we’ve gotten Saddam out of power, we’ve established democratic elections. We’ve got missiles that can be launched from the Pentagon that hit with pinpoint accuracy from hundreds and even thousands of miles. We’ve got satellites that can read a newspaper headline from space. So we leave, and our last edict to the Iraqi people is this: we’re watching, and if you guys pull any shenanigans, we won’t waste our soldier’s lives by sending in ground troops. We’ll simply push a button from here and start blowing stuff up over there until you guys come to your senses. In the meantime, keep up the cheap oil, watch the human rights violations, and don’t allow terrorist organizations to set up shop. Other than that, do whatever you want. We can bring the troops home and let them patrol the borders, just to shut the minutemen up.
• Abortion and gay marriage: these are state issues, not federal. Just shut the hell up about it already. Let each state decide and if someone is pro-life or pro-choice, they can move to whatever state best reflects their particular point of view. End of discussion.
• Education has got to be a priority. A nation of dumbasses is a nation that is easy to control, but also easy to conquer. An educated nation won’t beat the drums of war every time Toby Keith comes out with a new album. We need more doctors, more engineers, more scientists, more computer programmers. We need to pay our teachers a wage that reflects the value they hold. We need to make college affordable for everyone. If we spent the money we’ve devoted to our war efforts to making K-12 education on par with what kids in Europe get, we’d be better off.
• 9/11 did NOT change everything. We’re still supposed to be the good guys, and that means that we do not torture. Ever. Even to save lives. History judges us by our deeds, and I will not explain to future generations why my people’s moral compass failed to find true north.
• Big business needs to keep out of Washington. We’ve all seen way too many issues stemming from corporation’s influence over the government. From having environmental laws written by the companies that do the polluting to no-bid contracts for Halliburton, from insurance companies ruining the healthcare system in this country to Enron, we have had enough. Fix it already.
  
  Who would I vote for? That’s another blog for another day.