Partisan

Ok, I gave it a couple days, and several beers, and I still don't feel good about Obama. But, I digress.

Everyone's talking about non-partisanship and how it's the only way that our country can survive (a statement that seems quite contradictory if you really think about it). It was perhaps most on everyone's mind in this campaign. We had Joh McCain, famous for "reaching across the aisle," and Barack Obama, who would supposedly bring an end to partisan politics altogether.

Now that Obama has been elected, I don't see partisanship going anywhere.

Of all the Senators in Washington, "That one" has the most liberal voting record. More liberal than even Ted "I-murdered-a-woman" Kennedy. How is someone from that far on the left supposed to be able to reach to the other side?

Then you have his offer to Rahm Immanuel to be his Chief of Staff, his first administration appointment. Yes, good ol' Rahm - the man who is so very non-partisan, that he had this to say about the Republicans: "They can go fuck themselves."

Fantastic.

It was Obama himself who essentially called all of his opponents in the campaign racists. "They're going to try to make me seem scary," he said. "He doesn't look like all the Presidents on the money. Oh, and did I mention he's black?"

Who said that? Who, in any campaign, commercial, add, public address, said this besides him? He's the one trying to make his followers hate us!

How non-partisan is it to say that a certain group of people on the other side, in an instance where you were unaware that you were being recorded, are just "bitter" and "clinging to guns and religion" out of "antipathy towards people who aren't like them"?

What about this man gives anyone the idea that he will rid the country of partisan politics?

"He said he'd bring CHANGE!" Yes, "change" like the (failed) economic policies of Jimmy Carter, and appointing that oh-so-eloquent member of the Clinton administration.

But, really, is partisanship really as bad as we think? Maybe. But here's what I dislike: partisanship for the sake of partisanship. Most of the time, IMO, the truth is very partisan. If the correct way to go favours one side, I don't want it getting being altered in the name of some feel-good, let's-all-get-along attitude. Compromise can destroy perfectly good solutions.

I believe that the cure for ills caused by partisanship is not the seeking of compromise, but the willingness of people to be convinced that their opinion is just wrong and to suck it up.

I look at it this way. I'm a Christian. I believe that I have found the correct way to live my life, and that God and the Bible are the true guides for said life. So when I need to make a decision, an attitude of "non-partisanship" would dictate that I seek other friends of differrent religions to see what they have to say. But I know that what I have is right, so I don't need to. Rather "narrow-minded," but being narrow-minded is ok when you're right. Sure, you don't have to be an ass about it, but you also don't have to be compromising, either.

Another great problem is what most people think non-partisan actually looks like. It would seem that many in the popular media and celebrities believe that "progressive" is non-partisan. They just think it's the way it should be. So, when comedy lampoons conservatives, and the media drools over liberal policy, they think it's normal and mainstream. This could explain why just about all accusations of partisan polotics are aimed at the right, when the left is just as guilty.

I think that's all I wanted to say. Don't feel like proof-reading and adjusting like I normally do.