Ok, so I have been away for a bit, dealing with being very pregnant and starting a business. But I think that it is time for me to say what it is I have to say about the upcoming election.
First, I was incredibly relieved when the debates were over. Let’s just stand outside from our own individual preferences on the candidates. Honestly, if McCain and Obama were not running for President, they were just two business men making their case for a job, who would you hire. McCain was very condescending and downright angry during the debates. He never stated what it was he was going to do for the company, or what any of his plans were. Basically all he did was bad mouth his competition. I am pretty sure that if you talk to any company that is looking to hire someone to take control and improve thier company they are not going to hire someone that can do nothing but point out the flaws in the competition. I want to know what McCain can do, not what he thinks Obama can or can’t do.
Obama, while he was not as hard hitting and demeaning as McCain, he did offer plans, and explanations for what it is was he intended to do. He didn’t bash the competition, actually most of what he did was clarify inaccuracies that McCain was throwing out there. You never saw him make faces while McCain was talking, he was respectful. McCain was not. Do I think Obama presented a strong case as to why he should be hired to improve the company, no, but I do think that he presented a case.
Next, let’s talk about experience. Ok, so McCain’s position is that Obama has no experience to run the country. Just curious, what experience does McCain have? I don’t recall him being President or even Vice President before. So neither of them have experience as President. Neither of them has every been in a position to lead an entire country anywhere. I will also say that you do not have to have experience to know how to improve something. Actually perhaps the lack of experience there is of great benefit. I don’t need to stick my hand into a fire to know that the fire is hot and that I am going to get burned if I do. Please, maybe what we need in the White House is some one that isn’t going to play the same political games that our leaders have been playing for years.
I don’t know how to break it to the rest of America, but the world as a whole does NOT have a very high opinion of our country. If you would all step outside of your little boxes and do some research on your own, and not believe everything the news tells you, you will find out that Americans are not looked upon very favorably by most countries in the world. I would like a President that is going to work to restore the view the world has of America and Americans. And I am sorry, but I want a President that is going to go out and tell other countries that we are done playing nice. Meet with other world leaders and show them that we are not afraid of them, meet with them face to face.
Let’s quickly talk about health insurance. I have been a nurse for over 10 years. I am also an individual, with a family and husband with health problems. As a nurse, let me tell you how much the current health insurance system sucks. I can not tell you how many times in a week I would sit on the phone in the office and argue with insurance companies that would not cover simple in office testing, or out patient procedures that would give an answer to what the patient was facing and the best most effective treatment plan so that the disease did not progress and the patient was not placed on unnecessary medications.
Now, as an individual and a family, I can go to most insurance companies and cover myself and our children, but not my husband. There isn’t an insurance company out there that will insure my husband because of his pre-existing health issues. It doesn’t matter that he is healthy now and has not had any problems in over 5 years. McCain wants to give us $5000 which he will tax, and give to the insurance company to cover our family. My family will only be partially covered, and without insurance we will not even be able to afford my husband’s and our son’s medications. We currently pay an insane premium, followed by a 5500 deductible before the insurance actually kicks in, and our prescriptions are $600 a month.
Obama wants to make available to everyone the same insurance that he has and Senator McCain has. He isn’t telling anyone that they have to do it if they currently have insurance. What he is doing is making insurance available to everyone, which over all will bring down the cost of insurance for everyone. Socialized medicine… my husband’s parents live in Canada. If his mom wakes up in the morning and decides that she is sick and needs to go to the doctor and the doctor orders tests to be done, she calls the doctor, she goes, the tests are scheduled and done. She doesn’t wait and she doesn’t have to pay anything. She is not denied anything. Her health is taken care of. Granted taxes are higher there to help cover the cost of the insurance they have, but if you were to stop and think about it, compared to what you pay now with premiums, deductibles and prescriptions in the long run it will actually be less, and as you age, you are going to need that health coverage more then when you are young and healthy. Through Obama, preexisting conditions are covered, no one is turned away!
Schools, all schools here in America need to be improved. Teachers that want to teach and do a good job at it need to be rewarded. The same benefits that are available in the upper scale white schools need to be available in the inner city schools. If the children that attend those schools don’t feel like anyone cares about what they are doing then why should they try. The need to be encouraged at home and at school.
Abortion, okay, no one is for abortion. Let’s get that straight right now. You are either for the right to make a choice about your own body or you are against that right. I do not agree with abortion, but I do think that it is an individual choice that a female has the right to make on her own without the influence or mandate of government. I worked in Planned Parenthood, and I can not tell you how many young girls would come in with numerous sexual issues including being pregnant and wanting an abortion because they never received the education they needed to be sexually active. Deciding to have an abortion is not an easy decision, and living with that for the rest of your life is not easy either. I also do not believe that forcing a woman to carry an embryo that will become a fetus that will nine months later be born a baby that she doesn’t want to begin with is cruel and unusual punishment. No child should be brought into the world if they are not wanted. Think about the damage that can be done to the growing entity before there is ever a chance for a life.
I also do not think that the man has a say so, he forfeited that right when he chose to use or not use protection. When a man is able to become pregnant and go through pregnancy then they will have the right to decided whether or not a pregnancy can be terminated. Unfortunately abortion falls under the same old laws our country and other countries have where they seem to think that a woman’s body is not here own, but the property of the government and whatever man she is with. We ended slavery… can we please get rid of this as well.
If there is one thing that our country lacks it is accountability. As a whole, America doesn’t take responsibility for what it has done. This goes from the big people I charge all the way down to the “Joe the Plumber” in Ohio. I would like to see people take responsibility for their actions that have lead them to where they are now, this includes our country. We have no business going into another country and tell them how to treat their people and run their country when we can not take care of our own. We have homeless, we have people that are on welfare that need to get off of it, our children are not getting the education they deserve our elderly are loosing what they worked their entire lives for. We need to fix our country before we can go and fix the world. If America was serious about improving the world, then we would lead by example and not through force.
I want a President that is going to address these issues and make America better. WE are not what we used to be. America is not the power it once was. We do not take care of our own people.
I am tired of the smear campaigns. I am sick of Vice Presidential candidates like Sarah Palin who has the brains of a carrot that would rather bad mouth other people then fess up to her own inadequacies and plans.
Ignorance is what fuels the fire that divides this country. Instead of sitting and talking and listening to one another people stick to their misguided beliefs and shut out a person expresses an opposing view.
So on election day, I hope that you make a decision based on facts and research and less on party and bashing. Let this President be someone that will actually work to make this country better, because if you were honest and looked around with your eyes open you would admit that we need a lot of work.
The Original Wisdom of Jen 