Not By A Long Shot

Whenever I hear someone say that they’re not interested in politics and don’t vote, because both parties are virtually the same and voting doesn’t make any difference anyway, I just have to speak up.

The parties are not the same. Not by a long shot. The Democrats and the Republicans represent two starkly different views of human nature and, as a consequence, how society should be structured.

Democrats believe:

1. Human nature is basically good.
2. Human beings can and should aspire to a peaceful, mutually-supportive society.
3. Relations with other societies should be based upon the belief that the large mass of humankind wishes to live in peace and security, and that areas of conflict should be thoroughly understood and addressed reasonably.

Republicans believe:

1. Human beings are basically perverse.
2. Human beings can’t be relied upon to do the right thing, and have to be closely controlled with laws and restrictive social policies.
3. Individuals are basically on their own. You’re responsible for your own actions, but not for anyone else.
4. Other societies act solely out of a concern for their own self-interest, which immediately puts them in conflict with our own. Therefore, any sign of conflict must elicit an immediate and overwhelming negative response. Let the academics worry about the issues later on.

Every election is an opportunity to make a choice in what is an ongoing cultural conflict.

I am clearly a Democrat by conviction.

I believe people are basically good, and that we can fashion a society that houses the homeless, that feeds the hungry, that tends to the ill, and that allows its members to live with hope, in peace and security. I regard a large standing military as nothing more than an organized welfare state with weapons, better put to use building the infrastructure which makes our society strong.

Which is why I’m voting for Barack Obama.