Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ArthurS
Kerry conceded, Bush is re-elected.
|
repent?
This election clued me into somthing that I should have noticed last election. We are a country divided, and we're divided along some very old lines. If you look at the red v. blue map of the election, you can almost see the Mason Dixon line... yes, this country is *still* fighting the Civil War, 150 years later.
I guess it was something I've always known unconsciencly. Southerners still feel like "them city folk" look down on them and consider them second class citizens. And to be honest, I think most Northerners (and to a lesser extent West Coasters) do think of Middle America and the South to be inferior.
The problem this creates, is that the South ended up voting for Bush simply because Kerry is a Northerner. Nevermind both candidates went to the same Ivy League school, nevermind their qualifications and experience (or lack thereof)... Southerners feel like they identify with Bush's constant ridicule by the "big city" media, and vote for him because of it. Frankly, it's a rediculous reason to pick a President... it's like picking your doctor because you like his car. I've even heard people say they like Bush because he seems like "one of the guys you'd meet at the local bar and have a beer with". How quaint... however, I'm pretty sure I don't want any of the people I've met at a bar to be running the free world... I'd like someone a bit more qualified.
Many Bush supporters in the South cite "moral convictions" and "religious beliefs" as their reasons for picking Bush, but IMO anyone that uses those reasons is either fooling themselves or plain stupid. Bush has a record of being a drunk party animal... not exactly made of some ideal moral fiber. Plus I can only imagine the things he must have to tell his priest at confession every Sunday considering all the semi-truths we get out of the Whitehouse regarding Iraq and the war on terror. Most people that voted for Bush on moral and religious grounds are either following the directions of the fundamentalists/evangelicals to simply "vote Repulican" or are simply using morals and religion as an excuse to justify not voting for a Northerner.
Now, I'm not saying that Kerry would have been able to fix all our problems, I just personally have no confidence in Bush's ability to run this country. The last four years have seen our country's economic and forign relation fronts collapse. We took a huge budget surplus and the unparralleled world unity that followed 9/11 and squandered it into the largest deficit on record, and probably the most hostile international environment ever.
Bush or Kerry aside, what *really* worries me is how split this country is. During the Civil War, President Lincoln recognized that a split Union would never amount to what a united Union could. It was the vast agricultural base that was the platform for which our industrial/technological grew on. Without unification, the US would have probably been something akin to England or France with regards to world power, while the Confederacy would have been something like Canada is to England. The greatness of the US, and our "Super Power" status would have never been realized. Without the North, the South would just be farms, and without the South the North would have just been a Trade state unable to be self-sufficient.
But the combination of our corruption-riddled two-party system and our divided population has resulted in garbage candidates and in-fighting. It honestly fear we're riding a knife edge right now. If the Republican majorities in the Whitehouse and Congress don't make great strides over the next 4 years... hell, over the next 4 months... we may slip down the slope towards another Civil War. We're as divided as we've ever been right now. George Bush ran in 2000 under the pretense of being a "great unifier"... it's been four years and nothing's been unified (just look at the 2000 red v. blue map next to this years), he needs to get to work on healing the division in our nation. The War on Terror, the War in Iraq, they're all just smokescreens... the real war is here at home.
And for the record, I'm not posting this to incite or continue the Bush v. Kerry debate. The election is over... true I'm a little bitter, but only because the election results tells a tale of our nation that's scary to listen to. The fact that people are willing to overlook the facts of the current administration and say "yes, let's do it for 4 more years" based on emotional reasons rather than rational ones speaks of a fundamental division in our nation.
</rant>