The American 2 Party System

It occurs to me that there are two major parties in the United States. I would not be a supporter of either of these parties, yet I understand that one has to be the clear cut winner in order to get things done. I would not consider myself a Liberal or a Conservative, but rather an advocate for human rights.

 

As I see it, because there are two parties, I see two different views, and I thought I would share how these views occur to me as an advocate for human rights.

 

1) One party seems to want to include the nation into granting everyone basic human rights, and the other party seems to be placing conditions on what they have to be in order to “qualify” for those basic human rights. ie: must be straight, white, wealthy, male ect.

 

2) One party seems to want to have universal healthcare so that everyone can “afford” to be sick, or not die of cancer and have to declare bankruptcy, while the other party sees no need for such a costly program, and would rather conquer other countries than tend to the needs of their own citizens.

 

3) One party seems to see that because of the lack of a significant middle class, that the money for creating a more empowered citizen would have to come from the wealthy, or large corporations in taxes. The other party seems to be apathetic and resistant to this, unwilling to want to help and make they people wrong for being poor and refuse to want to help with their tax dollars.

 

4) One party seems to be making headway in looking forward to renewable resources and technology based research, while the other party hides behind the catch phrase “American Values” and wants to keep America in a 1950’s McCarthy mentality of fear-based ideology.

 

5) One party has a leader of African-American decent, and the other party seems to use the distain of having a black man govern them as a battle cry as to why “America isn’t working”, as if the colour of the man’s skin makes any difference.

 

6) One party is interested in giving you the choice and let each citizen use his/her freedom to decide on the issue of abortion, and the other party is interested in telling you that you are wrong for being pro-choice, because their values say so.

 

7) One party seems to regard religious freedom as universal, whereas the other party regards the same belief and rights only if you are of a Christian based religion.

 

8) I don’t want to even touch gun control as a topic, because it’s such a ridiculously written amendment in the constitution, as it applied to how the land was governed 250 years ago. Having “the right to bear arms” still in there shows how stupid and backwards the government has been in the first place for not taking out this outdated law. Period.

 

9) One party seems to be a protector of the underdog, and the other party seems to be the owner and safe guarder of an elitist organization with limited membership possibilities often referred to as a Good ol’ Boys Club.

 

10) One party tells you what is possible, whereas the other party tells you what to be afraid of. -Possibility vs. Fear Based mentality is what stops most people dead in their tracks. This is why one party is always looking for change, and the other party fears change.

 

I want to be clear that this is simply my own perspective as to how I see the parties views and values, and how I interpret what both embrace in their core.

 

True freedom always allows for choice. What it doesn’t say is, “You can only have this, if you believe what I believe” For example, I don’t morally agree with abortion. However, it doesn’t matter what I agree with. I live in a free society that offers choice and freedom to choose to do as they like with their own body. Whether I agree with it or not doesn’t make it right or wrong, it only makes it my opinion. Freedom also means that you grant somebody the right to disagree with you or your beliefs, and that it’s ok to do so. It doesn’t mean that you can grant religious freedom, but you can’t put a mosque or a synagogue on the street I live on because I am a Christian. In short, it means that everyone has the same rights and freedoms equally.

 

But we don’t want this do we? No, we want to live in a world of dominating others so that we can feel secure in our powerful place of being. If we really wanted everyone to be equal, we wouldn’t still be having the conversation about gay marriage, for example because we only want to grant freedom if it agrees with our moral code or if the Bible says it is right.

 

By the way, I love it how people claim that homosexuality is an abomination (and it does say so in the Bible) yet there are a thousand other things in the Bible or in the 10 Commandments that they don’t pay any attention to. Say, like for example, Thou shall not Steal, Commit Adultery, and we could go on and on with this, but I will take it that you are getting my point here.

 

So in conclusion, if you saw the two parties like this, what would you call my view?

 

Remembering Past Loves

Growing up, I have had many loves in my life. They all varied, of course, but I know that when I was involved in each one of them, they were all very significant. My emotions were heightened, and it seemed like there was nothing more real or important in that moment. Thoughts would go through my mind about running away together and have it be just me and her against the world, and I was prepared for that.

 

Occasionally, I would write these feelings down in forms of emails, letters, or journals. Every once in a while, some of these writings would surface and in reading them, I would be transported back to a time when I loved more completely than I ever thought I could have.

 

However, reading this after the fact was something like travelling back in time. I would recognize that it was my writing and feelings at the time, yet I was reading them through a multitude of filters. Events happened, things were said, feelings changed, and the person I was now was certainly not the person who had written those feelings down. I was now listening through a resigned and cynical view, and for a moment I asked myself, “What happened there? Where did that person, where did that love go? It was so real, it was so vibrant!” And now it was simply reduced to a lot of meaningless words strung together on a piece of paper.

 

I’ve also witnessed it though countless weddings I’ve attended where the people were so in love and wanted to share it with the world, only to have them break up later, and despise each other with such a destructive nature. It makes me think how this was all possible, and what the path was that took us all down it. A part of me wants to show this evidence to my ex lovers and say, “Look how in love we were here. Is that all gone now?”

 

I know that looking back at all of these old letters and emails that I have blocked out much of the wonderful memories; so much so that it surprises me that I could forget them so easily. A feeling of sadness overcomes me for the loss that I have allowed to slip away, and with it, the possibility of something that never was. I wonder what I could have done differently, or how I could have been cause in the matter to make that go towards a place of exponential love.

 

Yet, there these letters remain. Pieces of my history that have now contributed to how I now see the world, based on the events that place me where I stand inside in the present moment.

 

It is my choice in how I see these love affairs, and how I allow them affect my heart moving forward. I could choose to be bitter and angry about it, but I’m clear that this only makes my future partner pay for the sins of my past, and not hers.

 

So, really the only choice is to be thankful for this experience, and the time that I shared inside of that wonderment called love, each and every time. -For I will always declare that it is always more agreeable to love with all of your being for the briefest of moments and then lose it, then to never have felt that love at all.

 

And in my journey of this life, I work on this process everyday. It’s not always easy, but then again nobody said that life would be; they only said it would be worth it…

 

And they were right.

American Values

American Values

 

It seems to me at this time of the year when Americans elect themselves a new President that there is a void of national unity. There is a division that separates the Democrats and the Republicans which impacts their view on being Americans.

To me, the problem lies in not in being conservative or liberal, but in how these two parties see America and Americans moving forward. One of these catch phrases I keep hearing is “American Values”, and it is this phrase that I would like to address today.

It occurs to me that the Founding Fathers created the nation of the United States of America out of a systematic belief or value, that all men were created equal. Of course, they wanted freedom for themselves, yet would not grant the freedom of slaves, and many of the Founding Fathers were in fact slave owners. So, in the view from 2012, the values of 1776 were quite ridiculous.

Almost 100 years later, there had to be a civil war to provide the constitutional right to ALL Americans regardless of colour or religious beliefs that freedom was a right, and not a privilege. More men died in the civil war than all subsequent wars in American history including WW1, WW1, the Korean and Vietnam wars, to provide that unity that America was not a slave, and non-slave nation. In fact, in all the wars that the United States has fought in, they declare it in the cause of freedom, and the American way of life. Yet at home, on their own soil, many of their own citizens and elected officials are always fighting for basic human rights that wealthy white people have enjoyed for centuries.

The idea of capitalism really dictates the view of the individual outworking the next person to get as far as they can in society in any manner they can get it. Creating a society of individuals will get the elite higher, and keep the lower masses at bay. This has been the reoccurring theme in the United States since its birth as a nation. The rich don’t want to share their wealth and means so that the betterment of the society they surround themselves in gets any further. In fact, it only serves them to keep the common man down, which further divides the nation into classes.

This has been the historic view of the United States of America.

The upper class is not interested in empowering the lower classes for fear of losing their place in society. They are only interested in being wealthy Americans, and not having to share that their nation will be a better place to live for the average person. It is this greed and unwillingness to share for the common good that has created great wealth in America, and why it has also divided itself in political parties.

If the average American was committed to the United States to being a great place for everyone to live, there would be no opposing the National Health Care system that makes the U.S. the only superpower in the world that cannot offer basic health care to everyone of its citizens equally. It would make sure that everyone has the right to education at every level because it just makes sense that an educated nation creates more prosperity than a nation of ignorance. It would also make sense that every single person had the right to the pursuit of happiness regardless of religious belief, sexual orientation, colour, creed or any other bias that we would use to dominate others for living their lives the way they choose to live it.

Freedom is choice. For some reason, it seems to me that the people who cry out for a “return to family and American values” forget that these are the values that discriminated against millions of their own citizens inside of a constitutional promise of the same freedom they enjoyed. These people don’t want freedom, they want to dominate anyone who doesn’t see life their way, and dominate them to live it the way they think it should be lived in their own set of values.

This is the exact reason why the Nation of America was formed, so that its people could enjoy religious freedoms away from a society that judged them not on what they did, but who their parents were in that society. Now, almost 250 years later from the Declaration of that Independence, the principle is still being fought against inside of what was created for ALL men and women. The nation was created for RELIGIOUS freedom, not which kind of Christianity you are.

It is my view that a party of people looking back to the way things were in the past, will always try to keep the nation from looking forward towards the future. Those committed to the future of what it can do proactively to help EVERY single person live a wonderful life with every opportunity to make it great, deserves my vote.

By building a nation of people together, and not a belief system divided against each other, is the way that creates a more powerful, balanced and productive society. Countries with only upper and lower class systems are not committed to being great. Instead, they are only interested in keeping that population impoverished so that it never has the chance every human deserves by the belief system that is Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

So when America goes to the polls on Tuesday, we will see what it is that their citizens are committed to; The betterment of the citizen, or the betterment of their society of citizens.