Last-Minute Thoughts on Election Day

It's election day, but this post isn't about  who I think you should support.  It's just a few last-minute thoughts that have been running around in my head in the past few weeks. It'll be the last post on politics for a while -- at least, as far as I can predict. =)

1.  Democrats do, in fact, have moral values.

2.  The word "liberal" is not dirty.  It just indicates a belief in the idea that the government shouldn't get to tell you whom you can marry or what you can do with your body.

3.  People who say "Let's put God back in America again" (as the billboard down the street from my house pleads) are suggesting the Constitutional framers put him there in the first place.  The framers were pretty freaked out by government-regulated religion, so this is misleading. 

4.  The founding fathers, while admirable in some regard, were not the keepers of Christianity or virtue.  Ben Franklin was a man-whore.  Thomas Jefferson slept with his slaves. At one point, John Adams was more fond of a monarchy than a republic.  Very few were Christians; some were Deists, if they claimed a religious belief. None of them wanted equal rights for women or other marginalized figures. The 18th century really isn't the most idyllic time, so wanting to restore its "values" doesn't really make much sense. 

5.  People who vote for Barack Obama are not anti-America, or insane, or morally defunct. People who vote for John McCain aren't gun-waving Bible-thumping idiots.  Most people have given a lot of thought to the candidate they're supporting. Maybe I don't agree with McCain's policies, but I can still respect voters who disagree with me.  

6.  People who wear flags (in any form), live in small towns, or enlist in the military are no more American than I am.  We are equally American, whatever that means.

7.  There is no real America and fake America.  There's no "America."  All nations are constructed. Most are stolen from someone else. 

8.  All people who run for president are, to a degree, elite.  It's not a bad thing. I want the person running the country to be better than I am.

9.  Just because the media talks about how volatile John McCain's election has been doesn't mean it is "in the tank" for Obama.  Reporting the facts, just because they're upsetting to one political party, does not indicate bias.  So invoking the phrase "liberal media" doesn't mean that the news organization in question is making up information, just because that information happens to be unfavorable.  

10.  None of us is red or blue.  We're all just people, living in the same country, together, no matter who wins or who loses.  

11.  Fear is no reason to vote for or against a candidate.  If Barack Obama becomes president, we are not going to become an Islamic socialist anarchy.  If John McCain becomes president, we are not going to turn into a theocracy.  People who resort to politics of fear are relying on an argument ad metum fallacy to sway your vote, which is, by its definition, faulty logic.