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by Doug Berger
July 22, 2004
The election season is coming up as the two major parties have their conventions and the campaigning begins in earnest.
Probably unlike most people I pay attention to what the current elected people are doing in their jobs and I try to be informed on the issues and players of the day.
The 2004 Presidential election will be one of the most important elections in many years. Our country has become more polarized on the different issues. You have economic, cultural, and security issues as major trends this season.
I have decided that my vote will NOT go to George Bush. I will not vote for him and I am encouraging others not to vote for him. Of course one could say I am a just a liberal elitist who hates America, but I am not either of those things. In fact, my vote for the other candidate this year is not because Bush is a Republican. I am not voting for him because I love my country and I feel Bush's administration is the one that is at odds with what America is all about.
Here then are some of the reasons I will not be voting for George Bush in 2004:
Bush is dishonest. Sure all politicians lie to get elected but few if any have lies that get people killed. The Iraq war has never been part of the so-called "war on terrorism". The war in Iraq has pissed off more Arabs making them ripe for recruitment into terror groups. Bin Laden is still at large. Bush claims we are safer now that Saddam is out of power yet in a recent campaign speech he told the crowd if re-elected he would make America safer. So which is it?
Bush has reduced our civil rights with the passage of the Patriot Act and wants to further erode our rights with Patriot Act II. The acts allow law enforcement to hold people without charges and access to lawyers for just being suspected of terrorism. It relaxes the rules on wiretaps and other electronic surveillance. It allows the FBI to find out what books you have checked out of the library or purchased from bookstores. It is no surprise that local law enforcement is now using the act against suspects in regular crimes.
Bush's heavy tax cuts and deficit spending is the worse since the Reagan Era. It didn't work then and it isn't working now. Ohio has lost about 232,000 jobs since Bush took office and the President is doing nothing to help the people who actually drive the economy - the middle class.
Bush and the Republicans continue the cultural war we have been in since Reagan. Average Joe Sixpack who supports Bush may not have a job in 2005, if Bush is re-elected, but gosh darn it those homos won't be allowed to marry. Joe won't have decent health care but by gum they ain't going to take God out of the pledge. The GOP is not your friend Joe, they only want to dangle shinny objects to distract you while they send you to the poor house as their real friends get richer.
Bush is on a mission from God. He has said as much in interviews and speeches. Normally we laugh at such statements or worry because the person maybe unstable. In some cases, a SWAT team is called in and the person spends time in a rubber room. From grants to religious groups to vouchers, Bush has done much to wreak the wall of separation between church and state. The Republicans continue the lie that God is in danger here in the US from activist judges. The fact is the judges who rule against obvious state/religion entanglement do so based on the traditions this country was built on. It is Bush and the Republicans who want to turn the US into a Theocracy.
Those are my top reasons for not voting for Bush. All are based on a review of the issues involved and a reasonable consideration of the facts.
