8. My Vote

For me, the eight years from 2001 through 2008 was the most depressing period of time in my life. It started with an idiot being elected president when a country gave up reason to change for the sake of change. Then there was 911, two wars followed, and the country re-elected the idiot who could not even manage a straight smile. The complete discarding of reason was stupifying and the ensuing sorrow was intense.

Now we are at that moment again.

There are too much noise in all kinds of media these days, a little bit more from a nobody would not make much of a difference -- making a difference is not my point anyways.

I tried my choices on iSideWith.com -- it turned out that I sided more with Jill Stein. I am not a Democrat and I probably will never be one. But I have decided to vote for President Obama.

I haven't figured out how the Republicans got to label themselves the conservatives. In my mind, they have never been conservative on anything for as far back as I could remember. They gave false testimonies in front the world about weapons of mass destruction to start the Iraq war. They told the country that the Iraq war would pay for itself. They make up laws to force their opinions on people. Their stupidity seems bottomless and their hypocrisy knows no bounds. It just seems to me, that if they like hiking the Appalachian Trail so much, we should put them where they belong: In the wild woods.

The Republicans are radicals -- Let's just call a spade a spade.

I admit that I don't personally hate all Republicans. I'll even publicly admit that I voted for one here in Michigan: Governor Rick Snyder the last time around. But I probably will never vote for another one if the GOP stays its course. Bill Maher is right: When you vote for one Republican, they are getting the whole bag of them almost all of the time. Here in Michigan, even Mr. Snyder has to hold his nose to live along his Republican fellows. So, I am guessing, they probably will not like how I will vote in matters on the ballot:

• I think the people who work to earn a living deserves the rights to collectively bargain with (or, should I say against?) the organized money men;
• I believe a new international bridge to Canada is a good thing for the economy of this region;
• I believe Michiganders deserve quality of life, yes, even those who live by River Rouge.

There are still more homework to do. But I think my vote is fairly clear at this point.

2. A Helping Hand

Today is the Michigan primary. I walked into the polling station, there were no other voters. I was informed that I had the choice of picking a ballot for the Democrats or one for the Republicans. I looked at the sample, the Democrat one was really boring: It had Barack Obama as the only candidate for president and Joe Biden as his running mate. So I looked at the Republican sample, which was much more interesting: It had more than a dozen names on the sheet. So I went for the Republican one.

I actually thought long and hard between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum: Romney seemed to at least want to appear to be somewhat moderate that he deserved a bit of sympathy; On the other hand, the Republicans as a whole seemed to want to go to the extreme that they deserved a hand to help pushing them over the edge. These days, the Republicans seem to bend over backwards to get everything their way. I am getting sick of them all by the day. In the end, the evil side of me got the upper hand. So I decided to land a helping hand.

I admit that I am a  heavily biased (against stupidity) independent. But that doesn't mean I am never stupid myself. Now I'll wait and see: I will be against whoever that gets the nomination. If this one does, then I will have to work harder to defeat him.