SAVE our country

                During the past few weeks, political conversation has been dominated by the presidential debates.  The conversations have covered some trivial topics (bayonets, binders, and Big Bird) as well as key issues such as foreign policy and civil rights, but all any of us really care about is the economy.  The economy broke right before Obama took office, and while no one can deny it is improving, it is recuperating at a slow pace.  Some feel Obama has done a great job in turning the situation around, others feel Romney could do better, but we all agree it still needs to get better.

                Some citizens who are actually trying to contribute to an upswing in the economy have come together to form SAVE (Strengthening America’s Values and Economy).  These citizens, numbering in the millions, are comprised of over 1,900 organizations, ranging from faith-based organizations to small businesses, who all share a common goal: to make sure that Congress attempt to fix the budget in a responsible manner.  The group has united and signed a letter to Congress, urging that any budget plan meet 4 guidelines: 1) protect low-income citizens 2) promote job growth 3)increase revenues from fair sources and 4)responsibly make cuts in wasteful Pentagon and military spending.  The group’s goal is that as our economy is rising, we avoid making the same irresponsible mistakes that landed us in the mess in the first place and affected the nation’s lower and middle classes the worst.

                The letter to Congress has set its sights on tax cuts set up by the Bush administration, and proposed that instead of renewing the plan, we lower the tax cut percentage.  They point out that the average millionaire still receives an average of over a million dollars in tax cuts, and propose a new tax rate that would lower the average tax cut for millionaires to $20,130 (still 20 times larger than the average citizen pulling in $45,000).  The group also opposes our nation’s large, wasteful military spending, calling for cuts to the Pentagon.  Under SAVE’s plan, the Pentagon would cut millions from its budget, and as the letter points out, still be receiving more funding than it did at the height of the Cold War.

                However, the organization’s main goal, is to protect the nation’s lower-class citizens, whom are most affected by the downswing in the economy, and continue to be trampled by Congress’s attempts to fix the budget.  The letter from SAVE strongly pleads for Congress to make their cuts more responsibly and opposes some the cuts to domestic programs such as cutting WIC nutrition aid to over 750,000 women and children, cuts to retirees that left over 734,000 without heat, and reducing educational assistance to 1.8 million low-income children.  The bulk of the letter focuses on how our nation cannot recover by making our poor even poorer and placing cuts on our children’s education.

                In her editorial “Congress Still Has Time To Get It Right”, Deborah Weinstein comes out strongly in favor of SAVE’s plan, and hopes Congress will take it into consideration.  I do too.  While the group calims no political affiliation, it does have a strong liberal bias.  Ms. Weinstein, SAVE, and I both agree that this nation’s military budget is unnecessarily high, and ridiculously wasteful.  To get our economy back on track, we need to start targeting these improvident and extravagant expenses before making cuts in necessary programs such as education.  Both Ms. Weinstein and the letter to Congress make excellent claims about how it does not make sense to decrease spending on ensuring our nation’s lower income receive enough food and shelter while giving billions of dollars in tax breaks to the nation’s wealthiest two percent.  This op-ed piece’s goal is to garner support for the group, and while definitely aimed at a more liberal audience, hopefully citizens from both sides of the political spectrum can agree that as Congress makes delicate decisions about our nation’s budget, they have a responsibility to do so ethically, and avoid the mistakes that led to its collapse in the first place.

BOOO! - There's Atheists in America!!

With Halloween approaching, I recently was looking for a good scare.  So I visited the Fox News Opinions Forum and took a tour of this virtual house of Horrors -through distorted perceptions about Obama, shocking revelations of perceived libeal bias in every aspect of our culture, and past all of the monsters of blatant racism and chauvinism.  However, nothing had the columnists and commentors more scared than a recent study conducted by Pew Research that showed Christianity is on the decline in America.

                According to the data, the number of Ameicans who claim no religious affiliation, or “nones” as they are now referred to, has jumped from 15% in 2007 to roughly 20% in only five years.  That means one out of every five American citizens do not claim to participate in any religion.  Not surprisingly, nearly half of those 20% are under thirty, and will most likely not take up a religion as they age, indicating that the number of non-believers will only increase.  To many members of the GOP, this is scarier than any Halloween costume or scary movie.

                While a study about the rise of secularism may not seem like a major national issue, columnist Fulton Waterloo believes it to be the beginning of the end for thiscountry.  Though he claims to be a moderate, the column struggles to appear non-bias by bad-mouthing liberals for three paragraphs and then devoting two sentences to lightly criticizing conservatives.  He even finds a way to cram in a tangent ranting against Obama and his “liberal morality”.  The article is preaching to the coir, as it is intended for an audience already terrified of young people and their progressive sense of morality, so the author does not have to rely much on presenting facts as much as fear-mongering and please to emotion.

                This article is perfect late-October reading, because the tone of this essay can be summed up as “scared.”  Mr. Waterloo is terrified of the future America he envisions: an atheist president banning the practice of Christianity, and an outright moral collapse of citizenry.  He even feels that these “nones” are almost one big conspiracy, following a contrived set of tenets of their own creation.  He states, “However, upon closer inspection, the "nones" do believe in a system of their own manufacturing: gay unions are of equal merit to traditional marriage; the humanity of the unborn child is not recognized”.  He feels secularism is a religion of its own, with a crazy set of beliefs  its devotees fervently adhere to, and their system poses a threat to the rest of the country.

                However, what frightens Mr. Waterloo most about these “nones” is their perceived lack of compassion – a trait he shockingly compares to the conservatives.  He feels that the only reason people do nice things for others is because a Higher Power tells them to, and without a set of religious values commanding people to behave with compassion, people will simply selfishly resort to doing whatever they want and completely disregarding those less fortunate to them.  In keeping with his thesis statement that the nones represent the worst traits of both parties, Waterloo equates this lack of concern for the impoverished and downtrodden to the Right’s characteristic disregard for the lower classes.

                Like most fears, Mr. Waterloo’s none-ophobia stems from a lack of understanding.  Non-believers are not striving to take over the country and enforce their secular ways on those with belief.  Despite representing 20% of the population, there are still no atheist members of the Supreme Court, only one atheist member of Congress, and an atheist president still seems unlikely in the near future.  The nones are still a minority, and they have no intention of taking over, they simply wish to co-exist with the rest of the population.  But to some, like Mr. Waterloo, anyone in this free nation who subscribes to a belief system different than their own poses a threat.  And that is really scary.

Affirmative Action at Risk

              Texas involved in a race scandal?  No way!  Once again, the Lone Star State finds itself embroidered in heated controversy over race relations.  This time, the issue arise from the liberal capital of Texas, Austin.  The University of Texas went before the United States Supreme Court last Wednesday to defend their policy of questioning race in freshman applications to the school. 

                Abigail Fisher, a white female, claims she is the victim of discrimination from the University, as her application was denied in 2008, presumably because of her race.  The University defends its program of recruiting new students based on their race to promote diversity within its campus.             However, the conflict has escalated to the Supreme Court, and depending on the ruling, status of affirmative action in general hangs on the line.  A federal appeals court upheld Texas’ decision to bias their applications based on race, in accordance with a previous Supreme Court decision in 2003.  However, some of the more conservative members, including Chief Justice Roberts, have expressed an interest in repealing affirmative action. 

                However the ruling against University of Texas turns out, it will have major implications for affirmative action in our schools and workplaces.

Politics Shmolitics

I used to have a bumper sticker that read, "If you aren't completely appalled, you haven't been paying attention".  It infers that if one were to keep up to date with the current state of political affairs on the local, national and international level, they should be disgusted and terrified.  Over the past five or six years, however, I haven't really had the time or energy to be appalled, and have been making attempts not to pay attention.  I grew sick of seeing a political topic turn a pleasant dinner conversation into a heated debate that didn't end until someone became too offended.  Working in the service industry, where most of my income comes from tips, I also learned that it was best to keep my opinions to myself. 
      However, recently my apathy has begun to fade.  I have since begun laying the bricks for a career, and recently purchased a house.  As nearly half of my income now goes to towards taxes, I've begun to take an interest in where my money goes.  I'll still probably die before I ever vote Republican, but as I've gotten a little older, I've noticed a lot of my liberal sensibilities fall away.  As the election nears, a lot of the bickering that drove me away from politics is going to come to a boil, but I am hoping that by acessing the right channels and avoiding a lot of the negativity, I can renew my passion for politics.