It has been a very long while since I last wrote an entry in my blog. This may be due to the fact that life doesn’t hold so many exciting discoveries when you’re back in your home country and it’s so easy to slip into monotonous routine.
However after watching the presidential debate I’ve made a very exciting discovery. I am now voting for Ron Paul for president.
Just hearing his name will cause most people to subtly smile as they know he will never be elected and is considered a bit “out there” even when they don’t really know anything about candidates or politics at all.
The reason I have changed my mind is to a well traveled person such as myself, he is speaking the absolute truth that many Americans do not want to hear.
The Republican mentality is that of “America can do no wrong.” They believe America must go attack other nations when “America feels threatened.” And therefore, America must attack the terrorists before they attack the USA. However, Ron Paul is saying that one of the reasons people might want to attack America just may be due to American foreign policy of “supporting dictators,” “attacking other countries” and bullying other nations.
And he is absolutely right.
The thing about most (if not all) of most of the candidates, Republican or Democrat, and like most Americans is that they’ve never lived abroad, learned another language, and thus can never understand a different mentality especially that of another culture. Thus, the thinking is always “us vs. them.” Therefore, when Ron Paul explains that it is the bullying of other countries which creates resentment of America, the other candidates attack him by saying he is reading “their propaganda.”
Every experienced traveler knows that a big portion of the world has really come to despise America due to the foreign policy. Terrorists are not attacking us because “they hate our freedoms,” as the Republican candidates would have us believe. Terrorists attack for a variety of reasons to be sure, but if we fall back to 9-11 as the Republican candidates often do, shouldn’t we look at where those terrorists came from and who is currently supporting their government? Perhaps it is not a question of who supports who but I’m sure the hijackers didn’t wake up one day and say “ya know,, I really hate Americas Freedoms. Maybe I’ll go hijack a plane and crash it into one of their buildings because of those damn freedoms.”
However, most Americans really have no idea what goes on in the rest of the world and believe they are educated by watching CNN or FOX. These people are the majority and therefore will elect the president. Therefore, even though what Ron Paul is saying is spot on, he will not be able to win.
Republicans have become a party that supports and rewards aggression towards other nations. America will be your friend if you do what we say and we will give you money. However, if another nation takes the notion of sovereignty too seriously and it interferes with American interests, then American foreign policy is to interfere with the politics of that country.
It is my belief that most American people want peace. However, it is the government that has created a culture of fear in this country and have them believing the only way to be safe is to stay on the offensive and keep attacking others. The Republican candidates embody this and their ideology is “for security we must attack.”
Yet, I have to be understanding in that most people have not had the opportunity to understand or even try to understand another viewpoint. If someone hates America and wants to do it harm, Republicans believe it is not necessary to look at the reason behind it, or even how they became that way. Their response is to attack. More often than not, the reason might be because of Americas own foreign policy.
Whenever Ron Paul spoke, the other candidates would snicker and smile. The good ole’ boys club they were indeed. By snickering it sends the message of “I think your ideas are so ridiculous I’m going to make a silly face as though we cannot take you seriously.” However, they knew Ron is a long shot so did not waste too much time piling up on him and concentrated their heaviest blows on each other.
It’s ironic that the Christians are in the Republican camp. Doesn’t Jesus say to love one another and turn the other cheek? That has definitely not been the course the Republican administration has been on nor are the current candidates advocating. Such hypocrisy baffles me. Perhaps that is “terrorist propaganda” as well? Speaking the truth has often been a very difficult thing to do throughout history and rarely wins you any friends, especially among the powerful. Jesus did it and look what happened to him.
As I click the button to post this on my site a scary thought just occurred to me. When I was in Vietnam and expressing my political opinion through my website I always had to think, “Am I going to get a knock on the door from the police the next day?” Now, I’m wondering if the American government will pick this up on their scanners and put it into my government profile. It makes me laugh to think how inefficient the Vietnamese government is and how they still probably use manila folders in big metal filing cabinets. Yet, I almost turn pale when I think of how much information the US government probably knows and how efficient it is.
As a last thought: Seriously….. President Huckabee????? How could the USA have a president with that last name… HONESTLY!!!!
