Lunchtime

Today at lunch I mailed my absentee ballot. As mentioned before, it is my first time voting. I am generally not eligible to vote where I live, and this is the first time I applied early enough for my ballot to come to me.

I am pretty ignorant when it comes to politics, so voting for somebody to lead 300+ million people is sort of scary. Here are some things that I do know:

Denying the human rights of enemies and suspected enemies of the USA is extremely worrisome. It is unAmerican, and violates rights protected in the constitution. Rights which we believe to be unalienable and god-given should surely be granted to all people (of all nations) even if there is a chance that it compromises national security. Otherwise we could, for example, have rounded up Japanese americans and held them in camps during WWII, on the grounds that they might be a threat. (Oh yeah, we did that too... but that doesn't make it OK.)

Healthcare in our country is ridiculous. Having seen the system in Canada, I can assure you that it is better - even with the higher taxes. When people make decisions about whether or not they will see a doctor based on whether or not they can afford to, then something is wrong.

A hands off approach to the economy seems a bit dodgy. I don't know much about economics, but I don't trust humans enough to do the right thing without regulation. If left to our own devices, greed would have us borrowing irresponsibly, lending irresponsibly, and the freedom of the market would lead us all into a big economic crisis. Hypothetically, of course.



Anyway - like I said, I'm not an expert, so I feel a little unqualified to be chosing a leader. That being said, I still think you should vote for Obama.



Also at lunch, I bought the new Mt Eerie CD (featuring Julie Doiron - hooray), to which I will now listen.