Fair Minded...

If there's one thing that pisses me off the most about the political culture and the people who follow it, it's the raging lack of fair mindedness... people just fall in line with their respective parties' talking points without even thinking about what they're saying... way too many sheep on both sides... George Washington once said that political parties would lead to the ruin of America, and boy was he right... the partisanship and the straight party ticket mentality runs counter to the absolutely imperative ideas of listening, cooperation, and critical thinking... if you vote on a regular basis, and you pull straight party, then I say shame on you... think for yourself... as uncomfortable as it will undoubtedly be at first, you may eventually come to enjoy it...

By the way, if you have an interest in being fair minded, and the facts are relevant in your world, here are a pair of awesome sites to get the truth:

www.factcheck.org

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker

I have been getting very frustrated with the unfair political advertisements I've seen coming out of both camps... the Obama campaign has an ad out there that accuses McCain of giving tax cuts to companies that outsource jobs... good grief... I have no doubt that some companies that received tax cuts over the last 7 years have indeed outsourced jobs... but some companies that received tax cuts created jobs too, right? The ad implies that McCain supported tax cuts that somehow encouraged corporations to ship jobs to Asia, which is absurd... John McCain is a lot of things, and not all of them are good... but it's completely unfair to say or even imply that he resides so deep in Wall Street's pockets that he would deliberately provide incentives to ship jobs across the pond...

I know that my Republican friends will accuse me of not being fair minded myself, but I do have to say that the McCain ads are even worse... yes, I have seen the statistics indicating that a higher percentage of "negative ads" are coming from the Obama camp... but I'm a lot less interested in percentages than in severity... and to me, the Obama folks use selective facts and statistics to paint a picture that favors themselves and discredits McCain (often unfairly)... but at least the Obama campaign pays some attention to the facts... McCain's ad that accuses Obama of favoring sex education for 6 year old children crosses the line from misleading to lying, as does the McCain ad that calls former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines one of Obama's chief economic advisors (no one can cite even a single conversation between Obama and Raines)...

Here's the thing that's most amazing to me... both sides have ample ammunition to use without resorting to lies and distortions... I mean, John McCain actually did chair the Senate committee on Commerce... that's actually true... so, it was on his watch that the economy slipped into chaos... and whatever he might say he tried to do, he sure as hell didn't do enough... not to mention, McCain has boasted about his stance as a deregulator... how has that worked out for the American people?

And Obama might not have ties to Franklin Raines, but there is no doubt that he chose another former Fannie Mae chief in Jim Johnson to chair his search for Vice President... so if Barack has legitimate close ties to an over-compensated former chief of Fannie Mae, why even bring up Raines? To me, the McCain campaign could and should crush Barack for his ties to Johnson... the McCain campaign should ask whether or not Obama's close relationship with Jim Johnson represents the change we need in these uncertain economic times... I mean, if Obama trusts a guy like Jim Johnson, why in the hell should we trust Obama?

Honestly, at some point, I sincerely hope that the American people will grow tired enough of all this crap that we'll consider 3rd party candidates... until we wake up and take collective action, we'll just continue to prove George Washington right...