The Trouble With American Politics

As the 2012 Presidential Election draws ever-closer, the chaos between the Democrats and Republicans has reached an all-time high, coming to (possibly) a peak with Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s insensitive comments about rape babies. But while everyone fights and argues over pro-life vs. pro-choice politics, a very simple point seems to be getting avoided in the scuffle.

Richard Mourdock’s October 23rd comments relating to God, rape victims, and the resulting children have put the GOP on the defensive.

 

I’m pretty sure most of this political chaos could be avoided if we all agreed on this point: It’s okay to have opinions, but don’t restrict people’s freedoms by trying to make your opinions into laws.

If you would not get an abortion if you conceived during a rape, more power to you. But don’t force traumatized 11- and 12-year-old girls to give birth to a baby that they don’t want and are not even physically mature enough to carry. Likewise, if a doctor told you that carrying your child full-term would kill you and you wouldn’t abort, then you are a better person than most. But don’t force every woman in that position to get a death sentence just because it’s what you personally believe.

The same goes for all this other nonsense. Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t marry someone of the same sex then. Don’t believe in evolution? Teach your children creationism when they come home every day. Don’t support marijuana legalization? Then don’t smoke it. It’s that easy people. Live your life the way you want to live it, but don’t impede on others’ happiness and beliefs just because of your own superiority complex.

It’s in the constitution and all: there should be a separation of church and state. These government officials have gone through schooling and read enough political scripts to have seen that phrase infinite times. Yet, somehow, it all goes out the window once they open their mouths. Our nation of America is less than 80% Christian, and in that ~80% are many different types of Christians: evangelical, UCC, baptist, and more. So to say, “Well the Bible says it, so it must be a law” is breaking all sorts of ethical reasonings. No two minds are alike, so they really need to stop trying to fit everyone into one tiny, uniform bubble.

This guy marches to the beat of his own drum. Why try to silence him?

It just goes on and on. Don’t support interracial relationships? Then don’t start a romance with someone of a different race. Don’t like the religion of Islam? Then don’t become a Muslim. Don’t believe in giving your hard-earned money to those “evil, unemployed, lazy hobos”? Then don’t donate your money to those charities. Heck, I despise broccoli, but you don’t see me trying to convince people not to eat it (I know that last point seems satirical, but you get the picture).

If only more people would stop to realize this ever-growing fallacy of egotism, maybe elections and the resulting terms would be more productive. We could stop fighting over what God-given rights to give or take from our peers and focus on the things that we should be focusing on. Like how our economy is in the toilet. Or how half of the globe hates us for our ethnocentrism. Or even how we as a people are so gung-ho to help the people in non-Democratic countries “succeed and do better with their lives”, while we turn a blind eye to the starving people in our own country.

Just some food for thought.

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