Voters Reflect Polarized America

by: bonnie alba | published: 10 23, 2008

Warning: Telling friends that you're not going to vote the "way you always do" may cause loss of friends. If nothing else, they go ballistic.

When I told a group of conservative friends that I would be voting for a third party candidate versus the McCain-Palin ticket, the ozone layer suddenly became heavy in the immediate vicinity. Their mouths agape, inhaling large gulps of air, I found it difficult to find any air left in the room. So, I held my breath for the expected tirades. I wasn't disappointed.

"Why?" "You're wasting your vote!" "You can't be serious, we have to win!" "If Obama wins, it's the end of America as we know it!" "One word, Socialism." "We'll become like Russia." "He has bad judgment and lacks character, we can't allow this man to run our country!"

Of course I would be in the same boat if I announced the same thing to a group of liberal women (not many of those among my friends). The retorts would be against McCain, "Why, you don't want four or eight more years of Bush, do you?" "McCain will push for an anti-abortion amendment and take our rights away from us!" "He'll want to push a marriage (between a man and woman only) amendment!" "He'll keep the Iraqi war going forever!"

They might escalate this situation by uttering the words, "You're a Traitor to the Party!" And on and on it goes! They might forever after mistrust anything I might say about politics.

For loyalists of either major party, there is no other way to think. Though candidates Obama and McCain continually toot their pseudo "Change" in the way government does its business, most realists know what they mean -- "business as usual."

Have you noticed? Citizens demand "change" yet stay in their comfort zones and keep voting the same party incumbents into their congressional offices for decades. This, despite the fact that those incumbents long ago rejected the original ideals and principles they held when first elected to office decades ago.

Party loyalists will vote their party lines -- as they have for the past 40-plus years. The younger generations will either rebel against or continue the legacy of their parents. Influenced by the idolizing culture, the young may follow the charismatic, pied-piper Obama.

As the election draws nigh, the media pundits champion one candidate or the other proclaiming their candidate "must win" at all costs.

As with every previous election, the scare factor is now being played out by the Right and the Left as to the type of government we might end up with by electing Obama or McCain as president.

What is revealed with this polarization of America is that we are no longer "E pluribus unum" -- Out of many one. We are now backwards -- "Out of one, many." We no longer agree about the America that was once the "United States of America."

Is it naive to believe that our government is supposed to run on the embedded principles of our Republic's cornerstone, the U.S. Constitution? Is it foolish to believe that when our elected leaders are sworn into office, they promise to do what that oath says -- "Uphold the U.S. Constitution?" That they should not only believe it, but know it backwards and forwards? Uphold it?

All I know is that we are more Orwellian than ever before. If you don't know what that is, read Orwell's "1984." Not recommended for bedside reading to children.

It is obvious that both parties are complicit in the "New World Order." Note the newest moves of the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve's nationalizing steps on the banking industry and attempts to influence the misnomer Free Market -- globally. This step increases the government's increasing centralized control of 'all things' and shifts us even further away from our historical roots.

The global world order has kind of snuck up on us "God and country" folks. We've seen this "change" happening slowly over decades in the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress and presidential administrations.

So, you tell me, does it really matter which candidate becomes President?

If my friends, party loyalists, really want "change," then they would step out of their comfort zones and see that the two major parties left America's roots long ago. They would look around and find there are third-party presidential candidates who offer "change" connected to our historic roots.

If you decide to vote other than McCain or Obama, be ready if you tell your friends.

Real Change!

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