For those who actually read my blog on a somewhat regular basis, you may have come to realise that i am pretty liberal about almost everything. I have a pretty laissez-faire attitude to people's behaviour, but with that comes responsibility to know that what you do can have an effect on other people. So I am watching the whole election process with interest as, although i am not able to vote yet, by the time the next elections pop up, i will be able to. I have to admit that I have never voted in the UK, which is rather shameful, but i aim to make up for this. We brits are really not as riled about the whole process as the americans are, and that is due to the fact that they are so polarised. In the UK, Blair brought the Labour party so far over from the left that the Tories had no idea what to do with themselves. The couldn't go further right as that would take them into some very unflattering territory. So they went pretty central too, and we now have three parties who seem very similar but are in fact slightly different. Which is why people can be Tories one election and vote for the Labour party the next and then plump for a Lib Dem at a by-election. The boundaries are somewhat blurred. The US is however slightly different as you all know. Democratics and Republicans may as well be from Mercury and Pluto respectively. I found it pretty hard to understand how there are people who consider themselves to be independent until someone pointed out to me that it is possible to be concerned about environmental issues and yet pro-life, which would pose a slight problem in the whole voting process. Again though, my response to that is, people have a right to do whatever they want with their bodies. Vote for the environment, we kinda need that to survive.
One of the things that the Americans seem to be very proud of is the constitution along with it various amendments. Though I am not an expert in the field, I am pretty sure the Founding Fathers were intelligent people, and when they said that Church and State should remain separate, there was a reason for that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he984QPaEeo
Yet if a candidate running for office were to present himself as an Atheist or god forbid even an Agnostic, there would be little or no chance of him or her being elected. Apparently, if you are not religious, preferably Catholic or Protestant, then it shows a lack of character though I honestly believe that living without Religion is a little bit harder if only for the fact that there are not a million and one rules and regulations that one is supposed to follow in order to live a good life. So the role of religion is one that i find rather interesting in US politics. Especially when things like this happen:
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=p0eqZ2K2xNU&NR=1
And that was all that talk about Bush and God and Foreign Policy. Leave it at home. Let's talk about ideas. I am pretty sure that if there was a God and you prayed for a pipeline through the apparent beauty that is Alaska, he would strike you down where you stood. No doubt, of i built something and others wanted to destroy it, i would be pretty pissed off too. And if, as Palin allegedly believes, Alaska is going to be one of the safe havens when the rapture takes place, would it be nice if it was clean and unspoiled so that the last few saved people could see how wonderful God's work was?
