George and John from afar
Ξ November 14th, 2004 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Rants |
Costa Rica is a hotbed of democracy… er… I mean democrats. It seems that just about every person I meet here is about three hundred yards left of Ted in their political thought. This doesn’t bother me much as I am a bit liberal in most thought. And in general, I swing both ways… politically.
For some time now though, I find it almost impossible to get behind any of these fellows. I sort of vote for the one who I think will do the least harm if elected for four years. I can’t remember the last time I was actually ‘for’ someone. Sad.
In fact, I have developed what I think is a good plan. Unfortunately it didn’t work this time… but make sure the president’s party does not have control in congress. This way he/she is even more limited in the damage they can do.
anyway…
We get the Clinton News Network (CNN) here, and if you have a certain cable connection, you also can get fair and balanced reporting from Fox.
In the Post Mortems, the F&B folks made note that there seems to be a an intellectual gap with the east coast intellectuals (liberals) feeling that the rest of the country was out of touch with the needs of the country.
Fox went on to state that the intellectuals simply felt that the common folk should really not have a vote they simply do not have the innate intelligence nor eduacation to make such a selection and should really leave the serious thinking to those same east coast intellectuals, who just happen to be liberal in their thinking. This belief was even stronger if these poor ‘compasinos’ actually held strong religious beliefs. I guess belief in God is now limited to only a certain few with the intellectual capacity to handle such deep thought.
I heard this hogwash thought a bad word and changed back to Bill’s channel.
Fast Forward
So this week, I am doing a bit of consulting with a gentlemen recently moved here from Cape Cod (part of Massachusetts for those of you geographically challenged).
Lo and behold, I find myself talking with one of these real live LIBERAL INTELLECTUALS. Naturally, the conversation turns to the recent big political doin’s and he actually says this to me.
“Kerry would never have lost of those stupid, uneducated religious freaks in the mid-west had not voted for Bush”
I paused for a moment HUH?
What mid-west states are you referring to?
Ohio, Indiana, Iowa you know, Arkansas, Kansas.
So those people made a mistake?
Of course! What do they know about politics or what this country needs?
Well, they live here and there are millions of folks there; there are big cities, educated people. What about them?
Well sure, maybe folks form your town are OK (Chicago), but the rest? Farmers and blue-collar workers. Maybe high schooled at best. Now they’re letting God make their decisions for them?
But aren’t the blue-collar folks traditionally been supporters of the Democratic Party? And maybe they just felt strongly about those things that you didn’t.
Yeah, but clearly they got their heads turned around about morals and so on. Gay marriage! Right to choose. Who cares?
(Well clearly somebody did). No, I didn’t say this. He was PAYING ME!
Well this went on for a while longer, and I started thinking maybe F&B got it right and what was worse, how horribly far out of touch some folks are with what people really think is important these days. It is incredible to me that one group of people can actually feel that entire portions of the population are unfit to choose their president.
He then said, “This is why I left the US.”
You came here because Bush was re-elected?
Yeah! I don’t want to see the country ruined. Clearly, voting no longer reflects the needs of the country.
By George Bush? Single-handedly? And isn’t the vote supposed to reflect the wants of the country?
Absolutely. You know he will probably pick at least 2-3 Supreme Court Justices? And as for wants and needs, they are the same!
Getting testy.
So I went back to my office. Living as an ex-patriot provides a different perspective. We really don’t deal with the day-to-day issues as much maybe because this stuff is not in our faces every day.
Still does there seem to be something wrong here?
For the record: I am anti-gun, pro-environment, anti gay marriage (but FOR some form of legal contractual arrangements whereby gay couples have the same financial, insurance, medical, etc. and other benefits).
We need health care, but not the kind John wanted. It didn’t work in Canada, Costa Rica, Sweden or other places and it won’t work in the USA.
I am anti abortion and anti death penalty.
Some issues are just stupid and nobody likes the answers.
I think jobs are lost overseas because the labor market is now worldwide, and it is just a simple part of life. Companies cut costs to make money and to keep product prices down. If they don’t, the American public buys foreign made goods because our stuff is overpriced.
This is not new. It has been happening for years. It is getting worse because there is now a much larger population of educated and qualified workers willing to work for less money and benefits than the folks in our country. Costa Rica has its share of US companies here for just that reason.
