Yeah, sure, youbetcha!

Listening to Your Mother is Overrated (sort of....)

When I was a child growing up, my mom told me to never discuss politics or religion because they're too sensitive of a topic.

Since I'm happy in my little Lutheran world, I don't need to discuss the religion stuff. In fact, it will probably surprise some people to know that the Big Guy is actually a Unitarian. I remember going to his grandfather's funeral and asking him, "What does it mean to be a Unitarian." He said that they were more "spiritual than religious." And for me to be in a church with no cross up front or a statue of Jesus was just....well.....

odd.

But I've learned what being a Unitarian means and find no issue with it.

We also discussed after the funeral that should we have children, they will be baptized and raised Lutheran. The Big Guy was OK with that (honest!).

Is this where I mention that the Big Guy didn't believe me that Lutheran's take communion and that it was only the Catholic church that did that?

Moving on....

This will be the only post that I discuss politics. Well, maybe one more after the election in November. But I'm not going down the political road. I get too fired up and too frustrated with the "he said/she said" stuff. It's to the point that I can't even talk about politics with the Big Guy because he gets just as heated as I do--and we are on opposite sides. Our votes will essentially cancel each other out.

So, here is my 2-cents on the election and then I'm done.

We all know that politics is like writing a research paper. When you write a research paper, you want to prove your point. So, you find research to back it up and let the quoted research do the talking for you. In short, you pull out what you want people to know on a certain topic and put it in quotes and say, "...therefore, according to blah-blah-blah, it is clear that x truly does mark the spot." Even though the whole article goes against your point, it's that one sentence or paragraph that you pull out to prove your point.

Having a flashback to English Comp 101, yet?

It's the same for political ads. The Republicans want us to think that the Democrats don't want to keep our country safe because if they did--they wouldn't pull out of Iraq; that Obama will have the worst tax increase in history and that listing your experience as a community organizer on the Presidential Application amounts to saying you volunteered for the church bake sale.

And the Democrats want us to think that Republicans want a big gun rack in their car to hold all their weapons and lifetime NRA member cards, that McCain is Bush's clone and that being pro-life will divide our country.

Look, I could care less who you support in this election. And it doesn't matter where you stand on the issues.

But here is what I do care about. I care about the facts and knowing that I made the best choice for President based on those facts and my ethics. Therefore, I want to challenge you--my blog reader(s)--to check out this website:

http://www.factcheck.org/

This site picks apart the ads, the speeches, the banter.

It helps you to see what they are REALLY saying. Remember my comparison to the research paper a minute ago--and how the ad and speech writers will pick out that one sentence to prove their point, from that one article written 20 years ago? Well, the Fact Check people will actually find the article, read it, research it and tell you what that one sentence is really talking about.

In other words, it saves the spin cycle for your washing machine.

When Palin said that Obama never penned a bit of legislation--is that fact or fiction?
When Obama said that McCain's tax cuts would hurt working families--is that fact or fiction?

I ask that you stop taking what the candidate says as the gospel, and do some research on your own.

Because let's face it...America is hurting, and we need more than a band-aid.