Personally, if I may sum up in 5
, to avoid an Obi-length essay:
1. To begin with, I think it's fallacious thinking to distill your political views down to one party or another...I AM a registered Democrat, and I'd say overall I lean Left-of-Center, but there are some things I'll lean more conservatively on, some areas I'll lean more liberally on...and certainly there are those who might share my "party" but not my views, case in point--Putin and I are (if I'm not mistaken, Putin?) both Democrats, but with all due respect to him, I find nearly all his larger political views either in error or reprehensible, and I'm sure he thinks the same of my views.
2. That being said, if I were to critique President Obama, I would say that there are two modes of governance to the man--he's either been completely ineffectual or else, as he has been lately, wielding a rather large executive stick (and there's a joke somewhere in there, but I'll leave that alone.) He's been bullied by the Republicans, and I feel he's largely been ineffectual in dealing with the Republican leadership and with Congress. That being said, when he wields executive power, such as authorizing the mission that took out bin Laden or authorizing the recent Dreamers Act or repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and ObamaCare, and so on and so forth, he HAS done things that I would praise, if not necessarily in a method I feel is worthy of praise. I am a supporter of large government--I feel that a libertarian view, stressing small government, is antiquated in a 21st century setting in which we are a technological and nuclear superpower--and so I don't mind Obama's sweeping reforms (especially as I agree with much of it in terms of my personal political standing) but for all of that, I AM NOT a great fan of the Executive Order as it stands, it's an unwieldy and dangerous tool that has not been defined in scope enough and places too much power in the hands of the President, so I can't applaud Obama's use of it, even if I applaud on occasion what's come of using it.
3. That being said, the Executive Order is NOT an Obama Administration invention, it's been around since the middle of the 20th century, and nearly every President since has used it, including Bush, so politically I can't blame Obama for using a tool that's given to him when that tool IS a legal one and others before him have used it.
4. All that being said, if I were to evaluate the other side of the coin, I must say that I find the GOP a remarkably closed-minded party and, sadly, a party more of exclusion than inclusion, and while I do lean Left, I WOULD have considered a Republican candidate come November if one that I felt was a good choice had been fielded; instead, we had inane and inconsequential candidates like Huntsman, who went nowhere, scandalized candidates like Herman Cain, a near second-coming of Sarah Palin in the equally-vacuous Michelle Bachmann, a religious fanatic with an extreme streak of bigotry in Rick Santorum, a libertarian who, even if the charges of racism were to be considered unfounded (and I don't believe they entirely are unfounded) would still have been pushing for an antiquated ideal that I deplore in Ron Paul, and finally, who we have now, at the end of it all, Mitt Romney, who is somewhat akin to a Reagan-lite in his candor and, to his detractors in the Republican party, seems to be little more than an Obama-lite with the added "benefit" of being rather offensive towards the Latino community. What's more, for a final addendum on Romney, while I am an atheist, I understand that for a candidate in the US to run, they must at least have the appearance of being religious, so I generally don't begrudge them their religious views so long as they aren't Rick Santorum-offensive or Rick Perry-ignorant in terms of taking Creationism over Evolution; that being said, given the racist tint of the religion and the severe moral qualms I have with it, as much as this may not be popularly received here, I simply cannot vote for a Mormon as President--I have Mormon friends, I don't hate Mormons, I'm sure they're very nice, as again, I know some to be very nice...that being said, I wouldn't want ANYONE with that sort of ideology or view of homosexuality and Jews and other religions to have access to the nuclear launch codes or to head the state, I simply cannot bring myself to pick such a person for that job.
5. To conclude with a bit of fairness, I WILL say that, for as much as I dislike the main players in the Republican party, and as much as I do support Obama (not as strongly as I would have in '08, but certainly more strongly than I would have in '10) I will acknowledge that there are plenty of Democrats I deplore as much as those Republican candidates, Nancy Pelosi of my home state of California being a prime example of the sort of vampiric, insincere, condescending mix of the worst elements of the Far-Left that bring for me the onset of nausea just as quickly as a Santorum's hateful bile or the scientific ignorance of a Rick Perry.
I'm a fan of Plato's political stance tempered with those of Hobbes, Locke, and John Stuart Mill--
And if those sound incompatible, it's because they largely are--I prefer a degree of debate and constant shifting to meet the present situation in my political standpoint rather than a pre-set list of doctrinal dogmatic stances and absolute heroes and demonized villains.
Democrat Vs. Republican
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