Thursday, February 7, 2008

Changes

So, some of you who still read my blog -- perhaps all 4 of you ;] -- may think I'm slightly bipolar.

In truth, my political beliefs HAVE changed quite a bit over the past few months. I used to be a total Bushite - a very unquestioning "patriot" who would take up for anything her government did. In fact, reading over some of my posts, I can remember sitting down to write thinking How do I take up for Bush here?

Today, I'm very different. I've lost my trust and respect for leaders and their broken promises. I've also lost my desire not to criticize power. Some of you may think I'm going through a "Liberal stage" or have just lost my core values.

But in truth, my political idealogy remains the same; I've just changed the way I trust my leaders to carry it out. I've been sorely disappointed in the Bush Administration and their unfulfilled promises on just about everything. I've further researched a few issues I used to shrug off. And I've realized that no matter what happens, the Constitution should never be out of date.

I hope I can still continue posting and have an active blog and catch up with you, my dear blog friends who I've disappeared from talking to in forever ;] I hope you who used to agree with me can look past the changes in my political idealogy (or perhaps, drivel.) and rationally discuss these things.

To question is patriotic; to rebel, American; to think freely the mark of true liberty.

5 comments:

JB said...

I don't think you've lost your core beliefs, Rebekah - if anything, you've moved a bit closer to me on the political map! But I still think people who believe Ron Paul is a libertarian are making a dreadful mistake. A real libertarian wants liberty for everyone, not just Americans. Paul would have us ignore injustices in the world because we don't want to get a black eye while we're making things better. Well, I look at Afghanistan, where ten years ago a woman who was found working could be sent off to a harem or stoned to death, or Iraq, where five years ago the government was spending less than $1 annually on healthcare for each child in the country because Hussein needed to fund his terror squads, and I say that black eye is a badge of honor.

And to answer a question you asked earlier: yes, we damn well should invade every country that deserves it, one at a time, until there are no dictatorships left. Why? Because we know what would have happened to the Jews in Germany if no one had stood up for them. We know what DID happen to the victims of Stalin's genocide when people decided the Soviets were too strong to oppose. We know what would have happened to the Colonial Army without support from the French and various Native tribes. We know what continues to happen in Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Nigeria, Venezuela, China.... Freedom isn't something everyone can fight for without help. I guess what I'm saying here is we need to think of the less fortunate, but unlike when Rosie O'Donnell says that, I'm advocating removing the source of the problem instead of sending money that'll be used to fund nuclear weapons research.

Anonymous said...

Well.... so much for her posting more often... :D

Anonymous said...

What I find interesting is that every young blogger, myself included, is going through the same thing. There's something going on, a reaction to the Bush policy I think, that's making people think for themselves. We already know Democrats are a bad party, but the Republicans are too, we find. So we're forced to develop a new ideology. Young people are rebellious naturally. We're rebelling against the party system, because we're not being given a good option. Then there was Ron Paul with an actual solution to our problems, which gave people like that a voice.

I think we, as the up-and-coming generation, have something going; we're thinking for ourselves and rejecting the parties and we need to keep that as we go. I think what people term the Ron Paul Revolution was already in the making before Ron Paul, and it should be continued. The way I see it, we need to comprise a major voting block before the two parties take all our freedoms. It's a race to see what happens first.

In any case, I disagree with JB about Paul not being a libertarian because of his foreign policy. When you think about it, the Bush policy of "free everywhere" doesn't even began to make sense. Aside from the material impossibilities, the government doesn't invade countries because they're oppressed; they invade them because "war is the health of the state".

(There are evil regimes everywhere, so we chose Iraq because...? The fact that it drives oil prices up, and weapons costs up, and that the administration has ties to both those industries, is purely coincidental? I doubt it.)

Furthermore, countries become a threat to the US because the US gets involved. (Think giving the Mujahideen weapons to fight the Soviets, then having them turn on us.)

We don't spread democracy most of the time. We end up creating more problems, and, in fact, causing more misery. Hussein is gone. And because we did that, we now have Iran and North Korea developing and testing nuclear weapons respectively. So in our quest to find "WMD" we actually created some.

Our actions haven't made the world safe for democracy; they've made it more dangerous. We need to stop dabbling in world affairs, and we need to stop taking freedoms at home so we can go police the globe. When we do, we harm not only the country we are supposedly helping, but also the rights of our own citizens.

Nightcrawler said...

I think you're experiencing an increase in wisdom. There's a verse that says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." or something to that effect... Depending on which translation you go by. Well, I would like to modify only slightly, "The fear of the government is the beginning of wisdom." It doesn't matter who is in office or what party they belong to, they are all to be distrusted.

Chris F. said...

It is all apart of the growing process. I used to be registered Republican, then voted Libertarian, and so and so.