Saturday, October 25, 2008

Thank you all for reading on!

As many of my friends know, I have my Rules of Travel that also translate to Rules for Events.

Rule: You cannot count the day you are in and you cannot count the day of the event.

So, as of today Saturday Oct. 25th we are 9 days away from the election and I have something that I would like to share.

A group called the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has posted a series of videos on its site and on YouTube called "7 Reasons Barack Obama is not a Christian."

The Christian Conservatives are gathering together to smear the Democratic Presidential Candidate in these last days of the election to try to influence voters that voting for a black man would lead to the total destruction of our country. These are the people who pride themselves on being Christian, moral and in the majority. They are neither Christian, moral nor are they in the majority. They have set on a tactic to scare the elderly and less well informed with misinformation. They insight hatred and say that anyone who does not share their exact beliefs must not be Americans; they must be Socialists or Communists or Terrorists. They spread lies and forgo everything that they say they hold dear. In my opinion these groups are no different or better than any extremist group or terrorist group that they say they are fighting against.

Chris Matthews was on a late night talk show the other night and discussed the most profound insight about our country. This country is the only country in history that is based in an IDEA. We are not a race, we are not a culture; we are a country that is a gathering of immigrants. We are a country that was founded on the premise that any can succeed if we educate ourselves and work hard.

How can we let these attacks continue, I want to know how I can speak up and say enough….Oh, yeah, I can vote! I can say enough is enough. I have the right to tell my government that we have to change and we have to be tolerant of other religions and of other lifestyles, we have to be able to say that ideas that are different from our own are ok. My only caveat would be that those other ideas cause no harm to others.

As Michael Douglas said in The American President:
"America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

It is this "ldea" that we need to remember and the "Ideal" that we must strive for. We can no longer tolerate hate, racism, cruelty or inequality for any culture that deems to call America home. We can no longer give credence to those who spew out the venom that goes contrary to what this Nation was founded on. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…but those ideals cannot be granted at the expense of another’s freedoms.

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