John Walker
Opinion Editor
After paying close attention to the GOP primary the past few months I finally decided it’s time to turn off the television. I try my hardest to make independent decisions in elections, giving everyone the opportunity to say their piece so I, as a voter, can make an informed, practical decision. But when those two words, informed and practical, come nowhere close to describing the candidates, I know my mind has been made up.
My grandfather used to say to never vote for a Republican president because that is a sure way to lose your job. I’m starting to think even listening to one is a sure way to lose your sanity as well.
There is not one contender in the entire GOP race who comes close to looking presidential. In fact, I wouldn’t trust them with running my section at the newspaper. There is an argument many conservatives are making that anyone would be better than Obama. To them I can only point to 2004. The Democratic Party thought the same thing about former president Bush. Look how far that got them.
I could go through each candidate and talk about why they are not fit for the nomination and should never have run in the first place. The problem is that could apply to every single candidate. It all comes down to one point: The Republican Party of America is out of touch and out of date with the voters of this country. It’s just that simple.
I wish we lived in a world where the Golden Rule was an applicable defense strategy, but it is just not the case anymore. If only we lived in a simpler time when the government was not such a major part of our lives and the world moved a lot slower than it used to with Beaver Cleaver and all that jazz.
That world seemed nice, but it required large amounts of oppression and denial to exist. And if we are going to be the great democracy the GOP is so fond of speaking about we have to be realistic about the world we actually live in.
The fact is, gays are people, too. The elderly and the young deserve free health care. Citizens are people and corporations aren’t, no matter what the courts say. Some drugs should be legalized and despite the personal beliefs of the founding fathers we should never mix any religion with the civic process of our government.
These statements may seem radical, but to my generation they are overwhelmingly becoming common sense. And yes, we are all under 30, which means we are crazed Marxists looking to destroy the western world and all it stands for. But did it ever occur to them we may want our nation to stand for more than low corporate taxes and a cheap housing market?