Why we need to re-elect Barak Obama

I am a patriot, in the best sense of the word. I believe in America, and the rule of law.

That is why I stand so staunchly against the current Tea Party Republicans. This is not your daddy's GOP!  By their actions in dozens of state legislatures, and the House of Representatives, they have demonstrated that they are not truly believers in following the U.S. Constitution. The crop of candidates for the Republican nomination are no better, they prove my thesis here every single day on the campaign trail:

-- We have a democracy, and every person has a right to vote. Such things as Poll Taxes and unreasonable barriers to exercising that right are an egregious assault on this most precious of civil rights.  Thirty states currently have laws in place that require all voters to show specific types of I.D. at the polls, there could be another five states with these anti-democracy laws by the election this November.  These 'voter I.D.' measures, passed and signed into law by Tea Party Republicans, are a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, in that they attempt to selectively restrict the vote and prevent certain people from voting in order to stop non-existent fraud, for the purpose of swaying elections and gaining power. The states all have slightly different laws, in all cases the type of I.D. required is one that groups that typically vote Democratic are less likely to have.  For example, in Texas, an I.D. .from a state college is no good, but a gun-license I.D. is acceptable. Despite how it may seem to most middle class citizens, not everyone has a drier's license or passport, and to obtain one requires one or more trips to a DMV and a birth certificate,  which can cost up to $40 to get. Many counties don't even have a DMV, so people living there have to tarvel a distance if they want to vote.  the Republicans are counting on the fact that if they make it hard enough to procure an acceptable I.D., a substantial number of people will give up, or won't be able to afford to get an I.D. in the first place. As many studies have shown, there are virtually no instances of documented 'voter Impersonation' fraud. This is a 'solution' without a problem, created solely for political purposes. These laws are, in a word, reprehensible.

-- The "personhood" amendments being put before House legislators are an attempt to give religious belief primacy over the laws of the United States, as are the attacks on contraception, abortion and personal drug use. Talk about "Big Government Intrusion"!

The Tea Party Republicans campaigned on the issues of government spending and the economy, yet the vast majority of legislation they have proposed since taking office are aimed at blocking abortion rights or other social issues. These are not honest people.

-- The 'anti-union' laws are another tactic being pushed in GOP-controlled state governments. They are in direct opposition to our basic right to assemble and our governments' role in protecting the weak from the powerful. When a single person has a grievance against unfair working conditions or pay, that person is powerless against the immediate employer or corporate owners. It is only when many workers all agree to stand together that power is balanced. It is because of these 'unions of workers' that we have the workplace rights that have done so well by our country and built a strong middle class: limited work weeks; equal pay without discrimination; child labor laws; and the minimum wage are all due to workers being able to stand as one and negotiate a fair working arrangement. Without that balance, employers will run roughshod over the workers, and the result will be more people thrust into poverty and the dissolution of the middle class.

-- While both sides of the aisle are guilty of 'gerrrymandering' congressional districts to thwart the will of the people (drawing district boundaries to make sure the incumbent gets elected by putting a majority of Republicans in each district, where this is impossible, all the Democrats are pushed into the same district, so that only a single person is elected where there were several majority Democratic districts prior to the redrawing. The winding, bulging contorted districts resemble a curvy salamander, hence the name). The current Tea Party/GOP has taken it to the extreme, as they have with parliamentary maneuvers, such as the record number of filibusters. Combined with the voter I.D. laws, they are attempting to take ahold of our government and prevent us from being able to change leaders if we so desire.

These are but a few of the more obvious assaults on our Constitution, our liberty, and the rule of law. Regardless of your position on various issues of governance, we all should agree that everyone should get a vote, and the voting must be fair.

What are the differences between the parties? Aren't they 'all the same?"

No.

The Left wants to restrict and regulate the power of industry to do as they may, protecting our environment and the people of our great nation while retaining our rights to be secure in person, property and the freedom to pursue happiness.

The Right wants to restrict these most basic freedoms and control our personal behavior, based not on the Constitution, but on religious beliefs, while at the same time allowing corporations to do whatever they like in pursuit of profit, regardless of the effect on the country.

Which of these two is the greater threat to our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, the very tyranny we speak of when we claim our right to bear arms?

For the sake of this discussion, I will grant the argument that both sides are equally bad when it comes to 'dirty tricks', back-room deals and the like.  However, the actions and results of these behaviors are clearly not equal.  

--- The possible 'dirty tricks' of the Left may result in less profit for the very wealthy, and less power for the very powerful, yet they defend our freedoms at the most basic level. They harm very few people, and those that are impacted are the most able to sacrifice without affecting their life negatively. These are the same people who have done very well in the past two decades, their income has risen dramatically and their share of the overall wealth has skyrocketed, especially in the past ten years.

---- The possible 'dirty tricks' of the Right attack personal freedoms directly, and they fail at one of the most important roles of government, protecting the weak from the excesses of the powerful, while they attempt to circumvent our ability to exercise our right to vote and elect our leaders. The people they will impact negatively are the least able to withstand further hardships, and there are millions of us. For this vast majority of Americans, things have not gone well the past two decades, the average wage hasn't improved at all, and their share of the nations' overall wealth has plummeted.

In other words, If the Left succeeds, even using 'dirty tricks', favoritism, etc, the nation will still be better off as a whole, and we will move forward, towards restoring a strong middle class and an opportunity for upward mobility. We will retain our right to elect our leaders, our rights to marry whom we choose, to control our own health and bodies, and our right to be secure in our person, property and pursuit of happiness.

If, however, the Right succeeds, even using 'dirty tricks', favoritism, etc, we will have fewer freedoms, the wealthy and powerful will become more so, and millions more people will fall into poverty and a subservient lifestyle. Gone will be such freedoms as the right to do what you want with whom you want in your own home, the right to pursue happiness how you choose, the right to be safe from discrimination and the right to a fair wage for a days work. Not to mention the harm to our environment that is unrestricted-industry's legacy.

So while I am of the opinion that we need to fix the system, in order to do so we need to put people in office who will work for the betterment of the nation, following the rule of law, and who will set aside partisan politics and do such things as fair redistricting to restore competition to elections, and put in place a multi-party power sharing system so that people can express support for third parties on either side without hurting their 'second choice' (one of the two current parties). Proportional Representation is the term commonly used. Without that, a vote for a 'third party' takes away a vote for the party one would normally support in a two-party system. in the 2000 election, Ralph Nader took enough liberal votes to enable George Bush to stay close to Al Gore, and eventually the Supreme Court awarded the election to Bush.

We are more likely to achieve election reform by electing center-left moderates, and reasonable people in general, which is clearly not the Tea Party/GOP.  Clinton was a moderate, and he showed a willingness to work with the GOP rather than taking a hard line.  Obama is also a centrist, and again, he has shown a willingness to anger many on the left in order to try to work together. But the Tea Party Republicans won't have anything to do with Obama, from day one of his administration they have talked of no other goal that 'making sure Obama is a one-term President.  It certainly isn't difficult to prove that the current Tea Party/GOP is the most partisan, uncooperative and 'my way or the highway' political party we have seen in a long long time, willing to sacrifice millions of people's quality of life, without asking the wealthy to sacrifice at all.

Whether we judge by the statistical results of previous governing, or by the basic goals and objectives of the parties, the Left is clearly the better choice.  Obama has done a good job in guiding our recovery despite historic level of obstruction from a congress that won't spend a dime to try to stimulate the economy, and that oppose everything he does . Obama has demonstrated that he is willing to re-think his positions, to negotiate in good faith, and to cooperate in order to get things done, even if it goes against the wishes of his political base. Two examples that illustrate this clearly are the Affordable Care Act (or "Obama-Cares") and the "Cap pand Trade" method of lowering carbon emmisions. Both of these were free-market approaches that were strongly supported by Republicans until Obama dropped his opposition to them and put them in place. Now the Tea Party/GOP acts like they are full-blown socialist schemes aimed at a complete government takeover of private industry. The level of deceit and dishonesty from these Republicans, especially from Mitt Romney, is like nothing we have seen in the modern political era.

This is an important election, perhaps the most important one in my lifetime. The nation stands in a precarious position, with mounting debt and rising inequality following the Bush Administration's destruction of the successful Clinton surpluses.. The choice is between the very reasonable Obama, who has demonstrated that he is good at foreign policy, the recovering economy, and has compassion for the poor and middle class, or a Republican who wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood, get rid of the Affordable Healthcare Act, hand the social safety net over to for-profit corporations, and institute religious doctrine over the rule of law.

We saw what happened when the GOP took over the Presidency after Clinton and Gore had led us to the best economy in over 60 years, and again what happened in 2010 when the Tea Party took over Congress and pushed the country to the brink of default, bringing the recovery started in Obama's  first two years to a screeching halt.

despite all that, we have had 25 months of private sector job growth, a solid rise in the GDP and stock market, and passage of health car reform that is already bringing benefits to millions of Americans.