Are You Still Mad About the Whole Apple Thing?

I know that I said I was going to try to avoid politics and religion on here, but for today I need to make an exception. See, I realized something last night. I'm actively prejudiced against Hillary Clinton, and it's for the wrong reasons. Oh, it's not that she's a woman. I'd be perfectly happy seeing a woman president, and I like the idea that my daughter would grow up in a world where that's not a novelty. No, I'm prejudiced against her because she's a Clinton.

For some reason, I'm worried that the world is going to look at us as if we can't find leaders outside of a couple of families. Millions of people, and they can't find a president who isn't related to someone who's already been president. Given that one of these royal families has proven to be include those that I don't consider qualified to run a meeting, much less a country, I feel like a fresh start would be a good thing.

The problem with this logic is that I'm allowing it to cloud my judgement over who's actually qualified. See, I don't get to choose. We get a couple of people to pick from, and that's it. Heck, those of us that live in Michigan (and Florida for that matter) didn't even get to pick from those people. So this is the line up, and all I can do is hope for the person who can best lead us to rise up from among them.

Worse than this though was the recent discovery that there are in fact people who are prejudiced against her because she's a woman. I'm not stupid - I knew that there would be some of them out there, and like most people who are prejudiced against a group of people for their gender or race, I just figured it the way I always do. It's either the brutally ignorant, who I don't worry about too much as long as their not in charge of my kids or anything, or it's people too old to change their beliefs in the face of logic and I just have to wait for them to pass the reigns to the new crowd.

This bit of ignorance on my part was eliminated, as many of other have been in the past, while listening to NPR. They were covering he latest primaries on Tuesday, and they were interviewing people on who they were going to vote for and why. They got to a group of youths attending a Christian college in Texas, and a couple of them, including a woman, expressed that they were voting Republican, but if they were voting Democrat they would vote for Obama, because the teachings of the Bible tell us that men should be our leaders.

Now, a quick aside so that no one thinks this is about to become a rant against those who practice religion. I am an agnostic. I don't claim to know anything one way or another. I envy those who can take comfort in their faith, and I try not to judge people who do practice one faith or another as long as their not interfering with me and my family.

This particular group of people, however, are very disappointing to me. See, people like me, people who require a reason to believe in something, get pretty twitchy when something that is obvious to us is declared incorrect on the basis of religion. The idea that this group of people, people who are some flavor of the religion practiced by most of the country that I live in, can openly say something like this, is just sad as far as I'm concerned. It's why I could never, never join up. I don't want my daughter thinking that she is somehow less qualified than a man for anything because someone told her that a real old book said that's the way it is. We mock other countries for their views on women, their religions that demand that women dress or be treated a certain way, and then some of our own point out that we're no different.

This was enough to shock me out of my little prejudice and start looking at this whole thing anew. I'm not saying I support one or the other. I'm just going to try and be more objective from this point on and try to figure out what would be best for our country, ignoring race, gender, and family ties. I only wish everyone else could do the same.

AFTERWARD:

I just want everyone to know that this was not the topic I had intended. I was going to go with something wonderfully juvenile and crass, but decided not to out of respect for the fact that today is Management's birthday. Happy birthday, my love.

Tomorrow is not anyone's birthday who is affiliated with this blog, and thus we will be returning to wonderfully juvenile and crass. You know, for those that go for that sort of thing.