The Thing Is I Really Don't Want To Pack Again

This weekend, it was put on me to try and discuss the upcoming election with family. This is not something I would ever consider doing on my own, and having made a feeble attempt at it, I know why. It's not that I don't believe that I'm making the right choice - I know I am. It's that our country is now so broken that there's pretty much no reason to discuss this stuff anymore.

See, we all have these things we believe are important. We have a wide gamut of ideas and opinions that make up our personalities. Unfortunately, our current system forces us to put all of that aside and back one of two people, and because of how far the divisiveness in this country has gone, making that decision has turned into an emotional one. People make their decision, and somehow they seem to become immediately radical over that decision. It's not enough to discuss ideas anymore. There's no room for hope of us coming together anymore. We hate them and they hate us.

Game on.

Typically, I try to be an agent of hope, but I'm losing that edge now. It doesn't help that, from my point of view anyway, one of our countries great leaders has been irretrievably corrupted by this process. Seriously, eight years ago I wanted McCain to run. I wanted to see him battle Gore. I wanted to be genuinely torn about who to vote for.

Now, I see him as something different. I see him as someone who has allowed his messages and ideas to be corrupted in the name of securing a party ticket and winning. I see him standing by quietly while his people put ideas into American's heads that aren't just misdirection, they are often lies. Do I believe the Obama campaign is innocent of this? Please. I'm not an idiot. But the tone is different. Bending and spinning to appease the masses is one thing - I don't like it, but it's politics. Instigating hatred and anger, actively working to deepen trench that I honestly believe could be leading to the end of this country...well, it's just not something that I ever would have associated with McCain, and now that I do, I can't imaging supporting him, as a candidate or as a President.

I guess that's the scariest thing for me right now. I'm actually to the point where, having seen my own countrymen yelling out things like "kill him" and "bomb them" at Republican rallies, hearing stories of people openly yelling racial epithets at a camera man, or accepting ideas like Obama is a Muslim terrorist (he's a Christian Senator for God's sake), or even better, saying that he's an "arab" (born in the USA), I'm thinking about giving up. If this is what the people want, if this is the group that we're backing, and we want our decisions to be driven by fear and divisiveness, by actual,domestic terrorists, that's fine. You guys do what you have to do. But I'm done.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that after the campaign that he has run, if he wins, then that tone, for me, will define our country. We hate you, you hate us, and that's that. If this is the extent of the hope I can muster for our future, if that's really where I think we're headed, I will genuinely consider leaving. I don't want to be in a place where we're willing to overlook ignorance and threats of terrorism so long as it's from someone who's on our side. I don't want to be in a place where all we can see of each other is what divides us, forgetting that, for all our disagreements, we're still human and share more in common with each other than we imagine. And I really don't want to live in a place where my leader, the person I look to to embody all that is good and strong about our country, got his power by inciting hatred and anger, or allowing others to do it for him. That isn't what I thought my country was about.

I had kind of hoped that others felt the same way.