Tomorrow

Well tomorrow is the big day - you guessed it, the second day my boss will be on vacation . . . I think we vote tomorrow too. I am not completely sure because my mail box was flooded with propaganda when I got home.

I went through a phase where I loved movies about fake presidents. You know: Dave, The American President, and My Fellow Americans. I recommend all of them, especially My Fellow Americans - it is a riot. Anyway through this whole election season I just kept thinking of a line from The American President (one of those I could probably quote as well as Drop Dead Gorgeous, that is how many times I watched it). As one party was screaming at the top of their lungs about an issue, the other party was trying to out scream. I grew quite tired of it and just kept thinking:

". . . standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that
which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

I went to IMDB to see if I was even close on the quote, and I was pretty darn close on it. Here is more of the speech that I think has some weight. Yes, I think the filmmaker had some good things to say in this movie if you take out the fact that the president gets a girl friend and all that Hollywood stuff.

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've got to want it
bad, because 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 is standing
center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a
lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the 'land
of the free'? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol
also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in
protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then
you can stand up and sing about the 'land of the free.'"

There was also an argument that I liked:

Lewis: People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.
President: We've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

I don't know who you are voting for. I do believe this is an important election and I am not taking tomorrow lightly. I have not given my opinion here on who I'm voting for and why because of a lot of reasons. The biggest reason being everyone telling me who to vote for and if I say differently they tell me that I am an idiot. I may be an idiot, but it isn't because of who I am voting for. The other reason being all the rhetoric being thrown around - there are many sides to every issue, and no matter what side of that issue you are on you think you are right. There is little room for error in that sort of situation, so I just chose to stay out of it this year from everyone (including my family).