Fortunately, Unfortunately

Ohio hasn’t officially been given to Bush yet, but things don’t look promising. I feel deflated, like all the life has been sucked out of me. I had a hunch that Kerry would get Pennsylvania and Bush would get Florida, but it really astonished me that Bush has such a large (2%?) lead in Ohio. The polls there had been favoring Kerry by quite a bit, and I’d heard lots of anecdotal bits about increases in young voters and minority voters there.

This country is going backwards in a big way. During Bush’s first term, there was always the threat that if he really really really screwed up (he’s only really really screwed up so far), he wouldn’t be re-elected. But now that he doesn’t have to worry about re-election and he’s got control of both halves on Congress, the checks and balances system is out the window.

The #1 issue for Bush supporters, they say, is “moral values.” It baffles me that with all the focus on Iraq and terrorism, as well as a shaky economy, it still comes down to the ultra conservative religious right looking to shove their values down everyone’s throats. With the presidency and many house and senate seat victories, the Republicans feel like they have the go-ahead to start taking the country backwards in terms of civil liberties. As it is now, Roe vs Wade is only being supported by a vote of 5-4 in the Supreme Court, and several justices are over 80 and projected to retire soon. If even one of the 5 pro-choice judges dies or retires, it’s certain that Bush would appoint (and his Republican congress would approve) a pro-life judge, and women’s rights would be pushed back decades. You can also expect not much progress with embryonic stem cell research (but props to California for passing a bill to fund it there).

I’m also very worried about Iraq. More and more lives and money are going to be dumped into the area, but merely adding money isn’t going to fix the mess. All those “culture of life” people voted with the candidate whose policies in Iraq will ultimately lead to more deaths there. It really pisses me off how the number of Iraqi deaths doesn’t seem to bother a lot of Americans- innocent Iraqi civilians. Patriotism is one thing, but all these pro-life people seem to consider an American’s life more valuable than an Iraqi’s, running against their whole argument that all life should be sacred.

To sum it up, I'm angry and it's going to be a long, painful four more years.