Politics

Today I went to this site~http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460~and took their quiz for the candidate who comes the closest to agreeing with me on the "important" issues.

First off, I took the quiz twice because I accidentally closed it down before I had the chance to really study my results. The second time I took it, my results were different, so either I changed my answers on some of these questions or something screwed up, but the first time I took it, I matched the closest with John McCain, the second time I took it, I matched with Mitt Romney. Not too much of a difference, but they are different people so if I'm going to use the results of a website quiz in order to determine who I need to vote for, then I need some consistency!

Of course I'm not really going to base my vote on what a website says, but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who do. The one thing that did stay the same in my results was that I'm more compatible with Clinton than Obama, which I found interesting because I think if I was forced at gunpoint to choose one of them, I would probably pick Obama (or maybe death because I'm so radically different from either one of them).

The questions that this quiz deems important were pretty interesting. The way they were worded confused me somewhat, so, while I may have answered one way, my real answer may have been different if the question was more clear. I've also never really sat down and contemplated some of these questions, so it showed me that I really need to think about these issues more. I don't know what my opinion is on immigration. I should have one since I live in Texas where the English language is becoming extinct, but I worked for 4 years with ESL students, many of which had parents who were here illegally. Having faces and names makes the situation a little different. I don't think our country should be a free for all where anyone and everyone can come, take part in free education, free healthcare, sometimes even earning Social Security, and yet never learn English or take the time to try. If you're going to live here, speak the language, don't expect everyone to be able to accomodate you.

I also have no idea what to think about universal health care. I'm of the mindset that it's probably not going to be for the best. And that's hard for me to admit because I'm about to lose my current insurance and pay double what I was paying for sub-par coverage, so in that respect it would be nice to have something available from the government. But I think it would result in the medical community becoming very lax as well as yards and yards of redtape in order to get the treatments necessary for what ails you (ie a hangnail).

Of course there's also the standard questions about abortion (against), death penalty (for), gun control (against), but then there's a question about line-item vetoes and whether or not the President should be able to veto one thing out of a bill without vetoing the whole bill. Is this really a big issue? And if so, why? Why does it matter if a president wants to veto one thing but allow the rest of the bill to pass? I guess I'm living in my own little world since I'm not seeing the need for including this in a quiz about politics.

The last question I found to be very interesting. It states "Should teachers receive pay based on the performance of their students". Why would someone think this should be how teachers are paid? Don't we realize that there are many, many students who are not going to be successful in the classroom regardless of who their teacher is? They could have Mrs. Polly Perfect who does absolutely everything the way she should, including spending hours of her own time tutoring, and yet the child would fail at the end of the year. That's just how people are. Paying teachers based on their students' performance is just wrong and backwards. That would be like paying my husband, the auditor, based on how successful his clients are. All businesses need an accountant, whether they're a multi-billion dollar business, or barely breaking even, he's still going to help them with their books and his pay should not be based on their success or lack thereof. The same goes for students, all of them need teachers, some are going to be successful if a cat was teaching them and others won't be successful no matter what happens. On that issue is where I guess I would vote for Obama or Ron Paul, they're apparently the only ones that agree with me, which is sad.

I honestly don't know who I will vote for. I'm 99.9% sure that I will be voting Republican (atleast for the Presidential election). Not because I'm someone who will only vote for a candidate based on their party affiliation, but because Republicans most often believe what I do on many issues. I wish there was a candidate out there who I agreed with 100% on everything, but that isn't the case. I just have to decide what things are the "most important" to me and what will impact my family the hardest, along with who do I feel would do the best from God's perspective. Yes, I know that many believe in the separation of church and state, but I'm not ok with electing someone who will systematically take away our freedom of religion. That's typically not an issue deemed worthy for these quizzes, but it is important to me. I find it laughable that we have court cases going all the way to the Supreme Court in regards to whether or not we should take "under God" out of our pledge, or if it's ok for a student to pray in school or at school functions. I'll tell you this, if my child(ren) decides to pray in school or before a school function and someone tries to sue us, I will be livid! Because they are infringing on his freedom of religion, if you don't want to hear it, then cover your ears. He isn't a paid school official doing it with the blessing of the school district, he's a student, doing something he feels lead to do. I wouldn't sue someone for saying a "Hail Mary" in front of me. I'm not Catholic, but if they feel the need to recite that, then they can go right ahead, they won't be offending me one bit. (Off soapbox)

I would love it if we were somehow able to get to know these politicians on a more personal level before we had to elect them to run our country for 4-8 years. But unless they're willing to come over for supper, I don't see that happening.