The Not-A-State-of-the-Union State of the Union

I've been out of the political and blogging circuit for the past month or so (school is taking a beating on me and life is just busy busy), but I was able to listen to the not-state-of-the-union State of the Union address on the radio last night.

What I took away from it was that Obama was speaking like a preacher at times. He wanted to be emotional and convicting which was fine. Everything he talked about "sounded" good. Some of it I could agree with - yes, we can't give debt to the next generation, yes we need to reduce the drop-out rate and ensure that more people attend college to stay competitive.

But - how are we going to do this? So many of Obama's promises outline great "ideas", but how are we going to go about it? An 80 billion dollar stimulus plan isn't going to give our future generations debt to inherit? I'm not exactly sure how that's going to work.

Obama also talked about "affordable" healthcare. Again, what kind of affordable healthcare? Is this really the responsibility of the government? Yes it would be great to have more affordable healthcare - but we don't need socialized healthcare.

Again he noted his plan to give 95% of workers a tax "cut", not mentioning the refund given to non-paying workers. I want to know, in a time of a "recession", why are my taxes being cut? I would expect raised taxes to get us out of this problem. So - where is the money going to come from? What kind of tax hike is the upper class getting? Why is it that the corporations and people who make the majority of the money in this country should be penalized for doing well? It just doesn't make any sense to me. I support a tax cut when it will put money back into our economy - but right now that simply isn't the case as more people are saving than ever due to the current economic condition. So, what is the answer? Obama doesn't really say exactly what his plan is going to do, so how are we to know that it is a "good" one?

Obama also stated that the cost of health care bankrupts an American family once every thirty seconds, which was another untrue figure. America did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed during the Civil War. We also do not import "more oil than ever today", because imports peaked in 2005.

All in all, I feel as if Obama's speeches continue to give life to a doom-and-gloom outlook on the country. We are a nation that had too much for too long. We lived outside our means and we don't know what the idea of living simply is. We have become too big and too fat and too greedy. If this is what it takes to bring us back to reality, then fine. He talked about problems that caused our recession over the last decade, even though we had a booming economy for seven years. He said "we don't want an open ended recession" just as he said we can't have an open-ended war. And then he talked about the money "wasted" in Iraq. Obviously my outlook on Iraq is much different than Obama's, and hindsight is 20/20. I just felt last night that a lot of what Obama said "sounded" good, but might not have actually "been" good, which is the advantage of great speechwriters.

As Republicans, we need answers to these problems. Bobby Jindal had a good response, but I felt that as a Republican I wished it had more of a "here's how we should address this" approach. Sarah Palin said if she thought that Obama should have vetoed the stimulus package until he has time to read it along with every single congressman in the country, which obviously they haven't. As Bobby Jindal did say, "we don't care what party you come from as long as you have good ideas".

My brother and I had a conversation the other night. He told me he can't be a Republican anymore because he hates all the corruption on both sides. My response was - how is the party going to reform if everyone abandons it? You still have Republican ideas and values, you can still be a Republican - but we have to try to change our party from the inside out.

You know, today I was reminded of how sometimes it's hard to live out what you believe is right. Someone at lunch acted completely astonished - "Wait - are YOU a REPUBLICAN!?" as if it were some unbelievable concept. Yep, I sure am. And the media and Hollywood also want you to believe I hate gay people because I voted yes on Prop 8. And obviously I want to blow up the rest of the world because I'm a war - monger. Sometimes it's hard when you are working in a very liberal setting or are surrounded by people with other ideals than you. I'm not trying to convince anyone in the workplace to be a republican - but - I also don't want to be looked down upon or talked about behind my back because I have differing viewpoints. I don't want to be alienated because I believe in traditional marriage, but unfortunately it happens. It's hard to stand up for what you believe in. Jesus said we would be persecuted for His Name. I'm not saying that Jesus said we would be persecuted for being a Republican - but - we are standing up for what we believe is right - and Jesus knew that would be hard. What's right is often unpopular and I'm the most unpopular of them all. So keep standing tall, everyone. Keep fighting for what you believe in, and don't let them bring you down.