godless heathen...table for one?

this is me. this is me trying to explain that i'm just one girl, with one vote. this is me trying to break out of molds, have discourse, and be an active participant in conversations with people i love. this is me being catergorized, polled, ingested, and spit out into raw data, polished numbers, and focus groups. this is me being told what i think, what i don't think, what i like, what i don't like by millions of people every day. this is me.

i have to be honest with you. i am, for all intents and purposes, a liberal. it took me years to own that. i still say it with fear and trembling, because i know the judgement that title brings with it. i know what people say about liberals. and i'll tell you, for me, almost none of it is true. but people, even people close to me, insist on sending me emails, news articles, clips, etc. that tell me what and how i am, as a liberal. i hate that. i really, really hate it. i hate it so much that i've spent the last thirty minutes trying not to cry over an article that ended up in my inbox less than two hours ago. i feel a constant need to explain and explain and explain that while i do support liberal causes, and tend to vote in a liberal fashion, i am my own person. and i feel like i have been mostly very circumspect and quiet about my feelings in this last election, to the point that i am in all out avoidance of all things political with about half the people i know. this isn't because i don't want to have the conversations. it's because every time the conversation is broached, i end up feeling like i'm not only defending my political convictions, i'm defending my right to have any feelings and convictions at all, because, as a liberal, i'm not supposed to have any thoughts or feelings of my own outside the party line, right?

wrong.

let me be clear about this...i am tired...sick, tired, and really overwhelmed with being told "what i am" because of the way i choose to vote. that is not the measure of me as a person. that is not what i think G-d sees when G-d looks at me. i know it's certainly not what i see. not by a long shot.

i am not a godless heathen. i actually really love Jesus...to the point that i work for Him, as my primary job. i don't think that all republicans hate poor people, or believe that GWB is the root of all evil, or in every conspiracy theory that comes down the pipe. i don't think that you have to live in new york or los angeles or washington, dc to have a decent idea. i don't buy into the liberal elite idea that if you didn't go to college, you aren't worth talking to. i don't want to keep the poor uneducated, and stupid, and strung out on welfare.

i don't want a huge government. i do want more personal responsibility. i do think that truth and values are important--i think that truth and values are so important that i wish we had a constitutional ammendment allowing for a vote of no confidence, because we deserve the right to call "no joy" in the middle of the game, just as much as any european country does. i think that it's ridiculous to talk about a culture of life and still support the death penalty, meanwhile ignoring the health crisis that looms for american children, who bear no responsibility for the financial or political choices of their parents. i support faith-based initiatives to act on behalf of communities, rather than creating governmental agencies to do the same jobs. i think that a fair day's work deserves a fair day's wage, and that the market determines what is fair. i think that we have to be innovative, creative, and reconciling in our attempts to make new discoveries and continue to explore technologies we already have in hand. i think that most people agree on most things, they just can't shut up long enough to come to that point.

in this last week of campaigning, before this historic election, please remember to vote! please remember to say thank you to our men and women in uniform who make it possible for us to live in a country where we have the right to vote. and be nice to the g-dless heathens...we sometimes are halfway decent people, who aren't bent on total world domination.

mil besos,

rmg