I’ve been avoiding watching the political conventions. Granted I am way too busy attempting to unpack, but the rhetoric at those things is generally pretty nauseating. But I happened to catch a bit of the GOP one last night while we were out to dinner (still haven’t uncovered cooking supplies…). I think Mike got annoyed as I kept reading with incredulity the lines presented in closed captioning on the TV. Some things go beyond nauseating to seriously depressing. I’m sure there were some stupid things said at the Democratic convention also, but the half hour I caught of the GOP last night was disturbing.
First I caught Romney’s speech. The one where he said that for America (which he later called the hope of the earth) to be the head of the world family we need to stop failing the family at home. And how are we failing the family? According to him by allowing the poison of government assistance to flourish. If only welfare and Medicaid were abolished the family would improve. Besides trying to provoke class warfare, I just have to wonder what he was smoking. Does he not realize that things like Medicaid are what help families to survive? Case in point – if not for government assistance to help me pay for the six digit medical bills I accrued in the past year our family would be struggling to survive. The salary of a pastor and personal insurance, although more than a lot of people have, barely covered anything. What would Romney have had me do? Abort Aidan to avoid such expenses? If he wants to help build strong families, he needs to support things that allow families to be families.
Then there were the even more disturbing signs being waved all over the place. They read “Country First” and “Prosperity.” Are those really the two most important values of the GOP? Nationalism and Wealth? For the party that claims to cater to religious crowds how can they promote values that outright contradict the message of Jesus? Or how could any committed follower of Christ choose to support such values? I’m not saying that the Democrats are any better here, just that our country is insanely far off track and we have blindly followed along.
And of course to top it off there were the men and women wearing buttons with Palin’s picture that said “Hottest VP.” Honestly, at what point in this country do we get past seeing women as just pieces of meat?
So Romney, contrary to your assumption last night, there are many days when I am not proud of my country. And last night was one of them.