Well well well. So people read my stuff, eh? For the record, I have gotten two pissed off responses and two "hell yah"s. One of the pissed off ones comes from a dear friend of mine whom I've shared many political discussions with in the past.

Let me just say once again that I no longer enjoy talking politics with people. People's feelings get hurt, things get taken too seriously, etc. It's not worth it. I respect the opinions of people who can frame a convincing argument based in fact and logic (it has to be better than trying to convince me with religous mantras or bleeding heart warm and fuzzy sentiment). So I put my rant here. I could have said so much more, and I might still. This is my way to vent.

You see, I feel like I can be friends with people who are pretty well opposed to my ways of thinking. My relationship with Anita should prove that. Some of the time we talked about politics. We learned from each other and had fun. Anita is a diehard Democrat working on a course of study which will eventually let her fight for environmental issues. We pretty much disagreed on everything. Other times we didn't talk about politics. The point is, we were still friends... right?

I've known for over a year now that neither of our candidates were all that inspiring. There was no one I could truly rally around. Nobody impressed me with his intelligence or charisma or thoughtfulness. Cheney comes close but fails to be a truly charismatic character. So the choice comes down to ideas. Which makes the choice easy. Again, Clinton and Gore are nowhere near close to each other politically. Gore is the hardcore near-socialist liberal that Clinton wants to be when he grows up. I don't think people realize this. Someone said Clinton was closer to Bush than to Gore. Maybe... People also don't realize that this country was never intended to be a pure democracy. The founding fathers were very suspicious of democracy. In fact, democracy was specifically warned against in the Federalist Papers.

Here's an update. The recount continues. Gore has made up some ground. The margin is now under 1100 votes in Florida. There is talk of a revote in Palm Beach cuz the poor blue hairs there couldn't decipher the ballot. There is also talk of waiting 10 days (as per Florida law) for absentee votes to arrive from service men overseas. I think it's pretty obvious who the vast majority of military men voted for. Bush and Cheney seem to be going forward with celebratory plans. Gore urges lawful and deliberate reexamination of the ballots. Gore has won the popular vote, currently by a little under 200,000 votes, a slim percentage. The fact is that Bush could win the electoral vote, while Gore could win the popular vote (currently, a couple million absentee votes are yet to be counted). It was predicted that results would give Gore the electorate and Bush the popular vote. Regardless of the results, it's clear that something needs to change in the way we elect our officials. We've changed the way the vote was set up before: we gave women the vote, we gave minorities the vote, and we gave the Senate vote to the people.

Someone has asked what I'm going to do "when" Gore wins. Am I going to leave the country? Get really depressed? Hey, I've been expecting this for a long time. Yah, it's going to suck. Yah, I'll be down. Angry, even. Yah, my faith in the intelligence of the American public is shot. I guess I'll just keep a vigilant eye and hope for the best and vow to help Gore get his ass kicked gently out in 2004. Pay attention to local and state politics. Complete my degree and head to grad school. Continue to learn.

Yes, Gore scares the ever-lovin' shit out of me. I've had near-nightmares. Just a couple, but still. I hate the direction this country will head in under a Gore administration. I feel confident that Bush will be good for the country while Gore could do irreparable damage. Hey, I'm not leaving the country, but I still have to live here at least another 33 years.

Today Michelle Mitchell was on CNN chat. I got to talk to her a little. I met her last year at UD when she was touring in support of her book, A New Kind of Party Animal. She's now a correspondent/analyst for CNN. I believe she remembered me vaguely, as we (Anita and I) stayed after her presentation at UD to talk to her more. It's fair to say she's one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever had the pleasure to listen to.

Ack... I'm all over the map on this post. my worst scrawling yet. I got two jobs, one at a paint store and one at the UNT copy building. duo and I have a match this Saturday, we're practicing very hard for that, we have some rather complex strategies, we're going to win. The rain and cold promises to further restrict my ability to ride the motorcycle. I'm close to buying though. My insurance will be a couple dollars a month. I'm set to sign up for Winter classes. I made my bed after 9 months and I'm sleeping much better. It's so comfortable.