Ever since NYPIRG handed me a voting form back in 2000, I’ve become an active voter. I’ve also been right about 66% of the time in the presidential election. I am a republican.
Already there should be thoughts of me being an idiot, or super religious, hating the rights of colored people and women, and just generally a guy you wouldn’t want to talk to. I am none of these things, with the exception of being an idiot, probably because I vote for the GOP every time knowing my state would always support the opposite. Am I a conservative? Yes. Am I a bit liberal on things? Yes. Do I want my country to work? Of course. Do I hate democrats? Are they calling me an idiot? If yes, then who wouldn’t hate an asshole who calls complete strangers idiots?
Growing up on Staten Island and being a part of an Asian family has skewed my political values a bit. My mother and father are both very religious Catholics because they come from the Philippines. To anyone unfamiliar with that place, it is the third largest catholic country in the world behind Brazil and Mexico. Almost seventy four million people out of ninety two million are Catholic. We also have a ceremony on Easter where people literally nail themselves to crosses. I can’t say I agree with the practice but who am I to judge the devout? But, before you go and google me passing out communion wafers I like the rest of you do not go that far into the religion. I do go every Sunday I’m available, tithe two US dollars and proceed to have a hefty dinner and plan the rest of my week. Also my best friend is Jewish and I was the best man at his Jewish wedding. He’s a casual communist and an unregistered voter. I think I chose my company well.
I’m a colored person. Living in NY, the Republicans here wouldn’t want to really mess with us, pretty much because we outnumber everyone. Other states say some pretty insensitive things, but I doubt they’d want to openly tell us to return to making railroads and picking cotton (we have machines that do that now)if we outnumbered them. The crazy republicans in the other states do not represent me. They will never represent me. I don’t vote for them, nor would. I think people forget that states are like little countries with their own laws, populations, and cultures. They are closed minded enough to think every state should be exactly like their own state. How could that be possible? That would be one boring place to live. (North Korea)
Women’s rights, are they still fighting for more? Aren’t they equal by now? If I looked at a big corporation and they decided to pay women less, who am I to say no to that? If I elect a mayor or republican president, is it their job to send a mass email to big companies to make women get paid more? My opinion on abortion is that I have no opinion. I have no opinion because I am a man. If a woman wants to kill a fetus, it’s up to her to decide what value that fetus has. Will I want to pay for the abortion with my tax dollars should there be some universal health care initiative? No, because I don’t want my money killing someone else’s baby. What if that baby were to save the world and fifty cents of my tax money kills that particular kid? When I die God will look at me and say, “Dude, you know you helped kill my son right?” “Was it that abortion I made my girlfriend get after the prom?” “No.” “What about the abortion from the girl I was going out with my sophomore year of college?” “Not that one.” “Oh wait how about the girl I was with while working at the United Nations. She went back to Korea and got an abortion there. Does that count? I mean that wasn’t even in the same country.” “No Earl it was Michael Reed, son of Marcy Thompson.” “Well who the hell is that?” “Strike two.” “Oh God Damn it.” “Strike three, express elevator downstairs.” “Fuck me.” “For the rest of eternity.” I did march at one of those pro life rallies because my mom wanted me to go and my dad was worried that she was going to be assaulted in Washington DC. I honestly didn’t care. I did get a free sandwich out of it.
When I was born here I was shipped back to the Philippines. I lived on a farm and was taught English while I was over there. My grandfather was a World War 2 veteran, who was an air traffic controller for the U.S. Navy whose purpose at the time was to turn the Japanese into ash. The Gatchalian family was a coalition of Scientists and Engineers, but a lot of the children went into military service. The military service gave my cousins the chance to not do what their parents wanted them to do. To live their own lives. They have families and some of the cutest kids you’d ever see. Do I enjoy war? Some people say we republicans love war more than anyone. I would never want to see my relatives put into the line of fire under any circumstance. We spend tons of money on the giant American war machine, and how can we not support those purchases when our beloved cousins, brothers, sisters, sons are embedded into that lifestyle? If I ever raised my hand to go against money towards the military, it feels like one less steel patch protecting my family members. It’s kinda like a hostage crisis if you think about it. If the media tells me that there is an atomic weapon somewhere in the world in the hands of a country that wants to use it against us, why wouldn’t we want to use what we believe is the most sophisticated military force in the world to deal with it? During the Gulf war in Kuwait against Iraq the entire coalition lost 392 people out of the 960,000 involved. I accept the responsibility for my vote, but then am I responsible for voting for Bush even knowing he wasn’t going to get the state of NY’s electoral votes?
I don’t think I’m a Republican anymore (I’m still registered but you know on the inside, not really), but I don’t want to be a democrat because they just don’t have the morality I have. But when Democrats call Republicans stupid, that’s just uncalled for. If you call a person stupid every single day, they are going to shoot you in the face. As a kid who grew up in public school, I could totally understand. It’s what happens when education reform ignores you and colored people don’t mingle. When a place isn’t as diverse as ours, it just seems alien. They’re just following what the “evil” people in charge of that state make them believe, and we are made to believe the crazy things we believe in. You need to realize we are all trapped. We can follow whatever party we want to and still nothing will get done. These party loyalties, the fantasy that we’re all made to believe and join is keeping us from coming together and doing what we should’ve done during the Alan Greenspan years. Fire everyone involved in our government. We no longer control them with elections because they are paid off by giant corporations to exploit us. We are told to work much harder for less money but there are so many corporations making record profits. How can you focus when you’re attached to the different foreign nations we’re fighting with or Charlie Sheen? You can’t just remain blind forever.
Please, we need to simply respect each other, and wait for the right opportunity to show them that we won’t be manipulated by them anymore. All of these rich politicians on top, they do not care about you no matter how much they say they do.