Politics

Several people have asked me over the last few months about my comment some time ago on this blog that I believed Obama was probably the best choice to be our next president. With the elections just around the corner it seemed like a good idea to give an update on why I thought that then as well as what I think now and who I'm going to cast my ballot for next week. Most of this was cut-and-pasted directly from a couple of previous emails, it may look pretty familiar to a couple of you.

For me personally, the 'backstory' behind my approach to this year's election begins with a journey I have been on over the past three years or so through which I have become a pacifist. I have always in the past held something of a 'just war' approach, that killing in war is ok if the war is justified, etc etc. But a few years ago in talking with someone who is a pacifist, I was faced with a simple question: how can I kill the ones I'm supposed to love? Initially I passed it off and found ways to continue to justify my position. But over the months that followed, that question really dug its way into my heart. Pacifism still definitely *isn't* the most logical approach to me, or the one that comes first to my mind as I think through various situations. But, then, that's the case with a lot of what Jesus said... His Kingdom really is an upside-down kingdom, one where the logical thing to do is sometimes dead wrong. And although I can find lots of my own reasons for why war/killing may be justifiable, none of them negate the basic fact that Jesus told me that I need to love my enemies. And I think that starts by not killing them.

Fast forward to this election. I feel like I may never again get to vote on issues of the economy, educational policy, etc -- there are way bigger issues out there, issues of life and death. And there are two primary life and death issues: war and abortion. Unfortunately, it seems that almost no one holds what I would consider to be a 'pro-life' position on both of those issues; the republicans are solidly anti-abortion but support ongoing bloodshed around the world in the name of 'spreading democracy'... the democrats would mostly like to see us scale back our foreign military involvements but support this awful notion of 'choice' meaning a mother's right to end her child's life.

So, on which side to stand? There are lesser things about both candidates (and their parties) that I like, and lesser things that I dislike. But at the forefront for me is this issue of the preservation of life. And clearly, neither candidate holds a position that is completely acceptable to me.

And here's the thing: we've had 8 years of a republican president. What strides have been made in that time to curb the holocaust of abortion? Bush may be pro-life, but what difference has it made? The overall abortion rate has declined slightly, but it's been declining steadily since '81 -- so I don't really credit that to him. McCain also claims to be pro-life, but has made it clear that ending abortion is not a policy priority for him. So I see McCain's projected presidential report card as: Abortion: No Improvement. War: No Improvement.

On the other side we have Obama. He did not support the war in Iraq and was early to propose timelines for the exit of our troops. He has pushed change as a theme of his campaign, and in the early days of the campaign it seemed as though Obama's projected presidential report card could read: Abortion: No Improvement. War: Greatly Improved.

So although I abhor his position on abortion, the vote for him made sense -- it was the only vote I saw that stood a chance of making a difference on one of the two issues of life and death. Sidenote: in addition, yeah, I just plain *like* the guy. I like that he's not a bazillionaire, I like that he's young, I like that he's a great speaker, I like that he hasn't been in politics forever, I like that he's a black man with a legitimate chance of being our president.

As the campaign has progressed, however, Obama's war stance has moved further and further to the point where it's now not all that different from McCain's. I really like that he's willing to talk with Iran's Ahmedinejad, but overall he is presenting much more of a hawkish face these days. He has backed off many of his former statements about pulling us out of Iraq, and he supports increased miiltary activity in Afganistan. Plus there are his incendiary statements about bombing within Pakistan without their permission.

In relation to abortion, I don't know what changes he would be able to make in a negative direction -- but the more I have seen of his record it definitely seems clear that if he sees any chances to take us further down the abortion-is-ok road he will do so as energetically as possible.

Overall then, I now project Obama's presidential report card as: War: Little/No Improvement. Abortion: No Improvement / Some Deterioration.

I have come to a point where the election of either Barack Obama or John McCain will bring me some joy and great fear. Their agendas are radically opposite, but there are elements in each of them that give me great hope and elements in each of them that make me wonder if the future will even be recognizable. And on the issues that I see as most important, neither of them will make a substantive difference.

So who am I voting for? I'm approaching it from this standpoint: Will my single vote make a difference as to who gets elected? No. Washington state will be won by a margin of hundreds of thousands of votes. So my vote for either McCain or Obama will be insignificant, one among millions. When it comes time to vote, then, I will cast a ballot for Ralph Nader. Not because I agree with anything he has to say -- but because I think our country would be better off with a legitimate, viable third party, and my drop-in-the-bucket vote for him 'goes farther' in terms of proportionally increasing the total number of third-party votes cast.

The Diaper Divide

Every single one of the dads my age that I know are involved at least occasionally in changing their kids' diapers. Some of the families have very predictable divisions of labor as far as diaper duty goes, others (like ours) base it more on who's less occupied at the present moment -- with a bent towards my changing them when I can since I'm gone for much of the day and Mel is stuck with the job.

But a few months ago we started realizing that most dads of our parents' generation were never involved in diaper changes -- and as I've started asking the question to more and more people, the tide change has become clear:

• Baby boomer dads -- even the very best of them -- did not. do. diapers.


• Gen X / Y / Millenial dads -- all but the very worst of them -- assume diaper duty to be a normal part of fathering.

There are exceptions to these rules, but from what I've seen so far they are few and very far between. There has been a monumental shift in the way men look at the job of diapering (read: their job versus their wife's job) that seems to span economic backgrounds, national regions, parenting styles, everything but age.

I'm quite curious how this shift took place with very little modeling and very little controversy -- it seems to have just happened. Any thoughts? If nothing else, give me the poll feedback below so I can see if it's as widespread as I think.




Update: I found a better poll supplier (micropoll.com) whose polls display better(edit: ok, they were displaying better the first couple of times I loaded the page. Don't know why they have those gaps in them now). The votes that had already been received have been entered in already -- no need to vote again.