Seeing is Not Believing

Everyone knows that the politically correct police have been slowly changing our language to fit their liberal perspective. What you may not realize is that they are also manipulating images to show only what they want us to see. The goal is to make people identify specific images of their choosing with specific topics. As I look for images for my blog I have noticed this disturbing trend as I see more and more biased and politically correct images.

Take for instance last week’s blog about Easter where I googled “Christian images” to find pictures for my blog. Google image results will provide eighteen images, including photographs, cartoons, symbols and there will be multiple pages. The first page of Christian images had four pictures of a cross, one picture of doves and one had hands in prayer. So one-third of the first page of pictures included standard Christian images. Yet there was not one picture of Jesus or even a Bible. There were two pictures of what was supposedly the largest church in America but it looked rather sterile and isolated. The rest of the pictures included various sayings and a couple of images were for something called the Christian café.

Finally on the second page I saw a picture with Jesus in it along with more pictures of crosses, and sayings and pictures about peace and doves. But then there were two cartoons - one about “Christian Taliban” and another entitled “Free Christians”. The worst, though, was the picture titled “Porn Again Christians”. It went downhill as the the third page had a image a naked man being arrested, two more of shirtless muscled men, one of a decapitated man on an exam table and a pie chart titled “Christian Oppression”.

OK you get the point. The 54 pictures shown for Christianity had one, maybe two, pictures of Jesus, none of the bible, one angel and none of any of the other people or stories from the bible. Yet there were multiple pictures of nude or semi nude men, one about porn and many discussing the “oppression” and problems about Christianity. You can’t help but notice how terribly slanted the choices were for Christianity images. But what about Muslims? How would Google treat these images?

A search of Muslim images first resulted in a lot of pictures of women in burkas although in contrast there were a few pictures of Muslim beauty pageant winners. There were also pictures of Muslim symbols and a couple of shots of men in prayer. In the first few pages there were a number of pictures of protesters holding various banners. Were they protesting the strict sharia laws or perhaps all the terrorist attacks on innocent citizens? Of course not. Under the title of “Muslim Outrage” were protester holding banners which read things like “Behead those who insult Islam”. Unlike the search for Christianity which showed multiple negative attacks on the religion I found only one in the first few pages of the Muslim images search. This result was a form with the title of “”Hate Muslims? So do we!” But this turned out to be a joke and not a serious attack on the religion such as the ones on Christianity. In the first few pages I didn’t see any negative cartoons or banners or pictures against Muslims or the religion. I wonder if people are afraid to ridicule or denigrate Islam whereas there is no such restraint against Christianity. Or is it simply politically correct to defend Muslims and Islam while it is equally politically correct to abuse Christianity?

Most of my blogs, however, are about Republicans and Democrats, and I need appropriate pictures to go with these articles. So what images does Google provide for these topics? About a third of the first page for both Republican and Democrat searches showed elephants and donkeys, respectively. But the third picture for Republican is a takeoff of the progress of man from monkey to human called “Some Noted Republican Presidents”. I next saw a picture of a typical American family in which all of them are holding rifles or guns. There was an images included a picture of a Jesus holding a gun with the question “What would Jesus do?” and another of a militant Jesus. Oddly enough, the Democrat first page also contained a picture of Jesus, this one looking sad and was a pitch for a song called “Jesus was a Democrat”.

The stunning difference of the two Google searches became clear with the second page of images. The Democrat page continued with more pictures of donkeys, a number of uplifting pictures of patriotic symbols such as the White House and the flag plus serious pictures of famous Democrats. The first picture on the second page of the Republican search shows a strange cartoon of a man in drag, complete with fishnet stockings and heels and for some unknown reason there was a cat up his ass and he was telling a pollster that he was a Republican. Was that supposed to be funny? The second picture is a real snapshot of a man holding a banner which read “I’m a Republican and Ashamed of the GOP”. The rest of the pictures on this page continued to have derogatory and/or obscene pictures about Republicans with a few scattered pictures of elephants, including a cover of Time magazine showing the rear end of an elephant.

Nice, huh? Can you imagine some twelve year old writing a paper for school on Democrats and Republicans and coming across these images? Are Democrats and liberals so insecure, so fearful of Republicans and conservatives that they have to rig the world to tilt it in their favor? Political correctness and the liberal view of the world has taken over not just the words we say (or can not say) but they are also taking over the images associated with these words. Yet has anyone noticed? Has anyone objected to the unfairness found in these images?

"Seeing is believing" we use to say. But now you can't even trust the images you see. I fear for the day that these politically correct words and images become so commonplace that we can no longer recognize that they are even biased.

Easter Resurrection

This country was founded on Christian-Judeo principles. A lot of people would like to ignore or even deny this fact. Progressives and liberals have been working for decades to eradicate any hint of religion from the daily life of Americans and to a great extent they have been successful. But there is hope…

It is amazing how much has changed in the past fifty years. I suppose to some, 50 years is a long time, but when you’re 52 those years go by quickly. I recall as a young child my mother taking me to see a live nativity scene – in front of city hall. In school we would sing Christmas carols before we were let go for the Christmas break. Christmas decorations, including religious scenes, adorned every store and people easily wished each other Merry Christmas. During Passover there were Jewish symbols out and yes in school we sang Dreidle Dreidle Dreidle right after an older student would tell us the meaning of Passover.

In American history we learned that religion was a major reason why the Pilgrims came to America, a fact that is rarely taught today. We would have Good Friday off and get an Easter break. After school it was just assumed that you went to Sunday School or Hebrew School. No stigma attached, it just is what you did although the non-Jewish kids were rather impressed that the Jewish kids were learning a language written backwards. The Jewish kids also got to have a great party with lots of gifts and money when they turned 13 whereas after my confirmation all I got was my own bible with my name engraved in gold on it. And yet, even though I don’t go to church much anymore, that same bible is still kept in my nightstand all these years later.

So where are we today? Just about all talk of religion has been eliminated from school and city hall. As to how children are being raised today, I really couldn’t say as I have no contact with kids. I can only look within my own family to see how they are raising their children. My oldest sister raised her two boys in the church. They may have gone kicking and screaming at times but it must have stuck. The oldest doesn’t go to the church his parents and grandmother attend. No, he found his own more contemporary church where he now goes with his wife and children. Religion always was important to my sister’s youngest son who is now married and in the navy and I have no doubt that he will also raise his children in the church.

On the other hand, as much as I love my middle sister and her husband, we all know not to discuss religion with them. Actually I still recall the heated discussions about religion they would have with my mother when they were teenagers and had decided they were atheists. And yet, having grown up in a church I think they missed the closeness of the congregation so they found a compromise in the Unitarian Church. As much as I understand it, Unitarians celebrate everything and believe in nothing. But this gives them some place to be Sunday mornings and provides the socializing they missed and contact with others who feel as they do. From what I can tell, both of their adult children are not religious either but might occasionally attending a Unitarian “church”.

Then there is my brother who probably disliked Sunday School more than any of us. My mother finally gave up trying to drag an angry resentful teenage son to a place he had no interest in going. Religion is still not important to him. Our mother would occasionally take his daughters to Sunday School but after she moved to live near my oldest sister I doubt if my brother or his family have stepped foot into a church since then. So there you have it, three children and three different paths when it comes to religion. And what about me, you ask? I am one of those Christians who truly do believe and religioun is important to me and yet I rarely attend church. But that’s a long story for another day.

A hundred years ago, my sisters, brother and I would most likely all be Christians who attended church regularly. Instead, due to exposure in school and college some of my siblings began to question the concept of God and Jesus and ended up walking away from both. So the liberals and progressives have made progress and are slowly moving our country away from our Christian-Judaism faith. But they are about to meet a very large bump in the road.

Everyone agrees that after universal health care the next big issue that President Obama is going to tackle is illegal immigration. The fear is that he will somehow allow for them to quickly become citizens. Yet the liberals and progressives are ignoring one small detail. Most of these Mexicans and Cubans and other Hispanics clamoring to be in our country are Christians. I have a feeling that their faith is strong and enduring and these Catholics will want to continue to worship God once here in the United States. Then there are the Asians who are here legally. The man who owns the nail place I go to has a card on his work area, similar to a baseball card, but instead it has a picture of Mary with information about her. And each of the other Asian workers have either a card or rosary beads or a cross at their work station. Nor are they shy about talking about God and their religion, proselytizing as they do your nails.

Finally there is the story of young man, mid twenties, single and apparently looking for something. He was a good friend of my nephews and became a fixture at my sister’s house when they were in high school. A few months ago my family were all at a wedding and ran into my nepthew's old friend. After talking for a while, he asked my sister about her religion and basically asked if he could go to church with them. And so each Sunday he began to go to church and sat with my sister, her husband and my mother. A few months go by and one Sunday he tells them that he is taking classes to become a member of their church. Last month he officially joined the church and yet he still had never been baptized. And so today, Easter Sunday, this young man who found what he was looking for in God and Christianity, will be baptized.

The moral of this long Easter Sunday sermon is that, no matter what the progressives may try to do, religion and God are not going away. In fact, thanks to the immigrants, legal and illegal, Christianity is once again important to a growing segment in this country. More exciting is the fact that the story of my nephew's friend is not an isolated story. I’ve read that there has been a small swell of interest by men and women in their mid twenties who are interested in learning about Christianity and who end up joining churches.

If you think about it, it is pretty silly for progressives to believe that they can eradicate a religion which has been persecuted for over 2000 years and yet is still here. Not to sound too blasphemous but those who thought that religion was dead and buried will find that just like Jesus, religion can never be totally buried and will always rise up again, stronger and more vibrant than ever. Hallelujia. Have a blessed Easter and Amen.

The Death Care Bill

The more I hear about this health care plan the more I despise it. The good news is that politicians and people are now talking about the clause in the bill that turns it into a death care bill, not a health care bill. I quoted it in an earlier blog but it deserves to be repeated because people need to know what our government is proposing: “chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill” and therefore there will have to be some kind of “difficult” and “democratic conversation” that will take place to give “guidance” as to what patients will receive life-sustaining, and expensive, treatments. Oh great. That's all we need - the government to determine who should get medical treatment. No potential for scandals there, right?

And yet they do have a point. I recently had a discussion about a 93 year old woman who had a hip replacement surgery and I must admit that I thought it was a bit much at that age. I was even more disturbed when told that they had found bone cancer and were reviewing all kinds of treatments to extend the poor old woman’s life for another six months or so. In this case I thought it was a waste of money and the doctor’s time; that the best treatment was to make the elderly woman comfortable and out of pain and let her end her life with dignity.

So in this case I agreed with the proposed health care plan. But this was about cutting off surgeries to a 93 year old. How do you determine what that cut off age should be? Should treatment be stopped at 90 or maybe 80 or perhaps go down to 70? In actuality, the health care plan was written where they could refuse treatment to anyone over 59 years old! Hell, Tom Watson, who will turn 60 in Sept. nearly won the British Open and yet this health care bill will consider him as old and potentially unworthy of medical treatment in 2 months!

Think about the implications of this odious bill. A healthy 60 year old man who has a heart attack could be given minimal treatment while a 64 year old woman with breast cancer could be denied chemo treatment since keeping these “old” people alive would be deemed “too expensive” especially if they lived to the current average age of 78. It would instead be much cheaper and we would free up surgeons and medical centers if we simply give these sick people pain meds and let them die. And yet, one of the first things Obama did upon becoming president was to restore a provision in the Endangered Species Protection Act that Bush had removed that would provide greater protection to animals.

What does this tell us? That liberals seem to be more concerned about the welfare of the spotted owl, titmouse, American burying beetle and other obscure animals than they are for your grandparents, parents, diabetic Uncle, chronically ill sister, paraplegic friend or Cystic Fibrosis niece? And at a time when Obama promises new jobs with shovel ready federal projects he has just hamstrung those very federal projects by reinstating that clause in the Endangered Species Protection Act which would require any federal project to undergo an independent scientific review that might affect a protected species. So these new federal projects needed to provide jobs could be delayed or even stopped because of some mouse or fish or bird. Yet while denying jobs in order to save a damn bug the government is condoning euthansia by denying medical treatment to the elderly. This is insane!

What makes it even more preposterous is if you factor in the liberals religious beliefs. For it almost is forgivable to let the elderly die if, as in most religions, you believe that they will be going to a better place. But liberals tend to be atheists. So they don’t have this comforting belief that those who are dying will go to heaven. To the atheists, when you die, you are dead and gone and that’s it. Believing there is nothing after death makes their proposal to take away expensive treatments from seniors (defined as over 59, mind you) and to simply let them die that much crueler than if they thought the dying would go to heaven. Think about it. How cold is that?

We have got to stop this insanity. Mankind must come first and people should recognize that each life is precious. For if we start to deny aid to the elderly then who will be next? Liberals already deplore using animals to test potentially life saving drugs so they might decide we could save a lot of money (and animals) by not funding research to find cures for chronic illnesses and simply let them die, too. Or will expectant mothers one day be required to take tests to determine if their fetus’s have any chronic illness and therefore the pregnancy must be terminated before the child is born and all the health costs are incurred? What might they decide to do with the mentally ill? Once started how far down that slippery slope will we go?

This is still America. The health care reform is the very antithesis of why this country was founded. For remember that each of us was promised Life, not death, in our country’s Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Old Time Religion

Chris Matthews just asked on his Sunday morning show what many liberals have been asking since Wednesday’s press conference with the South Carolina governor. In a very smarmy way and with a gleeful laugh he asked: “Have Republicans finally embarrassed themselves out of calling themselves the family value party?” I flip to Face the Nation and later to This Week and sure enough the first topic is about the SC scandal. And again the hosts question what this will do to the image of the family value party and one of them asks if the party should shift their emphasis away from values and these social issues. If I had watched Meet the Press I am sure they probably asked the same thing. You get the feeling that the liberals are having a field day exploiting the SC governor’s adultery and its impact on the Republican’s stance on family values.

How boring. They sound like a bunch of smug teenagers who just discovered that their parents and the rest of the people in church don’t always follow the 10 commandments or Jesus’ teachings. Duh. Guess what? People are human and don’t always do what is right. I have a friend who refuses to go to church because as a teenager he realized that the congregation wasn’t perfect. But just like the liberals he misses the whole point. It is because people are imperfect that they turn to the church.

For Christians it is pretty much a stacked deck against you. Even the most saintly among us would probably be breaking many of the 10 commandments or the 7 deadly sins. I don’t want to get tangled up in theological debates but think how ludicrous it is to say that it is hypocritical for a sinner to go to church. To continue doing wrong is hypocritical but to continue to go to church is where this person belongs.

This same idea should be applied to the Republican Party and its embracement of family values and morals. They might not always follow these values and even have some members blatantly disregard them but it doesn’t mean they should turn their backs on family values. What I don’t understand is if you aren’t for family values and morals then what are you for? Is that the real purpose of the mainstream media? To tear down these values so that we become an anything goes kind of country with no moral compass to help show the way?

I also wonder if many liberals identify family values and morals with Christian/Judaism teachings. Where else would these values come from? Is this what bothers liberals so much? That Republicans do cling to their religion and believe that their faith is what provides their guidelines of values and morals? Is the hidden agenda of the liberals to ridicule churches and religion? You can’t help but wonder if liberals simply despise Christians and Jews because they believe in something to help them in their lives other than government. Hmmm, wasn’t that the aim of communism?; To take away religion and replace it with dependency of government?

There is also the “if you can’t beat them, join them” effort of the liberals. For example, I recently heard on the news that atheism is now considered a religion. That’s right. I guess if you can’t get rid of religion then twist it into something unrecognizable. In fact google Atheist Church and you’ll find a lot of entries including The First Church of Atheism. How utterly perverted is that?

Although Atheist Churches are a fairly new concept before these monstrosities there was the Unitarian Church. The Unitarian Church’s website states that “Unitarian Universalists include people who identify as Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and others.” Isn't there a saying that if you believe in everything then you believe in nothing? Sounds like it would apply here. The website then has a page specifically for Pagans which states “There are many Wiccans, witches and Pagans and people with earth based spiritulaties who lead and worship in Unitarian congregations”. Excuse me? It sounds like the start of a bad joke – a Catholic, a Jew and a Witch walked into a bar….

So is this what the liberals are trying to do to the Republican’s morals and family values? To twist these ideas into something they are not just as they twisted the idea of church and faith into something grotesque? It has become commonplace for liberals to blame religion for the problems in the world. And they are quick to point out all of the wars caused by religion. But can you imagine the anarchy and chaos if there was no religion, no morals, no family values? This country was founded by men of Christian/Judaism beliefs, what if we had become a nation of men who have no morals or family values and therefore have no comprehension of what is evil? There is a word for a man like that – sociopath. Is that what liberals want?

The bottom line is that Republicans must continue to stand for their family values and morals. Will others faulter and fall along the way? Of course. People will fall in love outside of their marriage, teenage girls will get pregnant, others will hate or covet or do any of a myriad of sins. But this doesn't mean we turn aside from our values. Instead we must always try to live up to our morals and family values for this is a struggle as old as religion itself.

Freedom's Continuous Downward Spiral

The Senate passed a bill yesterday, voting 90-5, to regulate Credit Card companies from sudden interest rate hikes or hidden fees. This is one more major mistake by our government and another step toward socialism. Most of you will disagree with me. You will point to the ridiculously high rates charged by Credit Cards, by their unfair tactics of raising rates if you are just one day late in your payment and by charging you fees for things you still don’t understand. And you are right. Some Credit Cards are unethical and will try to fleece you. But whatever happened to buyer beware?

Instead of you being responsible for your decisions, government is making those decisions for you by regulating yet another industry; all in the name of “protecting consumers”. At the same time Congress is dictating what Credit Card companies can do, the President was issuing orders regarding what car companies, those that are still left, can produce in the future. This order seems almost insane as the car industry in America is barely keeping alive manufacturing existing models. But now they are required to make major changes, which will mean massive revamping of designs and manufacturing of the new models, with extremely high costs which could surely swamp the existing American car companies. But again, this change is to protect you, the consumer, from real and imagined green house effects.

Based on the vote, it doesn’t appear that the Senate is concerned about voters disagreeing with the bill to regulate Credit Cards. I can only guess that this is because voters refuse to act responsibly. That’s the problem with real freedom. In a free society you don’t hand over your decision making process to the government; instead you take control over your decisions and ultimately your life. If you are unhappy with the rates charged by your Visa company there are enough competitors that you could find a Credit Card company offering better rates. But that means you need to do a bit of research or make some calls and then take action on your own to move your debt elsewhere. Of course the alternative is to not build up large Credit Card debt but that is probably asking too much of a person today. But people are too lazy or too irresponsible and are happy that Congress is taking care of the problem for them.

In a free capitalistic society, people would take action and leave a specific Credit Card company due to its high rates and fees or others wouldn't buy a specific car model because of its low MPH which would ultimately result in those companies changing its rates and updating its car models. But that isn’t being allowed to happen once government steps in to dictate what those rates and models must be. As soon as government makes those decisions for you then you have given up one more claim to freedom.

What you need to ask yourself today is "what industry will be next?". Now that people have willingly given government the right to take over and/or regulate entire industries, for the supposed sake of protecting the consumer, you know this is just the beginning. And it won't stop with big business. For just as the sun rises each morning, government, in its quest to "take care" of its citizens, will want to expand its control over all aspects of life.

Our freedoms are already under attack. There is free speech which has been severely limited due to political correctness and the ever despised 2nd Amendment which Washington has tried for years to suppress. The government will surely want to "protect" us from hate speech and gun violence so let's further restrict those rights, too. And who knows? Maybe religion is next on the list for doesn't differing religions create stress and violence? Therefore in order to take care of and protect the citizens why not take religion away, too? Imagine, that... So when will you wake up and say "Stop!" And on the day you realize what you have lost, will it be too late to change the bleak world that will be America without the freedoms we are so casually giving away.

Riddikulus!

In the Harry Potter books there is a monster (called a boggart) that turns into whatever the person is afraid of the most. For example, if you are afraid of spiders the boggart will turn into a giant spider. If the next person the boggart sees is afraid of snakes then the monster turns into a snake. Now try to reverse that idea. Imagine a being who instead of becoming what someone fears instead tries to personify the other person’s ideas and beliefs. That not only sounds like Barack Obama but it explains a lot about him.

Every child wants to please his parents but in Obama’s situation it would be almost impossible since their beliefs and backgrounds were so different. It is hard to imagine a more diverse group than his carefree hippie white mother, an ambitious, driven black father, his middle class, racist (his words), white grandparents and an African grandfather. The only way he could please all of them would be to turn into a mirror, reflecting the ideas of whomever he was with. Just as the boggart monster would change into whatever scared a person the most, Obama would change into whatever the person wanted to see in Obama.

Not only does this theory explain how Obama survived his childhood but it also explains so many irregularities that are starting to show up. When he moved back to Chicago after law school he soon adopted the extremely liberal views of Reverend Wright and the other radicals living in the area. Reflecting their beliefs enabled him to succeed in Chicago politics and shortly thereafter in Illinois politics. Now that he is on the national stage he found out that Reverend Wright’s beliefs are detrimental to his campaign. For Obama, discarding Rev. Wright and the old ideas was as easy as changing his clothes.

All politicians craft speeches to reflect their audiences. But Obama takes it to an extreme. When he was giving a speech in San Francisco he reflected their extreme liberal ideology when he talked about the “bitter small town Americans”. And his latest outrageous statement about his being “the symbol” makes sense in the context of his speaking in front of House Democrats who truly believe he can almost walk on water.

A major problem with reflecting what others want you to be eventually means contradicting yourself. Already journalists and bloggers are beginning to point out the more glaring contradictions. The Wall Street Journal has a good article on Obama’s flip flopping: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121633739458263831.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

In the Harry Potter books, Rowling came up with a clever and amusing way for the children to defeat the boggart. When the monster appeared in the form of whatever scared them the most, the children were told to come up with a way to make their monster look funny instead of threatening. So when a spider appeared to a boy who was terrified of them, he imagined the spider in roller skates at which point the spider was slipping and sliding all over the place. Now the spider was silly not scary. To make the spell work, the children had to yell out the magic word which, appropriately enough, was “Riddikulus!”.

We don’t have wands or magical spells but the same idea works in stopping Barack Obama. John McCain’s group has already figured out that ridiculing Obama is effective as shown by McCain’s recent humorous campaign ads. The first one has generated a lot of buzz as it jokingly tries to compare Obama’s fame and celebrity to that of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Then there is the ad comparing Obama to Moses. After numerous religious conotations the ad ended by stating that Obama is “The One” but then asks if he is a leader. Again, it ridiculed Obama by showing he is all style and no substance.

If my theory is correct then there is plenty of time to ensure that McCain wins in November. I must admit I am not a big McCain fan but at least he has the courage of his convictions whereas Obama’s convictions depend on who he is talking to. It should be easy to now exploit and even ridicule this character flaw. Just as the children defeated the boggart in the Potter novel we should have a town hall meeting where person after person, each with differing beliefs ask Obama questions. In the story the boggart became confused as it tried to rapidly change from one thing to the next, so would Obama if he tried to please numerous contradicting views in the same meeting.

Over the next few months I have no doubt that Obama will continue to contradict himself as he tries to please the whole nation. I also believe that McCain is on the right track by ridiculing Obama’s inflated view of himself. Republicans should also continue to point out the complete lack of substance and how little Obama has actually done on his own. As for the “bitter small town Americans”, perhaps whenever we see Obama contradict himself again or say something else that is over the top we should all start to laugh at the man and yell out “Riddikulus”!

Disco, Manilow and Obama

I wrote over half of an article before I realized that my conclusion wasn’t what I thought it would be. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Yet in light of these unexpected findings I am now feeling optimistic about John McCain’s chances in the upcoming election. So how did I come to this conclusion?

My initial premise was that going back to Peter lying about knowing Jesus over 2,000 years ago right up to today, people lie about liking someone if it might be dangerous or unpopular or simply uncool to admit they liked or knew that person. For example, how was it that disco was so popular back in the 70’s if everybody now say they despised it back then? Same with Barry Manilow, who everyone hated yet he still managed to sell millions of albums. Or more recently, if everyone says that Amy Winehouse is, at best, sad and, at worst, mentally deranged, how is it that her Back To Back CD is the biggest selling album of all time on Amazon.com?

I went on to say that this same phenomenon happened during this election where people are lying both for and against the candidates. Obama’s message of change is what everybody says they want. And yes, his race is also a major issue but a positive one, for to say you are voting for Obama proves you are not a racist, right? On the other hand, everybody hates Bush and the Republicans and therefore they dislike John McCain, too. Plus everyone is saying he is too old to be president, and more importantly, voting for him might indicate that you are a closet racist. Therefore if you want everyone to know that you, too, want change and are popular, cool and definitely not a racist then you tell them you are for Obama and against McCain and those awful Republicans.

I continued by saying that we saw this during the primaries. Obama easily won in the caucuses where people had to publicly indicate who they wanted and may have feared being considered a racist or even uncool if they literally didn’t stand in Obama’s corner. On the other hand when people voted in the secrecy of a voting booth where no one would know who they chose then Obama lost.

Where I got in trouble with this article is that based on all of the above I would assume that people are continuing to lie and say they are for Obama in order to look good to the pollsters. So a review of the polls should therefore show that Obama is decisively beating McCain, right? But he’s not. A few polls show he is ahead but only by single digits and one recent poll showed that they were tied!

What does this mean? How can McCain be doing so well when everyone knows that Obama is the man of the hour. He’s even on the cover of Rolling Stone and you can’t get much cooler than that! What about the historically known premise that people tend to lie to pollsters to make themselves look good? This would mean lying that they are for Obama because lets face it, nobody would lie about voting for McCain thinking that would make them look popular. So if you factor in that some people are lying about planning to vote for Obama and if he currently only leads by a few points, at most, then, oh my, it might mean that McCain is actually in the lead.

If the election were held today I wouldn’t be surprised if, to the shock of everybody, McCain is the winner. But the election isn’t for another 4 months and a lot can happen. Nonetheless, Obama shouldn’t be quite so certain that everybody will be voting for him, even including those who are standing in his corner. As for McCain? He needs to let people know that a vote for McCain is definitely not racist nor a third term for Bush. Most of all McCain needs to let us know that it is ok to support him and maybe even popular and cool to vote for him. Although just like disco and Manilow, if you want to deny you liked McCain after the fact, well, once McCain is elected and in the White House he probably wouldn’t even mind if you denied him three times.