I too, am a bad American. I believe that I am intelligent enough to make decisions pertaining to my own body and that I don’t need some MALE lawmaker legislating my uterus. If I make the choice to terminate my pregnancy, I am the one who has to live with the consequences, no one else. I’ve never had an abortion, but wouldn’t force anyone to go to some back alley abortionist whose tools of the trade are a coat hanger and paper towels. NObody has the right to tell me what I can and cannot do and whether or not I should be able to use contraception or learn the facts of life.

I come from a family of veterans, some who are still alive, some who are dead and some who died on the battlefield, some of whom were and are also Democrats AND liberal. I don’t hate the rich but believe they are not the ones who should be making decisions for the rest of us, nor should they be getting away with sending jobs and their own money off shore because they don’t think it’s safe enough on our own soil, in our own banks. I am also a bad American because not only did I NOT vote for Ronald Reagan, I believe he is in large part to blame for the problems we are having now, deregulation, his hatred of “Government” and his theory if the richest one percent of us were in power, then the prosperity would somehow “trickle down” to those of us less fortunate. I am also a bad American because I come from a union family, was previously a member of not one, but two unions and believe the middle class is the backbone of this country and should be preserved. Union busting and the shipping off shore of our jobs by employers who don’t want to pay a livable wage and provide health benefits for their employees is not a liberal or even a democratic idea. That was all shoved down our throats by Republicans. The GOP, the Grand Ole Party.

My DEMOCRATIC family always owned guns, but what I don’t understand is why anyone needs to hunt with a semi-automatic. I don’t hunt, but many in my family do and have used that skill to supplement a piss-poor income after getting out of the service and not being able to find a decent paying job. My father gave up his education to serve in the US Navy. My mother stole her older sister’s ID so she could enlist in the Army. She was found out while in boot camp and given an honorable discharge. She received military honors a year after her actual funeral because I dogged everyone in power to get it done and Harry Reid made it happen. My uncle, who was shot up in WWII and has jumped at any small sound ever since just went on a flight to Washington DC to the WWII memorial. It was called the Honor Flight. They held a mail call during the flight where he and the others received letters we had all written ahead of time to him thanking him for his service to our country. My brother, my cousins, aunts and uncles many of them served our country honorable and sometimes fatally. Some are liberals, some are conservatives, but dammit, we’re all AMERICANS.

The right is always trumpeting the evils of socialism, but what is the 700 million dollar bailout? What they don’t tell you is they want medicine that is for profit-if it pays, that’s a good thing. If it’s offered to all Americans its socialism. When the economy of this country is running fine it the free-market, but when it crashes, as it’s just done, we all pick up the tab. We are ALL socialists, now! But who are we bailing out? The RICH.

I don’t begrudge anyone their opinion or belief. What I do resent is people who blather on about issues they have no knowledge of and have no intention of educating themselves about. Read, read, read! Look at non-partisan sites like http://www.factcheck.org, http://www.mediamatters.org, http://www.prwatch.org. Then if you still like what the Republicans are peddling, we have a difference of opinion, that’s all.

I’m voting Democratic as I have all of my life. I am proud to say I voted for Bill Clinton and although he is guilty of getting a blowjob in the oval office, no one died on his watch in an unjust war. When the World Trade Center was attacked (the FIRST time), he prosecuted the offenders; he didn’t whisk the families of those responsible out of our country to safety afterwards. He left this country with a surplus, not a huge deficit like the one we currently share. I don’t agree with NAFTA and CAFTA, but overall, we were a safer, more prosperous nation under democratic leadership. We have gone from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in the world! We OWE… everyone!

Many Americans can’t get over the fact that Obama is black. I know my father would have had a problem with that as well as my in-laws. I don’t, however, believe he would vote McCain and to continue to flush our country down the toilet in spite. For those who simply cannot get past the fact that Obama is black, I say this: he’s half white, vote for that half. He’s also a Christian, has been his whole life, he’s not a Muslim and never has been. He’s not hiding behind the facade of a respectable, happily married, educated and a pull-yourself-up-by-your bootstraps American. He really is all those things. He’s what the American dream was designed to create. If you really and truly, in your heart of hearts believe that once Obama is sworn in and moves into the Whitehouse that he will drape his wife and daughters in burkas and start making truckbombs in the basement, I couldn’t possibly change your mind with any rational argument.

I’ve been canvassing for Obama and have spoken to veterans who in the past have supported John McCain, but think the wheels have come off that wagon. I agree. I phone banked with a lifelong Republican turned Democrat. He was a business owner who had to get out of business because he couldn’t afford to pay health care premiums for his employees. He is a war veteran and was wounded. When he shipped home, he had to wait 4 years to get the spinal surgery he needed to be able to walk again. FOUR YEARS-how is that on any planet, in any universe the way to treat the brave men and women who pledged their lives for our freedom?

I’m a Democrat, I’m a liberal and I’m damn proud of it.