Questions In A World Without Answers

trying to solve our problems with politics

I keep looking for answers to our problems in this country, and I wondered if our political leaders could help me find the answers I was looking for. Maybe we could be learning something from our political candidates, like Alan Keyes (a man from Maryland running in Illinois). But he says it’s not right to have an abortion, but the death penalty is good. Should I get my answers from a man who thinks it’s not right terminate a fetus that can’t live on its own, but it’s apparently okay to kill those who have already been living?
That doesn’t help me... But all I keep thinking about is that news reports were stating after 9/11 that if flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville Pennsylvania landed less than 30 seconds later, my nephew would have been killed while in school from that crash.
After 9/11, my nephew couldn’t sleep for days.
How do we answer questions for him?
Can he be comforted that we had a decision-making president to help an economy that was failing for a year before he became president, when we are gaining jobs now? Can he be conforted that the decisive President Bush stepped in to fight terrorist-supporting nations like Iraq when everyone else backed away? Or do we ask why people who have lost jobs have found that new jobs now pay Americans on average 13 grand less per year?
Then I wonder: George Bush prays in the Oval Office, and occasionally open cabinet meetings with prayer. May he be too much of a religious zealot to warrant reelection?
And another thing: both the right and the left oppose the Patriot Act, and Bush wants to expand government powers under it.
But what frightened me the most was when I heard a President Bush’s advertisement that ended saying the country relies on freedom, faith, families and sacrifice.
What do we have to give up for Bush’s plan?
What have we given up for Bush’s plan?

John Kerry and John Edwards protest and say that in war situations Kerry’d deploy all the forces in America’s arsenal - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas - to make America more secure
Let me think... Our diplomacy didn’t do anything for years. We’ve been using our intelligence system already. And we are the biggest economic power in the world. And they hate our values and ideas. How will that help?

The Green party noteed that this election is
dominated by fear. The Republicans play on the fear of terrorism and the Democrats play on the fear of Bush. Do we have to play on fear to elect our president?

I’ve seen how other countries deal with our problems, like gas prices, or health care:
In europe, gas is expensive (their government doesn’t subsidize its price down), so they don’t depend on cars as much as we do in America.
In China, people pay for healthcare out of pocket, because there was no national health care plans like in the United states. And if that meant families lived together to save money, then that might help keeps the family together better than the American family.
Other countries don’t ask as much from their governemt as we do. Maybe if we could figure out how to deal with our problems ourselves, maybe then we wouldn't rely on politics so much, and maybe we wouldn’t have to live with so many unanswered questions.

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