This is about the answers Vice Presidential Candidates Paul Ryan and Joe Biden gave regarding how being life long Catholics affect their view on politics. These responses were given during the one and only vice presidential debate last Thursday, October 11th, 2012. This is my two cents, it’s not my dollar, not the whole nuts and bolts. However, in a nutshell it is why I stand where I stand.
YOU can believe whatever you want to believe, and it is not my place to question or protest that. It is completely my place to question, protest and outright make a scene when your beliefs interfere with my way of life and MY beliefs.
“I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do.”– Congressman Paul Ryan 10/11/12
Versus
“My religion defines who I am, and I’ve been a practicing Catholic my whole life… But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews, and I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the — the congressman.”- Vice President Biden 10/11/12
To me that is the take away to this campaign. One side wants smaller government in regards to social programs and spending. How much, in terms of dollars and cents are the poor, the elderly, the ill and the wounded worth? The other side wants smaller government in regards to our social choice. How much freedom do we have in terms of our personal decisions on who we love, have sex with, choose to have or not to have children with, who we marry?
One side would impose their morality on the other, not trusting that different people come to their crossroads by different journeys and will choose their own path. Moreover, not trusting that we are capable and cognizant of these choices.
In November, I will vote for Obama again and know that his America is more in line with the country I want for my son and my daughters.
That being said, I am eternally grateful that, for all its problems, we live in a country that dreams bigger than it is, and allows us to dream bigger than we are. Our potential, my friends, is worth doing one’s best for, worth bending, compromising, and finding solutions. May our politicians find it so.
Set your drink down, and take a moment, to revel in the possibilities, in OUR possibilities. For time can be rewritten and the future is not set.
Thank you, Ray Charles.
