synapse collapse

Why I support Barack Obama

I’d mention their respective economic plans, but neither is too different and both are changing daily as the market continues to fall. (As I write this, the DJIA is down another 600 points, sitting around 8,000.)

Everything I’ve seen leads me to believe Obama is more fiscally-conservative than McCain, which matters to me. But let’s be clear here, neither candidate can call themselves fiscally conservative, just so we get that out of the way. Moreover, the tax-breaks that come in with O’s fiscal conservatism will actually affect me. Not the case with McCain’s tax plan.

McCain’s voting record shows he will not vote to provide stronger benefits to our soldiers and veterans; Obama has, which means my brother will get better college education when he retires from the Army. This also matters to me.

O is pro-choice, M is anti-abortion. This matters to me.

M’s health-care plan spends nearly as much as O’s, but O’s plan does a better job covering the uninsured, especially over time.

I think welfare is an important component to enabling unemployed to find gainful employment. This one is easy: O and M are pretty much identical in their stance on social welfare programs.

O’s foreign policy isn’t trying to build up more enemies. M sees “KGB” in the eyes of one of the largest democracies in the world. Both take an aggressive stance, but I think O will do a better job globally at improving our reputation after the damage done by W’s wanton expression of authority.

Neither O or M support marriage for gay and lesbian couples. This is discrimination, nothing more, nothing less. The offering up of “civil unions” is a weak start, but when I complete my W-4 every year, I’m marking “M” for married, not “civilly unioned”. Marriage is already a “civil union” and has been for a long time. If a couple is wed in a church without a marriage license, they are not married legally. For those that wish it, let churches co-opt the term “civil union” if they feel the need to differentiate. If the church and religious folk want to preserve the “sanctity” of marriage, outlaw divorce first.

Last for me: Obama supports net-neutrality, M does not. What this means: in the future, your internet service provider will charge you by the bit for service, and will charge you at different rates based on who’s offering the service. So one theoretical situation in the future: Comcast sets up a deal so Yahoo! is free, but Google costs you $1/Gigabyte. To non-techies: there is no rhyme, no reason and no asset to back up charging for differentiated service like this. It is not the same as electricity, water, or gas in that sense.