Commentary...Decisions, decisions...

My commentary on one of my collegues blog post entitled Decisions, decisions... on the blog Politics in Motion about out most current presidential election.

I must say after reading this blog that these thoughts were very similar to mine regarding our most recent presidential election. I find this article not only very well written and insightful, but helpful to those who may have needed to feel like they were not alone in their decision to vote this year.

I agree with the comments that Mitt Romney embarrassed himself on television...it was painful to watch. I too voted for Obama the first time and had many reservations about how to vote this term, but I am pleased with the outcome of the election and while I may not agree with all of Obama's policies, I am grateful that I am, as a woman, still an equally considered citizen...even if we do have a long way to go to true equality. Bravo, Andrea Gutierrez!

Abortion: An election platform or none of your business?

Okay, I have to be honest here. One of the main reasons I do not like watching or even hearing about politics is simply because there are too many noses were they don’t belong. What is a government’s purpose? I used to think, rather naively, that it was to keep a country running and financially healthy. Well, of course with our enormous national debt, it’s clear that is a complete misconception on my part.

What is seems like more and more and more is that this country's government believes it has rights….like the right to be protected even when they are violating the rights of others. Take abortion for example. Millions of Americans agree that the government should legislate what women can/cannot or should/should not do with their bodies. I find it interesting that there is not an overwhelming fight to finding a new way to educate people in our society, namely men to say…not rape women. Now granted not all abortion cases are a result of rape, but that really isn’t the point. The point is that it is the women’s body, not the property of the government.

It is certainly  interesting  that same folks that are spouting off about how fertilized eggs are souls, and it is our moral obligation to force the women…who are clearly not souls or people who have rights that need to be protected...but simply a vessel…to give birth… would pass legislation to say the same about sperm.

If we are going to bring God into the argument, as so many seem to (but not me) have a direct line to the guy, or girl, or entitiy..then why did God create the penis? Surely not to be tugged on every time the wind blows?  Sperm surely is for the sole purpose of creating the little miracles called children? Isn’t it equal to legislate how and when men should touch God's little baby maker or discard of God’s gift for life, their sperm?

No, of course not, right? Please government if you want to start somewhere in this moral struggle..why not actually accomplish something useful first. Like shutting down the child porn industry....why is there such a huge demand out there for it anyway? Isn't that worth looking into? Why again is the porn industry itself a multi-billion dollar industry? Why are strip clubs and triple X shops so common? Why does so much money need to be spent making sure guys can get and keep and erection? I mean, if God intended a women to get pregnant  and have a baby from rape...then surely the same God should be considered when a man can no longer get an stiffy? As in...sorry that's all big guy...you're done. Show's over. Move on and no medication for you.

The point here is it’s really none of mine, yours, or the governments business if, when, or how a women decides to have a child and yet it seems to be enough to win points in an election.

Do statics really even matter?

How much should we let job reports influence our voting decision? This is something that Joe Nocera of The New York Times wonders as well. Joe Nocera joined The Opinion pages for the Times in 2011, but he had already had a few decades in the business. Nocera began his career working as a writer/editor in 1978 as an editor at The Washington Monthly. In all of his time in the business, he has never worked for Fox News, which speaks of his credibility immediately. Despite my jokes, he did ask a good question in his recent article, Job Reports - Cooked or Correct? for the New York Times – just how much should we value the new employment statistics.

Of course now that we are full on in the campaign to elections, many “new” facts and data are showing up all over the web. The fact that the new job boost statistics appear in the media after Obama’s poor showing at the debate is no accident. But just how reliable are these numbers and where did they come from? Are these numbers pure imagination? Joe Nocera doesn’t think so based on the fact that these numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where our trusty government officials have secure jobs regardless of the findings. So, why is there such a discrepancy? Well it seems that the reports come from two separate surveys, one called the establishment report, which surveys businesses, and a second that surveys 55,000 households. No matter how many economists were asked, none could seem to explain the variation. However, the bigger question is this…should we base our vote for our next president based on job statistics? Do these numbers even matter?