Listening to Both Sides

THE RIGHT ANGLE: Listening to both sides - Opinions

A couple of weeks ago, I attended UNCG's final Debate Watch. As many of you know, the final presidential debate was a real snoozer. Let's face it: none of us watching the debate were expecting to learn anything new about the issues. We just wanted to see someone make an idiot out of themselves.

But I wasn't just a viewer at this Debate Watch. I had volunteered to be a discussion leader. This meant that after the debate was over, I had to engage a group of students in intelligent conversation about the issues. And throughout all of this, I had to be bipartisan.

Like most groups there, mine tended to lean toward the left. I sat there, gritting my teeth as I forced myself to not correct some of the participants' extremely misguided views. Luckily for them (and you!), I wrote down the question and answers, and I'm going to give you a little political lesson, because we all know how dangerous uninformed voting is!

THE QUESTION: What was discussed that you found irrelevant?

THEIR ANSWER: Bush's answer for everything was "education". More education will not help unemployment.

MY REPLY: I'm not sure about you, but there's a reason I'm in college: it's because I don't plan on being a waitress forever. Now, if you're in a major that is difficult to find a job in, well, that's not my problem. But for the most part, people go to college to make themselves more desirable to future employers. Bush's plan is one of the best I've heard: allow people whose jobs have been shipped overseas to go back to school. America is moving forward right now, and we're seeing a need for more and more jobs that require certain skills. Yes, we are losing some jobs, and even Kerry admitted there was nothing that could be done about that. But rather than sit around and cry about it, Bush wants to give these people the skills that they need to find a new job. How can anyone say that education is irrelevant here?

THE QUESTION: What is the most important issue in this election?

THEIR (FIRST) ANSWER: Iraq.

MY REPLY: Iraq is a big issue, and understandably so. We have thousands of American soldiers over there, bravely trying to make the world a safer place. And while I would love to see the troops come home as quickly as possible, I know that cannot happen immediately. My heart goes out to all the troops and their loved ones, but when I see antiwar protestors, I just want to scream at them and remind them that THERE WAS NOT A DRAFT. The soldiers in Iraq signed up for service, knowing that they could be called to duty at any time. When we first sent troops over to Iraq, the entire country was fairly certain that they posed an imminent threat to us. Now that we're there, we can't just pull out without regard to the Iraqis because of faulty intelligence, military scandals, or whiny antiwar protestors. I have faith that Bush will do the right thing in making sure Iraq's future is as secure as possible. I do not feel that Kerry has any right commanding our troops; the mindset that caused us to pull out of Vietnam prematurely and resulted in the massacre of over 3.5 million people is the same mindset that Kerry had then and still has today.

THE QUESTION: Most important issue?

THEIR (SECOND) ANSWER: We should make healthcare/higher education available to everyone.

MY REPLY: I know that everyone's basis for this theory is that Europe has universal healthcare. Well, yes, Europe does have universal healthcare and it works just fine for them. But the last time I checked, we are not a European nation. I love my country, but America has this way of screwing things up. Look at our public education system: it's not the greatest thing in the world. Do we really want our healthcare system to look like our public school system? For that matter, do we want our higher education to look like our public school system? Everything that works for Europe will not necessarily work over here. Besides, you can't complain about high taxes and then whine about not having universal healthcare, because no matter what Kerry tells you, you WILL be paying for that healthcare plan with your hard earned money. I'm not sure where he thinks money like that comes from. Perhaps he thinks we all had the good fortune of marrying a widowed millionaire?

So to make it simple for all you debate-watchers, what we have here are two distinct choices: we can vote for a man with several unspoken "plans", who does not take human life into consideration when ending a military conflict, and who thinks that you won't notice if he raises taxes to pay for his billion dollar, still unspoken "plans"; or we can re-elect the man who wants to improve your chances of getting a job, who cares about the welfare of people all over the globe, and who wants to give Americans the right to put more of their hard-earned money into their pockets. For lower taxes, compassion, common sense, and someone who knows where they stand at all times, re-elect George W. Bush in 2004.