My choice for president

The other day I walked into my public speaking class and told my students, as I’ve told them all semester, that I was not going to try to persuade them to vote one way or another. I think it would be unethical to do so. What I told them instead is that when I go to vote, the way I make my decision is to figure out what is most important to me. What is it that I think, from my own particular vantage point of the world, that we need in order to make this world a better place. For me, I believe that the most important thing, and you can take this straight back to the constitution, is that everyone should have the ability to do what they love, and to do what they do best. In order for that to be possible, I believe that people need to be healthy, and well informed. Not just informed of the possibilities available to them, but of the steps that need to be taken in order for them to achieve those goals. I believe that what Barack Obama is planning with health care and education will help make it so that more people in the United States will be able to achieve their goals and live a life that they find fulfilling. I think he achieves this by looking ahead and working to preempt problems that might arise in the next twenty years. By offering health care to all children, it is more likely that children will not only grow up healthy, but will remain health conscious when it comes time for them to pay their own way for health care. By making it more possible for all people to attend college by engaging in community service, we help build a commitment to the country and to community in the young adults who go out and work for a public works project. After they complete this project, they will be offered money towards college and tuition reimbursement. In this way, Obama is attempting to reinforce a generation of Americans with a love for community and country, and the education that would allow them to continue building community in a way that is interesting and provocative for them.

The last few months have been stressful for me, in large part because I am afraid of us not looking far down the road. I’m afraid what will happen if we continue to try to fix and save for the present, instead of preparing for the future. It is hard to have faith in something and over the past few years my faith in just about everything has wavered from time to time. I have put my faith in Barack Obama not because he’s going to solve all of our problems right now. I have put my faith in him because he knows and freely admits that we can’t solve all the problems right now. The world is growing smaller and people are more connected than ever before. As we move forward, we need to do so intelligently. Yes, we need to work to make the world safer now, but if we are doing so at the cost of future relationships, that just doesn’t seem right. If the world is growing smaller, it also means that we are growing closer and closer to our neighbors. We have to find a way to be on equal ground with them, and to do so demands a population that is cognizant of other worldviews and willing to entertain new ideas. For that to happen we need a population that is well educated, and healthy, and I believe that that is what Barack Obama stands for.