In Light of Recent Events, No More Politics Here — After This Post

Due to what is sure to offend far too many people, I’ve decided not to continue the Pyra vs Syd ‘election’.

For anyone curious, here is how it would have played out.  Most people will be offended.  Don’t read on if you are easily offended.  If you do read on, don’t complain to me :).  The whole thing was basically designed to poke fun of the political process, and also (here’s the important part) to offend everyone.

In an effort to keep this from an all out debate in my comments, I will turn them off if they get out of hand.

Pyra would pick Umah as her running mate (Umah is my WoW alt, still low leveled, but been around about as long as Syd).  Syd would pick Ata as her running mate.

All of the FFXI world would have thrown their support behind Pyra, except for the elves.  They would side with Syd “Because they like what she has to say”.  When in reality, they would only vote for her because Syd is an elf, and due to allegations that Pyra doesn’t like elves.  The self-proclaimed king of the Elves — Prince “Rev Al” Trion would have said something like “All true elves must vote for Syd”.

It was designed to highlight that far too many people are voting based on the color of the candidate’s skin.  Here’s a news flash — voting for someone based on the color of their skin is just as bad as voting against someone based on the color of their skin.  Need proof?  Howard Stern (YouTube clip).  “If Obama were to win, would you mind if Sarah Palin became Vice-President?”  “Yeah, I like her.”  Sal went into Harlem and presented McCain’s policies as Obamas, and asked people about it.  Yeah… not voting based on skin color, really.

Continuing the Pyra vs Syd bit, everyone would have jumped on Umah saying how bad, inexperienced, etc she is.  Of course the obvious thing absent is that Syd has basically the same experience as Umah, yet Syd was running for President.  A semi-washed up actor would make a comment about how Umah will probably become president because Pyra is so old she’ll end up dying in office.

The obvious correlation here is that Palin and Obama have basically the same level of experience in government — next to none.  And Obama has been basically running for President since he started in politics.  The thing no one likes to see is that Umah [Palin] is running for VICE President, and Sydonia [Obama] is running for President.

As far as the washed up actor comment.  It is sadly true.  Matt Damon was the washed up actor.  He basically said that McCain is so old he will die in office, leaving someone with basically the same experience as his choice for President in charge.

Pyra and Syd would throw some jabs back and forth.  Anytime Pyra made anything remotely negative, it was torn to pieces on the blogs and internet.  Anytime Syd made any comment remotely negative, it was treated as gospel.  It would get to the point where Pyra would be torn apart for saying anything negative, and not saying anything negative.  A real Catch-22, and the candidate chosen by the media would sadly come out ahead.  Remember, the media chose Obama over Hillary, and now they are trying to chose Obama over McCain.

Also, Obama has accepted millions in foreign money, mostly from George Soros.  He also broke his promise to take public funds for the campaign.  This would have set a cap on how much he could spend.  While Obama and McCain had an agreement to take them, Obama broke the agreement, allowing him to out fund raise, and thus outspend.  So now the media is picking our winner, and foreigners are buying the election.

In addition, Obama’s ‘no tax increase’ is what is called a ‘marginal rate hike‘.  It works out that EVERYONE’s taxes will go up by about 10%, unless you make between 85,000 and 95,000 per year.  I worked damn hard for 3 years to make 10% more.  Now, I’m being told ‘You don’t deserve that money as much as this guy who hasn’t worked in 5 years does’.  If I get a 10% raise in my taxes, it will destroy my quality of life (which is not that staggering already), and will cause me to likely not be able to afford my condo — or I’ll be eating top raman everyday.  Could I afford slightly higher taxes?  Probably.  Could I afford 10%?  Not a chance.  Especially since VA is controlled by the Democrats, who also enjoy raising taxes, even in years of a budget surplus… I already pay too much in taxes (over 50% when you combine the state, federal, social security, etc).  If I wanted to pay 60% taxes, I could just move to Paris.  These tax increases will also hurt the company I work for.  I don’t believe it will go under, but we won’t be able to expand as quickly as we want to, and we might not be able to afford even a cost of living raise every year.

Everyone talks about this mysterious middle class.  Where I live, I’m squarely in the middle.  Maybe even borderline poor.  For my area.  If I lived in other places, I would probably be rich.  It is all based on cost of living, which no one has addressed so far.  Based on what we’ve seen, Obama figures that middle class is those making 85,000-95,000 per year.  McCain tried to define it as anyone making less than 5 million per year, and was torn apart on the news channels as ‘out of touch’.  5 million might be high, but if you define 5 mil or less as middle class, and favor middle class tax cuts, I can see what you are saying, and I can either agree or disagree.  Obama hasn’t defined middle class, yet I just saw an add which says he is for ‘middle class tax cuts’.  And yet, people eat it up.

Obama is also in favor of reinstating the so-called ‘Death Tax’, where you have to pay taxes on money or property that you inherit from a recently deceased relative.  This is that great tax that causes families to have to sell farms that have been in the family for hundreds of years, simply because the family cannot afford to pay the taxes when the farm passes from one generation to the next.

During the final debate, the announcer said that ‘McCain benefits more from keeping people afraid’.  The next day, Obama gave a speech, saying we shouldn’t run a campaign of fear.  30 minutes later, I saw an add that involved a rolling ball of yarn.  I have seen this add probably 200-300 times already.  McCain is constantly accused of running a negative campaign, yet Obama is flooding the airwaves with negativity, everyday.

I live in Virginia, a battleground state.  I have constant visitors from the democrats, and phone calls every 1-2 days.  I get 2 or so a week from McCain too. The difference here is that I asked to be on the McCain call list.  I have in fact asked to not be bothered by the democrats anymore.  They have not respected my request.

I’m not even going to bother talking about either candidate’s health plans — they both suck and are unrealistic. They are both (sadly) just telling people what they want to hear. Neither one will work.

Obama is so out of touch with reality it is amazing. Maybe he is more in touch with the youth, but you need to have more. McCain might be out of touch with the youth, but he is in touch with reality. This is what I would prefer myself.

Then there is the contradiction of a politician who unites rather than divides.  Its funny, we all want to be united, but the only way to differentiate yourself is to take a hard stance on a divisive issue (like abortion, or a social issue), then convince the world that your opponent wants to club baby seals, while you want to shower the world with rainbows and lollipops.  The only way get the power to be a uniter, is to first be a divider.

In the end, it comes down to this.  Obama is an optimist, McCain is a realist.  McCain tells people how it is, Obama tells you how he wants to think the world is, but really isn’t.  Maybe more culturally relevant, McCain is PC, Obama is Mac.  You want to like the Mac, but when it comes down to buying that new computer, 90%+ will buy the PC, even while rooting for the Mac.

Also, this is why I hate politics.

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