Divided we stand?
I am not someone who watches or reads the news every day. I have found that most of my time spent in campus life I can live almost blissfully unaware of world events. However, the reason why I don’t watch the news is not because I don’t care about world events; it is completely the opposite: there is too much news in the media.
I am not someone who watches or reads the news every day. I have found that most of my time spent in campus life I can live almost blissfully unaware of world events. However, the reason why I don’t watch the news is not because I don’t care about world events; it is completely the opposite: there is too much news in the media. Most of what they cover really doesn’t matter in the long run (Donald Trump’s wedding?!) and everything is over-sensationalized.
But there is something that I cannot ignore: that by the end of Bush’s second term in the White House, this country will be divided on a multitude of issues. I’m talking not about the time-tested battle between political parties, but about real way of life issues that – if taken to the extreme – can divide the country as much as it did leading up to the Civil War.
The biggest issue in this country that divides Americans is the war in Iraq. From what much has happened and been said about the entire situation, Iraq is reminiscent of Vietnam. As my instructor said, the difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that the American citizens have a fondness for the soldiers over in Iraq. You do not hear anyone calling an American soldier serving over there a “baby killer.”
Unfortunately, President Bush has used his fight on the “War on Terror” to the extreme. While headstrong and determined, Bush isolates the portion of the American people who do not support the war. This creates a gulf between citizens that is being made harder and harder to rectify the more Bush reiterates his “with us or against us” polemics.
The second largest issue that Americans have become divided over is the supposed economic growth, spearheaded by Bush’s budget plans. These include Social Security reform, and funding cuts in many federal departments such as education and health. Reading an article about the suspicious and ambiguous spending costs of the war, Homeland Security and the inflation of the government’s influence due to such bills as the Patriot Act, I am left to wonder what is going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
In a time when the economy is hurting and people are losing their jobs, why does the Bush administration find it absolutely necessary to cut funding in vital departments such as education or healthcare? Does he want the children of this country growing up with a lowered standard of education than the older generation? To produce a generation of children who know less about the Constitution? Does he want the people in this country who cannot afford healthcare to pay for it, while having lost their jobs?
What kind of “economy boost” is this? And it is all for an increase in Homeland Security, the war in Iraq and feeling “safer” at a time in the world where it is anything but. Yes, Bush’s new plans will not only divide the country intellectually, but also economically.
The last issue that has divided the
American public is the issue of the moral agenda. The most apparent issue that has caused some strife is the gay marriage ban, which the president’s political advisor Karl Rove says is of utmost concern to the president in order to protect “family values.”
I wonder, why do Bush and his evangelist colleagues feel the concept of gay marriage is so threatening to “family values?” I would also like to ask exactly what family values are – since this country is so diverse in its application – not to mention its origins stem from a decidedly dysfunctional 1950s illusion.
Committing a logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum, Rove said in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, “Five thousand years of human history should not be overthrown by the acts of a few liberal judges.” Rove made it clear that Bush wants to appoint judges to the Supreme Court who take a “literal interpretation” of the Constitution, and by “literal interpretation,” he means a facsimile of Bush’s own fundamentalist beliefs.
But what does the rest of the American public have to say to this? Gay marriage might not be what most Americans agree with, but then again, why use such an obscure issue to divide the country? Bush does believe same-sex partners should have most or all of the rights granted to married couples, but cannot call it marriage.
I wait in eager anticipation of these next four years. I sit and ponder over what the Bush administration wishes to push further and what they wish to sweep under the rug for the next president to deal with. I also ponder over what else this country can be divided over, and how far it can go.