Politics

I am an independent, or "decline to state" voter. I have voted for various parties in the past, but am satisfied with none of them. Although I have occasionally voted for Republicans in the past, in the current state of affairs I cannot in good conscience vote for any now, even if I liked the individual, because the Republican party as a whole has become disastrous. Like many, I am forced to vote Democrat just to try to counter the GOP, not because I entirely agree with that party. The issues I believe in are civil liberties, separation of church and state, nonintervention, multilateral relations, environmentalism, education, scientific research, and probably others I'm not thinking of now. I guess that you could call me a liberal.

More specifically, I despise Bush and his cronies, and what they have done to this country and the rest of the world. I opposed the invasion of Iraq, and was disappointed that spineless Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, voted for it, and am disgusted that McCain supports continuing the occupation. I am not enamored with any of the candidates, but I will vote for whichever one the Democrats put up. I think that the Republicans need to be removed from power at every level and in every department, to be kept out of control of the legislature and eventually replaced in the Supreme Court. The Democrats may not be all that great, but they're far better than the Neocons and theocrats in the Republican party.

Religion

As you might be able to tell from the scarlet letter A, I label myself an atheist these days. It's not that I'm against everything about religion, it's just that I do not believe in supernatural beings. I was raised religious, but over the years have become increasingly convinced that beliefs in invisible spirits based upon texts written by primitive peoples have no basis in reality. I recognize that religious individuals and organizations do a lot of good things, but they also do a lot of bad things, and the good that they do does not require belief in any god. So, from time to time I will comment about some of the silliness, like the new creationist movie called Expelled.