Can someone please enlighten me?

I don't understand the strange rationale that is my head sometimes. Scary, right? Even I don't understand me. For example, say all of your friends were invited to a party and you weren't. So all your friends are going. Now, you don't really like the person and aren't really friends with the person that is having the party and wouldn't go if you were invited but still you're just the tiniest smallest bit hurt. Why is that? I don't really want to go but I want to have the choice not to go.

Run for the hills....a Democrat!!!!!

Like I have said before in previous posts, in the past I have tried to keep my mouth shut about politics and religion, something that I have very firm opinions and I know inspires extreme reactions from different people. I have found that it is generally safer to keep your political opinions to your self for fear of offending someone and igniting a firestorm of objections and arguments.

Having said that, I have always been something of an activist deep down in my heart of hearts. I found an outlet for that in College by attending a Women's College that focused on and fostered awareness of women's issues and minority issues. Several times during my college career there were events that reminded me that not all is right with the world. Social injustice, bigotry, hatred and violence were still hard at work. I attended the rallies and colloquiums but it never transferred over into the sphere of politics and political activism....until this current election.

There is something about what is happening with this election cycle that is, to me, extremely exciting. Some people may say that it is because of who is running. To start with we had the potential to break 3 very big milestones: first Mormon President, first woman President and the first African American President. And yes, these are all very exciting achievements but I don't think that is the source of my excitement and interest in this election.

Our country is at a very serious crossroads and we are balancing on the edge of a very uncertain future. I'm a self proclaimed history buff and were we are as a country reminds me of every great civilization and world power in history when they fell into second or even third place on the world stage. England rose to power after defeating the Spanish Armada, the old world power. Great Britain was the leading world power from the late 14th century and Queen Elizabeth I until the end of WWII when the US came to the rescue, fighting the Nazi's and Japan. Russia collapsed after the Cold War to the mighty US.

Look where we are now. We're outsourcing jobs to Asia, we're borrowing billions of dollars from China, our military is weak. We're a joke to the International Community. We're alarmingly close to giving way to a more powerful country. I don't think that by electing McCain or Obama or Clinton we are forever dooming our nation to second place status to China and India and I don't think that any one candidate has all of the answers and will never make any mistakes but I do think we have become complaisant as a country and we are ignoring the issues and changes (good and bad) that are occurring within our borders.

We have a wonderful opportunity here to make a change. We have the chance to rebuild the American Dream and American character. To rebuild our international reputation. It's no secret that the rest of the world thinks that we are arrogant, self-assured (not in the good way), condescending and self righteous, among other things. We need to go back to what made us great. It wasn't the widening gap between the social classes and it wasn't the skyrocketing interest rates and price of college tuition and it wasn't the sad state of our public school education system. Our country has changed and I don't think it has changed for the better. But the glorious, wonderful thing about our country is that every four years we have the chance to change it. To reinvent ourselves. We have a chance to make this country great.