Kneejerk Reactions

Disclaimer: Most of what I'm about to say is in response to everything that happened during the elections yesterday.  My words may sound like the rantings of a right-wing lunatic, but I'm going to do my best to be semi-neutral.  I'm also going to try focusing on the local Maryland elections because there was a particular voter question that I vehemently opposed, and I really want to talk about that at length.

First, let's talk about Obama being re-elected.  I've made no secret how I feel about him and his policies, and I was really hoping that Romney would win at least some of the swing states in the election to win the presidency.  He had successfully rebuilt the state economy in Massachusetts while governor, and I really believed he could have worked on fixing the economy and putting the 23,000,000 unemployed people across the country back to work.  I don't understand why voters gave Obama a pat on the back for creating jobs when unemployment levels are still right around what they were when he first took office.  The jobs he created only replaced those that were eliminated early in his term as President.

One other thing caught my interest in the presidential election: the popular vote.  Democrat friends of mine were all over Facebook last night and into today bragging about how Obama will keep our country moving forward and Republicans can suck it, blah blah blah.  (I'll get more into the venomous anti-Republican stuff in a moment, but stick with me here)  Obama is estimated to win the popular vote by a whopping 2.6 million votes.  How is such a plurality something to be that excited over?  Isn't that a mandate that Obama needs to consider in his second term in office?  I think it's fairly safe to say that unless something catastrophic happens between now and 2016, every presidential election for the foreseeable future will be extremely close.  The nation is more and more divided over politics and politicians, leaving a growing number of voters to be more cynical and jaded as we move forward.  That's not what I would call progress.

Moreover, there's this anti-Republican backlash all over Facebook and Twitter which I don't get.  One of my friends on Facebook is a guy I went to high school with.  From our days in school, I recall him leaning conservative on his views and opinions, but now he's a far-left voter.  What changed his mind isn't really the issue, but late last night he posted on Facebook going off on Republicans in a profanity-laden post.  Since when were Republicans viewed as the enemies of modern society?  What is it about our views and ideas that make the other side of the table hate us so much?  I'm asking a genuine question here, and if someone can provide me an answer I'd really like to hear it.

I think Democrats are wrong in a variety of ways, but I'm not so arrogant as to say that I'm right and those who disagree with me are idiots and hate-mongers.  Democrats seem to pride themselves in being open-minded, so I find it pretty ironic that they can be so close-minded to perspectives from the other end of the political spectrum.  At what point did we go from wanting to work together in a bipartisan fashion to being forced to ride the wave of progressives?

I've spent much more time talking about the presidential election than I had planned, so I'm going to move on to what I really wanted to talk about: Question 4 on the Maryland voter ballot.  The Maryland ballot had two big questions that large amounts of TV time were bought up arguing both for and against, those being question 6 (allowing gay marriage in the state) and question 7 (allowing the funding to build a casino in Maryland).  I read up on all the questions on the state ballot last week, so I knew what I'd be going into yesterday, and when I got to question 4 I had to reread it to make sure I understood what I had just read.

From the Maryland State Board of Electors: "Establishes that individuals, including undocumented immigrants, are eligible to pay in-state tuition rates at community colleges in Maryland, provided the student meets certain conditions relating to attendance and graduation from a Maryland high school, filing of income taxes, intent to apply for permanent residency, and registration with the selective service system (if required); makes such students eligible to pay in-state tuition rates at a four-year public college or university if the student has first completed 60 credit hours or graduated from a community college in Maryland; provides that students qualifying for in-state tuition rates by this method will not be counted as in-state students for purposes of counting undergraduate enrollment; and extends the time in which honorably discharged veterans may qualify for in-state tuition rates."

The key phrase in that paragraph is "including undocumented immigrants," which obviously means illegal immigrants.  According to voter results, Marylanders voted at almost a 2:1 margin in favor of this question.  I am appalled and utterly disappointed.  Why in the world should an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT be entitled to even attend a university, much less pay in-state tuition for it?  I'm honestly not even sure what angers me more about this issue, that Maryland voters voted in favor of it, or that it was even proposed in the first place.  Did the state board of education sit down and figure that if illegal immigrants were going to live in the state, they might as well find a way to make money off them?

I also found it amusing that such students would be entitled to in-state tuition if their parents filed income taxes.  Again, we're talking about immigrants living here illegally.  What are the odds that such individuals file taxes at all?  If they did file taxes, wouldn't that make tracking them down and arresting them for living here illegally much easier?  

I got into a brief discussion over question 4 on Facebook with a friend of mine who was happy over Obama being re-elected as well as all the Maryland voter questions passing (incidentally, that was the first sign I found that indicated question 4 had passed).  She clearly had voted in favor of the question, but at least she was able to defend her opinion on it.  One of my closest buddies had also commented on there, saying he had voted in favor of it too because he said he would prefer them being educated and working, versus joining gangs.

Putting the rather laissez-faire attitude of his response aside for a moment, there's a crucial fact that voting in favor of question 4 that's being side-stepped: it does nothing to resolve the problem of illegal immigration; it only encourages it.  I'm appalled that the  board of electors and voters across the state don't seem to care anymore about illegal immigration in Maryland.  They're at the point of saying, "Hey, we're never going to be rid of illegals, so we might as well make money off them."  I don't think I'm being xenophobic or racist in being concerned over this issue, and I'd be even more concerned if more states follow Maryland's suit in future elections.

If one thing is absolutely true after reading about the outcomes of yesterday's elections, it's that the Republicans have a lot to work on in the next 4 years if they hope to regain the presidency.  Mitt Romney was the most electable candidate they could have found this year, but he still didn't win.  I'm not sure what kind of rabbit they can pull out of their hat in the next 4 years, but if they can't appeal to minorities or women, they will be on the outside looking in for a long time.