My Voting Day

I've been really watching and listening and taking in all this information leading up to election day. I'm not particularly politically outspoken. I've got plenty of stances and opinions, but choose to keep these mostly to myself. Except for Dad. Because he and I can disagree and still have the most respectfully intelligent conversations. I get more out of those talks than I do with anything else. I actually THRIVE on hearing a view different from mine. I am appreciative of all of it and think that God made us all different and special for a reason. The least I can do is try to see the beauty in the variances.

What I don't understand is why some people think that taking down someone else's signs or defacing them is a way of getting a leg up at the polls. Is their self worth and ethical beliefs so poor that they would actually PREFER winning this way? What is heroic about win this way? Wouldn't it feel better to them to know that they won the people's vote because they BELIEVED in their cause, and NOT because they had to prove the other party wrong?

I've been trying to explain to my kids the differences in McCain and Obama and this and that and on and on, and what each brings to the table. Just because we choose to vote for one, does NOT mean it makes all other opponents wrong. All can be an okay choice, and we get to vote for our preference. It doesn't need to be a taking sides thing. In a time in this world when we're trying to desperately teach our children acceptance and caring and community, there is this election that pits us against each other. It doesn't have to be that way. We are all "fighting" for the same team. Remember?

Just because my husband is a Marine does not mean I support the war. It doesn't mean I DON'T support the war either. He didn't join because he wanted to kill or be killed. He joined to make a difference.

This is how I define it:
A veteran is someone who at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount of 'up to and including my life.' That is honor and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

So many people are talking. I think we've got to shut up and listen in order to get anything accomplished and moving in the right direction. You have to know when to prod and when to be quiet and when to let things take their course.