And Now, For This Reluctant Political Statement...

I'm not a political person. Really, I'm not. And I have no intention of turning this blog into yet another right- or left-leaning political rant. But this entry has been building for a long time.

You see, I normally vote my conscience. I'm not affiliated with either major political party and I like it that way. However, for the last several years, I find myself straying further and further away from The Current Administration's policies.

Sanctioning torture? Not the America I know and love. The Chief Executive looking the American people in the eye and saying there are no secret CIA prisons and then, when it is revealed that there had been all along, defending his reasons for LYING? (Not refusing to comment, mind you, but outright fibbing, liar-liar-pants-on-fire...) A man who spent the minimal amount of time necessary in the National Guard and never seeing combat sending the cream of America's youth off to die on foreign soil, aided by a Secretary of Defense with even less real military experience?

(Don't get me wrong on that last point -- I fully support our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. They are just doing their jobs. I just hate seeing lives wasted and families destroyed for no real, long-tern purpose. Terrorism has always existed and always shall. Sectarian violence has always existed in the Middle East and always will. Democracy can't be forced on a people -- they have to come to it themselves and evolve their own system for implementing it.)

But the final straw hit me whilst listening to NPR the other day. It seems the IRS is investigating Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California with the intention of removing its tax exempt status. (Click HERE for a link to the full story.) Apparently, on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, the minister delivered an anti-war sermon. Churches? Decrying war?? Mock horror!

Nevermind that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of right-wing ministers not only preach the Republican Party message from the pulpit, but actually tell their parishioners how to vote and the IRS never darkens their door!

Enough is enough. I'm voting a straight slate of Democratic candidates in November and, most likely, again in 2008. Let me emphasize that I have never willfully done this before. But something has to change. Someone has to limit George W's power. Someone has to bring some balance back to this country.

Please?