Republican leaders in Tampa this week had their biggest microphone and largest soapbox to explain how their leaders’ faith, values and actions would lead our great nation to a better tomorrow. What their keynotes speakers largely pitched were falsehoods, exaggerations and hyperbolic language devoid of ideas and ignorant to their own blockades.
Wednesday night’s intentional misdirection from Rep. Paul Ryan about this White House’s failures is staggeringly un-presidential. Don’t be fooled by this man’s P90X workout energy. If he’s trying to sell the value of lying, he nailed it. Even Fox News has pointed out his five major falsehoods: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/paul-ryans-speech-in-three-words/#ixzz2523QbmAu
Thursday, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio then targeted the religious core of the United States, calling on Americans to remember that “America was founded on the principle that every person has God-given rights.” What struck me as odd about his choice of words is how he said “every” person. But the LGBTQ community doesn’t seem to have those same rights to marriage in Rubio’s eyes. Immigrants don’t seem to have those same rights, even when they want to share in the democratic process by becoming an American. And certainly women don’t have those rights when it comes to choices about their own healthcare and abortion.
And while I’m a proud faithful American and believer in God, I believe religious freedom is one of the most important values of this great nation. When Rubio said Thursday night that “faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all” I wonder if he remembered my Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters who believe in a different Creator than he does, or my atheist/agnostic friends who care for the least of these, but not in the name of God.
Freedom is the most important American value of all, and we need to remember that freedom is not free. The millions of men and women who have died in armed combat did it, not as a holy war, but to keep America the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. This pandering, and misrepresentation of the American experience is not my value system.
The GOP’s nominee, Mitt Romney distanced himself from who he was, who he is, and who he can be. He was a moderate governor of the great state of
Massachusetts, who created universal healthcare, who supported immigration rights, and gave more rights to women, homosexuals and the poor, but then he became the almost unrecognizable GOP nominee with an entirely different set of values.
Hypocrisy is great sin, but forgiveness and compassion can always trump past misdeeds. I truly pray for Republicans to stop their hypocrisy, forgive past failures, and force national discussions about how to solve problems, and not just get elected.
When I vote, I’m choosing a candidate who has proven time and time again about how he truly identifies and raises up the least of these, marginalized and forgotten. Thank you for running President Barack Obama.
The opinions here are that solely of Joseph Gidjunis.
