Good Ideas from two Senators? It must be an Election Year

Note to readers: Due to scheduling issues, I’ve uploaded this blog a day early.  Next week’s new blog should appear on Friday (June 27) as usual.

 

            Senators Barack Obama and John McCain were in the news recently saying things that make a lot of sense for America.  Obama was in a church on Fathers’ Day talking about how dads needed to be more involved in their kids’ lives.  What a relevant message.  Boys who grow up in homes without dads are more likely to end up in prison.  Kids who grow up in one-parent homes are more likely to experience poverty.  These two statements are not just my opinions; this is what I have been hearing and reading on the subject. 

            There are so many sources in our lives telling us to do what we want.  We deserve to treat ourselves, they say, we deserve to be happy.  Well, you know what?  Maybe your desire to be happy shouldn’t be the number one factor in your thinking.  Children deserve to grow up in stable homes.  Sometimes a parent needs to be booted out to create that stable home, but more often mom and dad need to find a way to work out their issues for the good of their children.  Barack Obama said something that needed to be said.

            McCain’s issue was not primarily a moral one—he was talking about energy policy.  He said we need alternatives to buying so much Middle Eastern oil.  We need to drill more of our own, and we need to invest in alternative energies.  This, too, is a relevant message.  Having to buy stuff from people who hate you does not seem like an ideal business model.  Even if everyone over there loved us (which is kind of like starting a sentence with “Even if Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, and McCain played golf together”)* the world’s oil supply won’t last forever.  We need to look at new and environmentally friendly technologies.  McCain said something that needed to be said.

            Will Obama continue to advocate better parenting, or was it just a little campaign rhetoric?  Will McCain continue to push for a better energy policy, or will he fall in love with big oil campaign dollars?  Who knows?  But I applaud both candidates for saying things that America needs to hear.

 

* I was saying something that was very unlikely, so I illustrated how unlikely it was by using another example of something that will never happen.  I know I probably didn’t need to include this explanation here, but to be honest I just think it’s really funny sometimes to over explain jokes.