A Clear Choice

 

I hate bullies. I hate liars. I hate bullies who are liars. That, unfortunately, is what we have as one of the two top presidential candidates in the United States election this year. It is unfortunate that there are people who support somebody like that. It is also fortunate because it's really easy to spot somebody you don't like and to vote for the alternative. That's certainly what I'm going to do. I have issues with the plans of the candidate that I support, Kamala Harris, but they are tiny in comparison to the issues I have with the cruel, dangerous plans of the lying bully I could never support, Donald Trump.

My hate comes from the threat of assault on what I value, which is people. I value people's lives. I value their well-being. I feel most guilty when I cause harm to another person. I feel most joy when I feel like I made somebody's life better. Bullying liars thrive on harming others, using them to pleasure themselves and then throw away when they’re done, which is my personal definition of pure evil.

We’re lucky to have a clear choice, between that and an honest caretaker. I think we need an honest caretaker as we face our many challenges in the present and in the future. It's important to have a tough one; someone who can stand up to threats. And I firmly believe in fighting when somebody's life is at stake, to defeat the threat of damage by someone like a lying bully. I expect that most people's lives will be better to the extent that they can be under Harris, and they will be worse to the extent that they can be under Trump. It's a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, that's not the case with many of the voters that support him; but I can't control them. I don't believe that I can change their minds because they are under his control. I choose not to control; because to do so would be to become that which I hate.

As we face choices of who to lead us and who's going to have the power to lead people, the way that we make those choices can be influenced for what we consider to be the better. In my case, “better” is based on a bias toward people and their welfare; toward ecosystems and their health; and toward life in general, which is interdependent and requires something from each of its members in order to be able to sustain the environment that we all live in.

In this election, those considerations are a major factor because in the case of the lying bully, there is a desire to remove regulation, remove the constraints on harmful behaviors and enhance the ability of people like him to thrive in pursuit of what they alone want, without consideration for their effects on other lives. The selfishness of Trump and others like him turns the resources needed to maintain basic survival into waste that cannot be consumed and fouls the resources that are left so that people and other species cannot live healthy lives. Worse, these lying bullies force others to do the same.

On the other hand, it appears that Harris’s heart is in the right place. She definitely has the qualifications to effectively serve people by managing the people’s agency, government, one of whose purposes is to do for people what they can’t do themselves in order to live and thrive. She also has the ability to learn and adapt based on intelligent assessment of reality, which will be critical to extending our collective lifetime in the face of global crises largely caused by the lifestyle she has sworn to defend.