Why America Needs Barack Obama

Why would I spend hours of my time, including caucusing in Nevada, writing speeches, and organizing events instead of studying? Here' why.

I respect the classic Republican agenda. I respect and understand the need for a lean federal government that respects states' rights. But I believe that there is a role for government in regulating the economy and providing a social safety net (just as Adam Smith did). I've studied enough economics in enough countries to know how taxes place artificial barriers on the market. A national sales tax like Huckabee wants would be great, it would encourage savings, but enforcement would be exeedingly difficult and it's politically incredibly unpalatable. I can't for the life of me understand though why the Republicans only response to our current economic mess is to cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes. We have a $9 trillion deficit - 33% of our entire GDP. That's eating into public and private savings, limiting investment and slowing growth. Clinton can't take all the credit for increasing the Dow Jones by 500% - but keeping long-term interest rates low, increasing access to easy credit, through deficit reduction and balanced budget has been shown to work. Electing a Republican to the White House would only continue the Bush Administration's failed economic policies. The Republican Party has lacked the political will to pay for a war, to balance the budget, to fund no child left behind - instead puting it on my generation to pay for. In short, the Republican party has lost the mantle of fiscal responsibility - they had 6 years of controlling every branch of government and squandered it. I also respect the need to keep the nation safe (just as the Democrats did during WWI, WWII, Korea, Kosovo, etc.). Military spending is now the highest since WWII per capita. We're spending more to win the war on terror than we did on the Cold War, but we're no less safe. America is now more unpopular around the world than at any other point in our history - only 3% of Turkish citizens have a favorable rating of America, and that's a NATO ally. Why is the US election getting such coverage from around the world? What does it mean, if the world could vote, that we'd have a Democrat in the White House? There is a place for soft power, for diplomacy, for building real alliances - that's how we change international relations, that's how we save the planet.


I do respect John McCain. I respect his stance on climate change, on immigration reform, on campaign finance. If elected, he'd have a good chance at bringing the Republican party kicking and screaming back to the center and away from the polarizing partisan politics that have plagued Washington for too long (sorry, I dig illeration). But this isn't the general election yet. Today is about picking the nominees. Obama has energized a new generation to get involved in American politics. Every Democratic primary and caucus has more than doubled 2004 numbers. He's done it all on his own - he didn't get elected because his last name was Bush or Clinton. He became the first African-American President of the Harvard Law Review, taught at Univ. of Chicago, practiced civil rights law for a decade, was a State Representative and held elected office longer than Clinton, and ois nly the second black Senator since reconstruction on his own. This is a historic time. It's time for a new beginning.

Fired up!

This I believe

I believe in the power of science fiction. Not just for its capacity to transform dreams into reality, but also for its power to bond together those who share visions of the future. For me, this is true for my relationship with my Dad. Some Fathers and sons bond over sports, or fishing, or hunting. My Dad and I do over Star Trek. We tried destruction derbies, monster truck rallies, and even a trip to Disney World, but one of my earliest and best memories wasn’t Mickey, but a Klingon Battle Cruiser menacingly de-cloaking in the Enterprise view screen.
Over the years, nearly every setting and situation becomes a galaxy far, far away for my Dad and I. When it’s snowing at night, we’re not driving along some dark street in Indiana, but going at war speed with stars whipping by. Both of us are thinking it, without needing to say a word. When we’re rummaging around in the car looking for a map, we unfailingly simultaneously quote Khan from Star Trek II, “The override, where’s the override?” We can’t say “two weeks” without sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall when he’s going through customs on Mars. A new foreign language phrase that neither of us have heard before becomes “klaatu verada nicto” from The Day the Earth Stood Still. When either of us google something we invariably preface it by writing “From an entry in the Encyclopedia Galactica,” quoting Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. Nightmares become “monsters from the id!” vis-à-vis Forbidden Planet. Even my choice of expletives has been affected. I now use “Frak” from Battlestar Galactia more often than the colloquial alternative. The summation of these views of other universes has together created a private one for my Dad and I.
Gene Rodenberry, creator of Star Trek, once said “Science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects.” A lifetime of sci-fi has influenced more than just my relationship with my Dad, but also my hopes and aspirations for the future. I read Scientific American, am hooked on Nova, and grab the Science Times even before the comics. My Masters dissertation was on property rights in outer space. I’m now in law school, but my first summer job will be working at the NASA Office of General Counsel. Sci-fi may have made me into a nerd, but it also has continued to be a source of joy for my family, and has made me an optimist while allowing me to think critically about the perils of technology. Thank you to those authors who have shared their visions – the world, and my family, are better for it. As Tennyson said, “For I dipped into the future, far as human eyes could see, saw the vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be.”