Narrow minds.

There wasn't any poetry reading last night at Oh My Goddess Coffeehouse, but there was a group art show opening. I thought the art was the kind that you would see for first time artists, which is what they were. After looking at the sculptural pieces hanging I went outside and sat down at one of the tables. Soon enough a young guy came by and reintroduced himself as being one of the listeners to an anti-war poetry reading that I had hosted a few months ago at the same coffeehouse. We chatted for a little bit before he brought up the fact that he would vote for Bush if Kucinich didn't win at the convention. This young man brought up two arguments for voting for Bush. The first was that Bush being elected would continue to keep people out of their "complacency", and the second was that he would not vote for Kerry on the basis of "the lesser of two evils".

I brought up the fact that having Bush in control meant that millions of third world women would not have access to reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptive methods. He wouldn't listen. So, in fact, he is condemning millions of women to untimely deaths because he can only see a partisan advantage to Bush being in office again and not a Democrat like John Kerry.

His view was amazingly parochial and seemed to consist of how Bush would affect Americans but not the rest of the world's population. I think that the wars of aggression by Bush shows that he is antithetical to the Constitution, and he is a clear and present danger to the Bill of Rights that we Americans have lived under for over two hundred and twenty five years.

Voters like this young man need to have their world views opened up so that they can see that Bush is not just a useful "prop" to keep progressive Americans involved but his actions have killed, injured, and maimed tens of thousands of the world's people either through war or through his religious views being promulagated in rulings that affect how U.S. funds are used by world aid agencies.