Thank God I am not an American!!!

Why? It is not because then I would have to watch football and not because if I was American I would lack that abilities (Englishness) to understand the superb game of Cricket. I thank God I am not American because if I was I would be faced with the choice of George W. Bush or John Kerry or not voting at all. I have a confession to make I have been interested in the American Presidential Campaign, there I said are you happy now J. The reason for this is because I think the decision is an important one, America has such a place in the world that their choice of leader is a very significant choice.
A bit about my politics….contrary to popular belief I AM NOT A COMMUNIST.
I own no Che Guevere T-shirt (or sweat band) no Rage Against the Machine CD’s and no posters of Lenin !!! Now that I have that out of the way, my politics are very confusing and I do not expect you to keep up….Here goes….
I believe in social justice, this would place me on the left, I think it is the government’s role to provide education and health care and a LIMITED welfare benefit. I also believe in social responsibility, which would put me on the right. By this I mean that people should not rely on the government for hand-outs with out trying to help themselves. So economically you could say I am centre left…however I do not agree with the lefts moral politics. I am anti-abortion (right) and anti-gay marriage (right) anti-death penalty (left) so this is where I get confused. I can not consciously vote either side based on politics, I have to base it on people. If I was American I would have to vote for who would be a better president rather than which parties politics I liked. Now George W. Bush has a very checkered record, he started a war that I can not agree with for reasons that are immoral and illegal. He blew the American budget worse than he blew up Baghdad!! – American unemployment is at a low not seen since the depression. So I would struggle to vote for George W. Bush. However he has made some good moral stands – his party repelled two amendments to the constitution – one to legalize abortion the other to legalize gay-marriages. If the constitution is amended that means every state has to change their state laws to match up with the constitution. John Kerry voted for both of these amendments (I think), as a Catholic he has been told that he would be denied the Eucharist in some churches based on his “anti-Catholic” stand on abortion . For a Catholic this is a big deal, us Protestants do not understand how important the Eucharist is to Catholics. Anyway all of this means that I would struggle to vote for anyone, but I could not not vote because I think it is too important a decision to abstain from. So I find my self in a pickle, I could not vote for either candidate and I can not afford not to vote, So thank God I am not an American!!!