After further review, you are hereby prohibited from posting anymore about politics, since you voted for good ole Jimmy.
I knew confessing that would cause me grief, but not near as much as having actually done it.
But, at the time, Carter appealed to my youth, just as did Obama to the youth of four years ago. Although only 11 years younger than Gerald Ford, he seemed much younger, more hip, and a break from all those old dinosaur Republicans of that era. JC's was a message of "change" and "hope," and I bought that message hook, line and sinker. It's also why I don't think anyone should be able to vote before turning 21. It's just way too easy to manipulate youth with uninformed political views.
And much like Obama, Carter naively seemed to believe that the only reason so many around the world hated America, is merely because we are just so misunderstood, and that if they only understood our benevolent and peace-loving hearts, that they would come to love us, understand us, and partner with us by embracing in one big international hug. Stupid, naive and exceptionally dangerous, such views are. Nothing has changed: The bad guys typically only understand what hurts them - economically or militarily, and we forget that at our own peril. The Nazis, WWII Japan, the Stalinists, today's Islamists - to all of them, negotiations and peace conferences were/are only a tool to achieve by diplomacy what they were/are also willing to achieve by "ANY MEANS NECESSARY." But Obama and those like him think our enemies can be reasoned with, and so we'll eventually all be able to sit around a warm fire singing "Kumbaya." That kind of thinking appeals to youth, and it's so easy to make them believe everyone over 50 or those sporting some gray hair are all clueless, heartless warmongers who want to start wars and starve the poor. And so when young kids look at the mess our world is in, to them, such manipulative dishonesty seems to make sense.