365 Facts: #360 (Random--Politics)
You may have noticed that I don't talk much about politics on here. That's because I despise politics. Always have. Even when I was a small child, anything political rubbed me the wrong way. As I got older, it didn't get any better. I think my main problem is that it's a popularity contest. I experienced that in college, the one time I ran for any sort of office. And, in my defense, I was nominated for a board position as the original person didn't want to do it anymore, and when then next formal election came up, I ran because, well, I'd gotten used to it and so why shouldn't I stay there? The only reason I won that election was because the guy who ran against me was creepy. He was the age I am now, hanging out with a bunch of 18-year-olds and pretending he was one of us. Ew. The following year, someone more popular than me ran for the same position, and I lost. Now, she did a fine job, but aside from the guy being creepy, there's nothing that said he'd do a bad job. For all I know, he would have been the best person for the job, but because nobody liked him, he barely got any votes.
Look at the candidates for the next presidential election. Among others, you have a woman, a black man, and a Mormon. There will be people out there who will or will not vote for those people specifically because of who they are, not what they stand for. There are websites out there that take into account your feelings on different subjects and will give you the candidate who most closely matches your opinions. When I visited one, it said my ideal candidate was Rudy Giuliani. Not that I align myself with Republicans--I have conservative tastes for some things, but overall I'd consider myself liberal--but that was an interesting choice. It's really amazing what happens when you take emotions out of things and focus solely on a person's platform.
I don't vote. I am not a registered voter. This fact makes a lot of people upset--oh, it's America, people are dying to protect your right to vote. What people don't seem to realize is that I am making a conscious choice not to vote. Part of why I despise politics is that the whole system of voting strikes me as being bad. If I were to vote, I would feel obligated to vote for everything, yet there's really only information out there for the biggest issues on the ballot, or those closest to you. You'll hear a lot about the presidential election, or things in your town, but county-wide issues? District-wide? You don't necessarily hear everything you need to know about those sorts of things. Plus, when you have a far-flung pool of candidates to choose from, it's hard to get proper information about them all. That's the thing--every voter should be informed about the issues on each ballot. We're not. Or, rather, you're not. When I read election results in the paper, I find out about things I've never before seen. How on earth can you expect a person to make a proper choice between two or more objects when this is the first they've heard of them? That makes no sense. There needs to be a better way to get information out to the public. I know not everyone reads the paper, but I do, and I at least glance at the stories even if I don't read them through. When something isn't even mentioned in the paper but it's put on a ballot, something's not right. I would also like to see a way for everyone's vote to count. In the last couple of elections, that was the rallying cry of the Democrats/Not Republicans. Well, truth be told, in my state my vote wouldn't have mattered had I cast one. Illinois is solidly a blue state; one little blue vote didn't go missing. In someplace like Ohio, though, perhaps it would have made a difference. But then we have something like the electoral college, where you're only voting to represent something. It doesn't matter how many red votes were cast in our state; only the blue votes meant anything. This just seems dumb. Anyone else having flashbacks to 2000? The blue candidate had the most people voting for him, but because of how the electoral votes fell, the red candidate won. And, seven years later, we can see how well that's worked out for us. I know, I didn't vote so therefore I shouldn't complain about it, but there's at least some of you who wouldn't disagree. And, of course, there's the fact that we only see red candidates and blue candidates. What about yellow? Or green? Or purple?
Part of me has vowed not to vote until the whole political system is overhauled. The trick is coming up with a way to overhaul it. Part of me would love to see a way to cast a vote for a person without knowing what race or gender they are, or even their names sometimes. You wouldn't see opponents slamming each other; they'd only be able to focus on the issues, which is what we should be focusing on anyway. People would really be surprised to see who they were voting for. Yes, there's the danger that we'd elect, say, Hitler, but my idealistic mind would like to think there'd be more good than bad to come out of it. Of course, implementing something like that would be a huge challenge to undertake, and it's not something that will happen anytime soon. Of course, the power of politics and voting is that it only takes one person to make a difference. The trick is understanding who that one person should be.
Look at the candidates for the next presidential election. Among others, you have a woman, a black man, and a Mormon. There will be people out there who will or will not vote for those people specifically because of who they are, not what they stand for. There are websites out there that take into account your feelings on different subjects and will give you the candidate who most closely matches your opinions. When I visited one, it said my ideal candidate was Rudy Giuliani. Not that I align myself with Republicans--I have conservative tastes for some things, but overall I'd consider myself liberal--but that was an interesting choice. It's really amazing what happens when you take emotions out of things and focus solely on a person's platform.
I don't vote. I am not a registered voter. This fact makes a lot of people upset--oh, it's America, people are dying to protect your right to vote. What people don't seem to realize is that I am making a conscious choice not to vote. Part of why I despise politics is that the whole system of voting strikes me as being bad. If I were to vote, I would feel obligated to vote for everything, yet there's really only information out there for the biggest issues on the ballot, or those closest to you. You'll hear a lot about the presidential election, or things in your town, but county-wide issues? District-wide? You don't necessarily hear everything you need to know about those sorts of things. Plus, when you have a far-flung pool of candidates to choose from, it's hard to get proper information about them all. That's the thing--every voter should be informed about the issues on each ballot. We're not. Or, rather, you're not. When I read election results in the paper, I find out about things I've never before seen. How on earth can you expect a person to make a proper choice between two or more objects when this is the first they've heard of them? That makes no sense. There needs to be a better way to get information out to the public. I know not everyone reads the paper, but I do, and I at least glance at the stories even if I don't read them through. When something isn't even mentioned in the paper but it's put on a ballot, something's not right. I would also like to see a way for everyone's vote to count. In the last couple of elections, that was the rallying cry of the Democrats/Not Republicans. Well, truth be told, in my state my vote wouldn't have mattered had I cast one. Illinois is solidly a blue state; one little blue vote didn't go missing. In someplace like Ohio, though, perhaps it would have made a difference. But then we have something like the electoral college, where you're only voting to represent something. It doesn't matter how many red votes were cast in our state; only the blue votes meant anything. This just seems dumb. Anyone else having flashbacks to 2000? The blue candidate had the most people voting for him, but because of how the electoral votes fell, the red candidate won. And, seven years later, we can see how well that's worked out for us. I know, I didn't vote so therefore I shouldn't complain about it, but there's at least some of you who wouldn't disagree. And, of course, there's the fact that we only see red candidates and blue candidates. What about yellow? Or green? Or purple?
Part of me has vowed not to vote until the whole political system is overhauled. The trick is coming up with a way to overhaul it. Part of me would love to see a way to cast a vote for a person without knowing what race or gender they are, or even their names sometimes. You wouldn't see opponents slamming each other; they'd only be able to focus on the issues, which is what we should be focusing on anyway. People would really be surprised to see who they were voting for. Yes, there's the danger that we'd elect, say, Hitler, but my idealistic mind would like to think there'd be more good than bad to come out of it. Of course, implementing something like that would be a huge challenge to undertake, and it's not something that will happen anytime soon. Of course, the power of politics and voting is that it only takes one person to make a difference. The trick is understanding who that one person should be.