Politics
I finished The Audacity of Hope yesterday. I was on the whole impressed and inspired, and will probably vote for him, but I'm still not really happy about it.
Not because I don't believe in anything in particular he said, but because I don't actually have any evidence (from the book alone; I don't follow current events basically at all) about whether or not he's actually capable of pushing through any of the kinds of things he wants to do.
And because while I was impressed, I have nothing to compare him to -- I know ~nothing about any of the other candidates, so he gets compared against some weird politician stereotype and/or Bush, neither of which is particularly instructive.
I don't care enough to put in much effort into finding out more, though, because it really doesn't matter what I vote for.
Also, I really feel like all this wanking about the details of the issues and the specifics of anyone's voting records are missing the point. I have _no interest_ in micromanaging my candidates' choices and national policy ... I want to elect someone I basically trust and who broadly agrees with me on things that are important to me, and then trust them to do something reasonable. That's the whole reason we have a representative democracy instead of a direct democracy.
Not because I don't believe in anything in particular he said, but because I don't actually have any evidence (from the book alone; I don't follow current events basically at all) about whether or not he's actually capable of pushing through any of the kinds of things he wants to do.
And because while I was impressed, I have nothing to compare him to -- I know ~nothing about any of the other candidates, so he gets compared against some weird politician stereotype and/or Bush, neither of which is particularly instructive.
I don't care enough to put in much effort into finding out more, though, because it really doesn't matter what I vote for.
Also, I really feel like all this wanking about the details of the issues and the specifics of anyone's voting records are missing the point. I have _no interest_ in micromanaging my candidates' choices and national policy ... I want to elect someone I basically trust and who broadly agrees with me on things that are important to me, and then trust them to do something reasonable. That's the whole reason we have a representative democracy instead of a direct democracy.