Whatever you do -- Don't Vote!

Voted earlier this morning. It was horrible. For the first time in my life I stood at the voting machine and honestly didn't know who to vote for. I stood there staring at the screen for awhile -- I must have looked like an idiot! It's not that I don't have strong feelings about this; I do. There just isn't a candidate who stands where I stand and who I feel can represent me in this "representative democracy."

Ultimately, I did make a choice and cast my vote. But it was far from easy. And that's ok; it doesn't have to be easy.

Afterward, I stopped by a local coffee shop and allowed myself to get pulled into a conversation about the election. I'm usually pretty guarded about these discussions because in my experience they are rarely productive and I usually end up frustrated. That's what happened this morning.

To make a long story short, the person I was talking to was on his way to vote. When we started talking he admitted to me that he didn't know where the candidates stood on any of the issues and really didn't care to know. He had watched some TV and seen a few commercials and had decided who to vote for based on "who he liked." Who he liked meaning -- who looks like they would be a good president, who makes me feel better about the country (his words not mine).

I left that conversation and came to this conclusion: there's only one thing worse than not voting - voting when you don't have a clue.

I'm a fanatical supporter of everyone's right to cast a vote, but every right comes with a corresponding responsibility. The right to vote comes with a responsibility to educate yourself about issues, policy, and ideology. To exercise the right to vote without fulfilling that responsibility is like shooting a gun into a crowd without caring who the bullet hits.

The founding fathers made voting open to those who "held land" because they believed you should have a vested interest in the outcome of an election in order to vote. Their idea was dead on, even though their application was off. As citizens and residents in this country we definitely have a vested interest in the outcome of any election and that interest extends far beyond voting day. The evidence of our interest should not be whether we hold property or any other objective measure of that kind. It's not something the government can measure or qualify, but that doesn't make our "vested interest" any less important.

If you don't know the issues, haven't taken the time to think through your vote, haven't looked at the pros and cons of the candidates -- do America a favor. Stay home today.

INFECTION (I mean ... election)

So here's what I'm thinking ...

Decision '08.

With just hours to go until the election, things are getting crazy. Neither candidate is pulling their punches. I've voted in every election since I was old enough and Tuesday will be no exception, but I'm reacting to this one in a much different way.

It may sound silly, but the last couple of months (if not longer) feel like a cartoon. No one is really saying anything. Behind the talking points are pertinent issues and good questions, but no one's paying attention. We're too busy making flair to spend time educating ourselves on the issues. I wouldn't even mind the grandstanding and the showmanship as long as we eventually settled down and got down to it.

Instead, we'll vote for whoever seems like a "nice guy." We'll support the one who's a "good speaker." Who cares what their actual policy decisions might look like. Nice guys and good speakers do not make a president. Jimmy Carter was probably one of the nicest guys to ever be president and one of our nation's worst presidents (I think history & historians are already bearing that out).

Even experience is hard to measure. One of the most expeirenced presidents of the 20th century had to be Richard Nixon. He'd been hanging around DC for decades before he took office; certainly had the experience, but how'd that work out?

More than any other election in recent memory, this election has lampooned and satirized. Funny? Yes. But some of it hits a little too close to home (what's the voter turnout expected to be, anyway? 30%? 40% That's just pathetic).

Taking anything I've said here and trying to figure out who I'm voting for is an exercise in missing the point. The real point is:

The candidates ought to be ashamed of themselves -

We should be ashamed of ourselves -

We've turned one of humanity's best ideas (democracy) into a 3-ring circus. And the only way to straighten the thing out is to buy a ticket and sit under the bigtop. And hope there's nothing sticky under the seat.

Cotton candy anyone?

Getting Started

So ... here's what I'm thinking:

This is the first of what I hope will be many, many posts that will accomplish a couple of things:

1. Give me a forum to vent, write, express opinions and just generally "wax eloquent."

2. Start some conversations that maybe wouldn't have happened otherwise.

3. Change the world.

Yeah, I know. Herculean goals; but at least "the change" has to happen. I need to change. You need to change. Systems, ideologies, presuppostions, expectations - all have to change. The only things that don't change are dead!

So we'll cover just about every topic under the sun: politics, religion, sports, current events, history -- all jumbled together with the random stuff that's floating around in my head. Hopefully we'll all find something redeeming here. Or at least mildly entertaining.