Monday, October 22, 2012

Warning: Political Rant Ahead


                    Okay.  I know we in the United States are in the middle of a Presidential campaign.  I know that people tend to feel very strongly about politics.  That's fine with me.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and frankly, of all the things you can get worked up about, the leadership of your homeland is definitely one of the better ones.  What really cheeses me off, though, is that the things that my friends and co-workers choose to harp on are either not relevant to the candidate's ability to do the job (Biden smiled too much during the debate?  Really?) or else are parroting party lines without acknowledging, much less seeming to care about, context.
                    Our electoral system isn't perfect.  I'll be the first to admit that.  But whatever deficits it may have, I'm quite certain that it was never intended to be a glorified popularity contest.  Yet that is exactly what I see unfolding around me.  Obama ads that bash Romney for his forty-seven percent comment, because it makes Romney unpopular.  Romney ads that focus on Obama's poor debate performances, because it makes Romney look better by comparison.  All around me I hear and see people talking about how this candidate was rude, or that candidate was too aggressive.
                    Whatever happened to researching the candidate's positions and making a logical, informed decision?  Is this idea merely the fevered product of my imagination?  I don't even care which candidate a person supports, as long as their conversation indicates that they have actually thought about the matter.  Unfortunately, few of my acquaintances seem to have given it even token thought.  Am I really the only one who doesn't just swallow their preferred political party's propaganda?

1 comment:

  1. This is true and I have seen it as well, though I have personally fallen for the whirl wind a number of times. At least in a week or so, no one will care anymore and we can go back to bitching about politics likes normal Americans once again.

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