Hello Everyone--
I hope everyone's doing well, and I cannot wait for the reunion! But, I wanted to blog just a bit on something that is troubling me. I went home to Roanoke this past weekend for a wedding and to see one of my good friend's first born child--the fact they they are my age is troubling, but not the reason I'm writing.
While sitting with my friend and holding his newborn, we started talking politics. That was a mistake. He asked me who I was voting for, and I said Hillary. He could not believe it-- he was stunned and was telling me how horrible she was. Then I proceeded to ask him who he was voting for and his response was (get ready for it...) HUCKABEE!! Oy, I reacted the same way he did when I admitted my support for Hillary. I asked him the reasons he had for voting for Huckabee and he said, "He seems calm, cool, and collected." I immediately ended the conversation because I could not handle where this was going. We have been friends for a long time, and this was an issue we had never talked about before. I don' think we'll do it again anytime soon to save our friendship!!
But the scary thing is, even at the wedding reception, several of my other classmates voiced their support for Huckabee. But, very few of them could answer (in an articulate manner) why they supported him other than very vague reasons (parents support him, church endorses him, Chuck Norris supports him).
As an issue voter with liberal tendencies, I find this very troubling. As a younger demographic, we always hear about the importance of voting. It is our civic duty, and one that should not be taken for granted when taking into account the many lives that fought, and the ones that were lost protecting that right. Now, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but hear me out. We know we are supposed to vote, but what if the people voting are not educated about what the person stands for, and are making choices based on character traits such as "calm, cool, and collected". Should they still vote? How can someone work to change their opinions or educate them when their minds are made up?
I do not have a good answer to any of these questions, but i found it very fascinating (and scary) that this was such a dominant theme in my hometown among my peers. Granted, the people that I was talking to have never left the town, and have minimal education after high school. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing-- but I know my views have definitely changed since being in college. I don't think that every person in college is going to become enlightened and vote Democrat-- we have plenty of very educated Republicans on this campus whom I respect very much. BUT-- I do wish that people could figure out what they believe in and take the initiative to make an informed choice. Is that too much to ask?
4 comments:
You raised many interesting points about the responsibility of the voters. I do agree that people should know about what they’re voting for, but in many cases, voters treat their civic duties very lightly although their ancestors paid a great price to secure this privilege. I remember rather interesting episode from Mark Warner’s 2001 gubernatorial election. Gov. Warner did a lot better than what pollsters expected in Southern VA, and some analysts suggested that it was caused by uneducated voters there who thought Sen. Warner, their favorite son, ran for the govern. However, I don’t think we should force uneducated voters to get some education or we should revoke their voting rights. Communist nations tried to do that in the past, but it didn’t work out terribly well at the end. I guess part of reason why some people don’t think about politics too much or they don’t vote at all is that they’re somehow satisfied by the status quo. Even though eight years of Bush administration changed many things in very negative ways, ordinary citizens’ basic political and property rights are still upheld by our political system, so many people seem to can’t find a great reason to participate in the political process because in very strange ways, our system still soundly work. I remember French presidential election back in couple years ago. People expected rather uninteresting, low-turnout election for Chirac’s 2002 reelection bid, but as soon as French learned that his opposition party candidate was rather radical racist fellow, people suddenly show up to the polling station and gave Chirac a landslide victory because French people clearly show that their democratic government was under great threat. Anyway, my point is that even though many American voters seem to not care about politics too much, we must have a faith in our system because if our democratic government is under threat, I’m sure lot more people than we ever expected would turn out on the Election Day.
well said Sam!!! I think you raised some great points, and I agree with the fact that we should not take away the rights of those uneducated voters, but I do fear for the democratic process if the voting population were to get more ignorant in the future. Hopefully, we can maintain the interest in politics and keep things interesting!
Sadly there many people just like this in my hometown of Branson. Growing up right in the heart of the Bible Belt and going to a Southern Baptist Church exposed me to a lot of biased and uneducated political commentary. Nearly every person in the churches I attended voted Republican and refused to even listening to what a Democrat had to say. While my family and I shared many of the same religious beliefs as the people in our church, we took the time to study the issues and listen to the candidates. Both my mother and Grandmother did not attend college but both took the time to study what was said in the news and the newspaper and learn for themselves what was true and what was not. They passed that on to me and I have realzied how important it is to listen and excerise my civil duty with great responsibility. I competed in several speech & debate tournaments in high school and one speech that I constantly gave talked about studying poltical issues. In my speech I always offered two quotes from President Washington's farewell address that talked about the dangers of the two party system and to this day I can still quote those lines when needed to illustrate how dangerous party politics can be.
Patrick I remember you telling me about this as soon as you got back from the weekend in Roanoke.
We both could not stop laughing to hide how frustrating this was.
Tessa recently sent us a link to a site featuring Obama girl,
http://obamagirl.typepad.com/, On the January 13th video, there is a clip of James, Patrick and I when we spoke to Obama girl. (thanks tessa by the way for the link! It was so cool)
Anyways, in the same clip, Obama girl was interviewing people about who they were supporting. One particular couple mentioned Huckabee and when asked why they responded by saying that he seemed like such a nice man and would be the only one who would try to reach across the aisle and work with democrats. I do not know about everyone else, but I have not heard much from Huckabee that would lead me to think this. When we saw him in NH, the speakers before him did nothing but bash democrats and liberals everywhere, and I have not heard him talk about working with democrats in his debates. So I'm left thinking that the only part of that couples statement that might be true is that he is a 'nice' man. Well too bad for Huck that being nice did not get him enough delegates and he dropped out of the race after the election on tuesday! TOO BAD HUCK.... I wish him all the luck in the future!
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