Politics

I'll be the very first to admit that politics is not my personal joie de vivre! I could take the whole thing and dump it, to be honest, but I was very interested in the progression of last night's news coverage.

I found it fascinating that 2-3 hours before the polls closed, the news anchors and analysts were announcing the winners. Some people hadn't even voted yet!!! As alarming as this was, I found it truly disheartening that because of these "projections" made in the media, some people didn't even bother voting because they were afraid that their vote wouldn't matter in the scheme of things. Additionally, by their own admission, some people only voted for candidates because of nationality, or political party, rather than researching what the candidate truly was working toward.

I had to take a citizenship issues class in high school... my senior year. I'll be honest, I didn't retain much. This year, though, I wanted to understand the power of the vote, and the responsibilities each of us has to our nation. I downloaded, directly from John McCain's website, and Barack Obama's website, their plans and platforms for the presidency. I printed off transcripts of the debates. (I don't learn well by just watching and listening. Reading, for me, is better.) I was terribly confused by everything.

So I went back to the beginning.

I found a free, online course, put out by Brigham Young University called An American Citizen's Guide to Government and Politics. I was ecstatic! I enrolled (it takes, like, 2 minutes) and started reading the lessons. Further, I found this cute little book at Barnes and Noble that has the exact wording of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation. My research had begun!

Now, the ideas and foundations of government make sense, but the platforms put out by the candidates don't. I really struggled with how to take the knowledge of government I had and apply it to what the candidates were saying.

Further, I had to wonder how they were going to put these platforms into place since I wasn't even sure the presidential candidates had that kind of power.

I think perhaps we, as Americans, are not given the right information to be the best citizens we should be. Further, I truly believe that taking a course in Citizenship Issues, and demonstrating a knowledge of the subject matter, should be required to obtain a voting license, and the license should be renewed every four years. (They test us to drive, they should test us to vote!!!)

That set aside, and back to the news coverage, I didn't hear anything about a candidate's platform, or the actions they were going to take as an influence to voting last night. All I heard was demographics: race, religion, political party, past voting, etc. Does the press think so little of us to believe that we cannot think for ourselves??

I, for one, do not intend to be one of the nameless and faceless many who do exactly what they are told by the person speaking the loudest. The only way change is truly going to come is by people educating themselves and then doing something with the education they have. Don't let the press decide for you what you are going to think - figure it out for yourself, and then do something about it. This year I did. I voted for the person who I believed would best follow the government as it was outlined by the founding fathers in the Constitution, which, as I understand it, is still in effect.

I didn't vote for a nationality.

I didn't vote for a political party.

I didn't even vote for a platform.

I voted to support the Constitution.

What did you vote for?