Quite Possibly My First "Political" Post

This is a response to a friends status on facebook. I have a lot of respect for this friend. Her statement is about the problem of voters not taking it into their own hands to become informed.

I think there is also a wide spread mistrust of information due to many corrupt sources, which can lead to a feeling that there is no way to actually become informed. Personally, I get around this feeling by listening only to direct statements and speeches by candidates, however it is very hard to know who to trust (if anybody).

I'd like to add that voters have a long history of not becoming well-informed. Many are too trusting, or don't know what resources to use, or treat it like a sports event where they can root for their home team, or are completely apathetic. So while I agree that the real problem is the voters, I think that there are things that can compound the problem immensely and that these things should be avoided.

Besides which, if a candidate can't get any funding and we never hear about him period or don't hear enough to make a decision he is immensely less likely to even enter our realm of possibility.

Which is only to say. I don't think the problem you proposed could be simply solved by "the voters" waking up tomorrow and deciding to become informed. In the age of the internet there is a surplus of information, and it becomes important to have a critical enough mind to decide which information to pay attention to. Yes, even to be able to determine what is information and what is merely data.

It is a bit overwhelming even for a critical mind like mine, that has many hours a day to devote to this. Many people don't have the time or the basic logic skills needed to even begin this arduous journey.

While I agree with your statement, I also think it is an oversimplification. But, then. What statement isn't? Giving candidates a "yes" is an oversimplification of what we really want as voters.

p.s. if you have enough money you get to determine what looks like information and what doesn't.

Thank you also to my other friends who discussed a similar subject with me when I joined a group, a move I now think of as a bit impulsive and silly, about the Supreme Court selling the US to the "filthy rich" which according to them is "fascism". When I left the group our comments were lost, I forgot that would happen, and I am sorry it did.

Here's the real personal scoop. My dad came in the other night as I was cooking dinner. He was rather upset. He started angrily spewing about how the US is dead now etc. I laughed at him as I usually laugh at what I consider cynical alarmism and conspiracy theory that he participates in. My dad is very intelligent, and actually very well informed, I think perhaps a little too well informed. He's got a bit of that hippy fight the power left in him, and he gets riled up far too easily (that has always been an issue, his temper that is). However, in the end there is usually more than a kernel of truth to what he is saying. I mean to say I think the facts point toward hard times ahead, and I think constantly worrying about those facts leads to his extreme views.

So far I think I have seen people who are too up-in-arms over this issue, and I have also seen people who don't seem to be concerned enough. Whatever your view, I do think this is a big deal. Even if it is only symbolic, or only the straw on the camel's back, it still means something. I see the alarmists looking at the non-alarmed and growing even more scared because of the lack of concern. And I see the non-alarmed laughing at the alarmists.

I waver somewhere in the middle. I don't think this is the end of the country. I am not alarmed, but I am serious about this.

This will change things more than some people seem to think, even if it won't end the world as other people claim.

This was quite possibly my last "political" post.