As I have aged and hopefully become just a tiny bit more mature, I have learned an extremely important lesson...do not talk politics. I am absolutely an opinionated person. I feel a great deal of passion on several subjects and will pull out the old soapbox for certain issues. However, politics or more precisely, candidates are not one that I want to spend a lot of time debating with someone over. Life is far too short. My husband on the other hand, thrives from debate. Seriously, he does. It's not necessarily to convince the other person to change their views, it is more the act of having the lively discussion. He enjoys talking and sometimes arguing with people over differing views, whether they are political in nature or not. I'm not really sure why he didn't do debate in high school. I know he would have taken his school to state or at the very minimum been the debate team captain. So at home, I definitely keep my opinions to myself. I have much bigger fish to fry with the guy than what's happening in Washington. Occasionally, we discuss local politics, but it seems like we agree more on what's going on in our little town (e.g. the ridiculousness of mandatory recycling that was recently passed - I'm all about recycling, I'm just not for forcing people to do it).
Anyway, we are nearing the presidential election and I continue to study the candidates. Honestly, I prefer neither. I do not belong to a party and I carefully choose the individual based on what he/she campaigns for and their history of such. On November 4th, I see myself writing in a candidate that is not one of the two main men in the running. I strongly believe that my right to vote was a hard-fought victory and I do not want to apathetically miss the opportunity, but I do not want either of these men to be our next president either. The other point that this blog entry leads me to is the immaturity of so many of our countrymen. Over the past 4+ years I have witnessed a country that has an all-time low approval rating of their president. I too am not happy about the state of our union. There are many things that I wish hadn't come to be - gas prices associated with oil production, ceaseless wars, the division of socioeconomic classes, etc. But through this all, I hope that I have never been inappropriate or I would say immature in sharing my views. There is something to be said about the basic respect that this country's leaders should receive; that is a human decency and some level of respect for the office they hold. I have seen countless pictures that were photoshopped of our current president displayed in obvious inappropriate places. I have seen people abuse their position to oppose the current president's policies. We as Americans have a right to free speech, but with that comes some level of responsibility. We have a responsibility to do this in an appropriate and respectful manner even when our support is with the majority - i.e. it seems to be the popular thing to disrespect and degrade the American president. I would even go as far as saying, disrespect and degrade our country. For a minority of people, they feel America has become an egotistical, gluttonous, overbearing world leader and this group can no longer respect the country. While I do not agree with this idea, I also do not agree that everyone should have the same opinion nor the same desire to go with status quo. I do believe that we should go about promoting change and progress with respect and dignity. So although my write-in candidate will most likely never become our next commander-in-chief, rest assured, that I will not be displaying inappropriate, satirical pictures of the man that is elected president. I will not display obscene gestures when he comes to our state for whatever reason nor organize a rally to protest something that is completely unrelated to this man's visit. Let us never forget what previous generations went through to establish this country and all of our precious freedoms that we often take for granted. Give the founding fathers the respect of opposing political policies in a way that does not disgrace them or their dedication to democracy.
Ok, so no soapbox on candidates, but a trinket-sized soapbox on respect. Thank you my fellow Americans. God bless.
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