8 Votes
United We Stand; Divided by Politics
A growing trend I have noticed lately is that there seems to be many more straight party ticket voters than there used to be. This strikes me as odd seeing as most people love to profess how they are middle of the road and vote for the best candidate regardless of party lines.
True, I do not have access to everybody’s ballots, so I am only basing my opinion off of my conversations with the general public. Here is what I have noticed. People tend to fight to the death about either their chosen political leader or their disagreement with one they did not choose. Bush is a perfect example of this. How many times have you heard somebody argue that Bush is bad because he is dumb? When you ask why, they say "because he is a moron." And it seems that no matter what he does, he is going to be ripped apart by the liberals simply because he is Bush.
I am not advocating that everything Bush does is right and I am not trying to make this a political debate of allegiances. The conservative party does the same thing with Hillary and other liberals. I am just trying to show how, in our enlightened state that everybody claims to be in, we will still look at our enemies as "always bad."
Again, I am not saying that everybody is like this, just that it seems to be an increasingly obvious and growing trend. Maybe that is just because we are getting older and thus more "involved." Maybe this isn’t so new of a concept. I do remember hearing at a very early age that two topics of discussion that should always be avoided were religion and politics.
Why is that? Why can we not see what somebody is doing for what they are doing and not for who is doing it? Are we unable to use our own logic to come up with our own opinions or are we so entrenched with elitist discourse that we have lost our voice?
Similarly tagged OmniNerd content:
- Deer Hunting with Jesus, by Occams over 3 years ago
- Red Sex, Blue Sex, by tomtolman over 4 years ago
- What's In a Name?, by NomadSoul about 5 years ago
- University of Chicago International and Area Studies Multimedia Outreach Source, by PowerPointSamurai over 5 years ago
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An Example of Blind Voter Behavior by VnutZ
One example of what you are talking about was discussed last year regarding troop withdrawal. Like you said, no matter what Bush does, he’ll be ripped apart because he’s Bush. But, like the linked discussion talks about, where was the hatred for congress despite being more appropriate?
Give me more options by AnonBCA
I wouldn’t consider myself a "Liberal" but I’m more liberal then most…I dislike Bush not because he sounds dumb (I don’t think he’s a complete idiot and I understand the difference between that and being inarticulate. ) but because at this point in time the things that he does "bad" outweigh the things that he does "good". That being said, although we assume that he’s making these decisions all on his own, I don’t believe he is powerful or strategic enough to come up with his foreign policy exclusively by himself…I know he is working with people to make the "bad" decisions that he does. When Bush makes good decisions I’d be happy to applaud him, but since he’s stepped in office our National debt has compounded, we’ve been at war, and there has been general economic uncertainty…if I were to ask, "whats the easiest thing that I could do to get people to "generally dislike" me as a president? The former points would be my answer. People liked Clinton for the opposite reason, although he flat out lied under oath, and was an adulterer, America forgave him (although congress did not). Most (educated) people WANT a reason to like Bush…we’re willing to like him, we’re wanting to like him, we’re waiting to like him!!
RE: Give me more options by jandaman
again, it isn’t an issue of bush…that was just an example…i do not think everybody needs to like him or anything else…
my critique is against those who choose not to evaluate the situation and merely decide something is bad absed upon the politcal allegiances.
remember, this isn’t about which political philosphy is better…all sides are equally guilty of not listening to valid points that others make…or ignoring bad decisions their side makes…
the alternative (as i see it) is simply to be me open to what all parties are doing and not decide that something is good/bad before even looking into it…that is what my point was…there are too many people that judge without knowing what they are judging…
RE: Give me more options by AnonBCA
my critique is against those who choose not to evaluate the situation and merely decide something is bad based upon the political allegiances.
Okay…I’ve never experienced an allegiance like this except exclusively among politicians…are you referring to any group of people specifically (omninerds?)
I think most people dislike certain things because of the affect that it has on them and the people around them. Therein lies the problem, sometimes your "sphere" is quite limited and is therefore exclusive, bias and impractical to the whole. Some people don’t like the occupation in Iraq exclusively because they have had relatives killed and they don’t understand the nature of war, someone has to be blamed. Some people don’t like the occupation because of all of the issues that are occurring here and don’t feel adequate attention is being given to them, this again could be an oversight of the group as a whole. Some people don’t like the war in Iraq because our goals thus far haven’t been concrete and uncertainty is a clear sign of ignorance, (even if the sign is "false") There are many reasons why people are for and against things. I think its the responsiblity of common people (like us) to find out as much as we can so that we can align ourselves as closely with what we personally feel is morally right. I think its morally wrong to keep people from all of the facts of a given issue.
RE: Give me more options by jandaman
i agree that we should not keep people from fact of an issue to a degree…but if we are on the same page by what u meant by that, then for the purpose of this topic, let’s just say i agree…
again…all of those outside motivators u talked about in this post would still qualify as people at least thinking about the issue…but going to the whole drone conversation, so many people buy into their political agendas because that is what they were told to do…if that wasn’t the case, then there would be no need for candidates to talk about whose support they have…afterall, what do i care if chuck norris or mike mccready or the grateful dead or oprah supports somebody?..how exactly should their support sway mine?..it shouldn’t…but to millions of americans, that is reason enough to vote, not vote or just feel a certain way about something…no questions asked…
those are the people i am talking about…no real defining label for them as they come from all walks of life…unless drones counts…but that has been so overused…