Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Now it's just getting ugly.

I haven't picked my political horse yet.

And I'm desperately reading, talking, doing what I can to learn more about what the candidates plan to actually "do" in office. For whatever reason, the cult of personality seems even more in force for this election. And that is having two second-order effects: (1) making it harder to see what the candidates are actually proposing, and (2) making it so that those who have picked their candidate are very emotionally -- even personally -- involved.

And #2 is becoming fairly hard to bear for a person who just wants to dig a little deeper.

What happened to a free exchange of ideas? What happened to trying to get past the veneer? What happened to the press being allowed to do their jobs so that we the people can make an informed decision? Why can't a person ask questions or even, God forbid, make a small criticism of a candidate without being branded a sheep, an idiot, the reason that America is in the state it is today?

And this is not directed at either party. This is something coming from both sides of the political spectrum. Now more than ever, it seems that when it comes to politics, people think "you are either with me or against me."

And I find that very sad.


2 comments:

Butterfly Wife said...

This sounds like me four years ago. I really feel your pain. I was getting so much crap for "undecided" I found myself in tears on more than one occasion.

This time around, the level of viciousness from both sides is horrendous.

I find it very sad too. May the next 55 days fly by for you.

Non-Essential Equipment said...

The thing that is worse for me, BW, is that with all this nastiness, what happens after the election?

I mean, no matter who wins, we're all still Americans. And we all still have quite a bit of work cut out for us. It's not like we can say, "My horse didn't win, so I'm packing up my Constitution and going home."

We need to start remembering what it is we have in common so that no matter the outcome, we can keep moving forward.