Oh It's Coming!

We're not quite yet in political full-swing just yet. It's coming, count on that. 10 billion tv ads, radio spots. It's out there bearing down on us.

I don't really like to talk politics, but to me, it's like flying. I don't think very many of us can get through our whole life without boarding a plane. Politics is like that for me. I'll talk about it, I just won't enjoy it much.

We don't cater too well to advice about our love lives, and I think political choice is just as personal a thing. But people will gladly put their two cents in on your politics just as quickly as they'll offer unsolicited love-life advice.

My problem isn't people's ideologies so much, it's how so many folks not only want to persuade you to their cause, they'll damn near jam it down your throat if you let them. I'm very resistant to political "education", at least when it's being provided by lay people. I want to hear what each and every viable candidate has to say. It's how I make my choice. What I don't need to hear are those people who are just bursting at the seams with rhetoric or scare tactics. As soon as someone drops keywords like "Fascism" on me, they might as well continue the conversation with a fire hydrant; they'll get a better response.

And the Internet hasn't made it any better. I'm up to here with these fanatics out there telling me to "Google this, Google that", shutttttttttt up. You're no smarter than I am, and spare me the "you need to educate yourself" crap. The Internet is home to way too much extremism, and I don't want a one-sided education, ok? I can type things into Google, same as you, and come up with just as much information to debunk your ideas as I could to support them.

When that November day comes, I am going into the voting booth alone. I won't be voting against George Bush that day, I'll be voting for whichever candidate has convinced me that he's going to set us on the course we need to be riding on. If some yo-yo is going to drive me straight into a brick wall, it's not going to feel any better because it wasn't Bush at the wheel, ok? It's going to hurt. So I want to avoid that the best I can.

To me, the most responsible voter is the one who spends the time between now and election day making up his own mind, rather than trying to make mine up for me. I don't think that's unreasonable.