On the Upcoming Election!

How are you going to vote? Well I have been thinking about this lately and it is not such an easy question. I am no expert on the American political system but on a basic level we have the 'left' democrats, the 'right' republicans and then everyone else the independents. Sounds nice and balanced doesn't it? But it is blatantly clear from looking at our country that we are anything but balanced. We are like a person with a major case of bi-polar disorder and I don't think balanced is the right word for that even if they are experiencing pure euphoria as often as they are suicidal. What is more, up until recently we seem to becoming more and more polarized as a nation! "It is quite clearly George Bush's fault that we are in this terrible situation! Only for him and the Republican party everything would be great!" "No, no, no! Are you still blaming him? Obama had his chance to turn this country around but he has made things far worse than Bush ever did!" So what do we do? The people on the left swing further left and the people on the right swing further right, so as to keep the balance!

But just maybe this is exactly where the established political parties want us to be. As a people we are so divided that we are not even capable of talking to each other let alone having a nuanced discussion on the real matters at hand. On one side of the divide is social responsibility, protection of the environment and women's rights, on the other is freedom of the individual, reduction of government control and the protection of all human life. And for some reason we are all lead to believe these are mutually exclusive, so all we can do is hit each other over the heads with our idea hammers.

Now my intention is not to over simplify the matter, but it strikes me that we are a 'led' people. We are all doing what we are supposed to do. If you put a gerbil in a wheel he will run and if you were to ask him I'm sure he would say that he wants to run. But that is only because he does not know any better. There are not too many wild gerbils getting into wheels, are there? Given his alternatives I think I would get into the wheel with him. But that is precisely the point; if we want to be free we cannot let other people set our frame of reference. We cannot simply choose between two 'givens'. As this is no different than the gerbil! We need to discover the true frame of reference and choose accordingly.

It is no wonder that we are a divided people, as we have been asked to choose between two half-truths! And we pick what we consider to be the lesser of two evils. I can assure you that the people on the other side of the divide are doing the very same. But now you may ask why would anyone want to divide a people? What benefit is there to that? The more divided the people become the less the government has to offer the people to satisfy them! "Because after all aren’t they better than the other side!" "I know this politician is not great but at least he has a chance of getting elected. The person that I really like does not have a hope so I won't vote for him." But little do you know, all you are doing is getting back into the wheel. Some people claim that the country is in too bad of shape to vote for the person they want. It is better to tow the party line. But I say we can't NOT vote for the person we think is best. It is only by doing so that we can make these corrupt political parties redundant. We have to start believing in the power of the people again and not in our politicians. We have to start thinking long term and not just the next political cycle! And what is more if we did manage to elect good politicians we might even find that the people are not so divided after all!