Two Sacred Duties

I was having a conversation with my nephew over Facebook the other day about our political system. My nephew was talking about what a difficult time he has voting (has never voted, in fact) because of his disillusionment with our political system. As far as I'm concerned if we, as Americans, ever have a chance of getting our political system back from the special interests, we have two sacred duties: one is to vote and the other is to serve jury duty when called.

I voted for Obama in 2008. Like a lot of other people, i was pulled in by his rhetoric, and hoped that i was voting for the first truly liberal president since Jimmy Carter. It turns out that, even if he is a liberal (which i believe) then he has allowed his beliefs to be co-opted by special interests. Like many others, i am disillusioned with the job that he is doing. For the record, i do NOT believe that he is doing anything extra-Constituional. Unlike most Americans, i have actually read the Constitution, studied it in fact, instead of simply allowing someone else to tell me what it says or what it means. The only argument for this is that the requirement for people to buy health insurance (with which i disagree) violates the commerce clause. That may well be, i'll leave that to legal scholars, but if that's the case then every president since the 80's has violated this by requiring us to buy auto insurance. Personally, i've looked at the numbers and i know that if our government provided health care to everyone in the country, we'd be spending less on health care than we do now.

But our political system IS badly messed up. So how do we fix it?

1) VOTE, VOTE, VOTE! If you can't find a candidate who exactly matches your beliefs, then vote for the candidate that most closely matches your beliefs. Small steps. It will take us a long time to fix our system, but it's taken us a long time to mess it up.

2) Think for yourself, don't allow a political party to do your thinking for you. I was talking with someone in 2008 about how the TV manufacturer Vizio has their call center in California instead of India. He said that that he wished that more manufacturers would return jobs to the US. I mentioned that Obama said that he would close the tax loopholes for companies that outsource our jobs. He said "Oh, i'm on the other side." In other words, he was going to vote for McCain, who hadn't even addressed the issue, because his party told him to. THINK FOR YOURSELVES! And if you don't like either of the major candidates, then spend some time researching the "third parties" and see if you like one of them better. I was hoping that the republicans or the third parties would field a candidate that i liked better than the president, but they haven't.

3) THROW THE BUMS OUT! If your representatives do something that you don't agree with, don't reelect them! Years ago in Washington state, i had a supporter of Patty Murray almost in tears because i was supporting a different democratic candidate for her seat in the primary. The reason? Ms. Murray supported the Bush administration's agenda straight down the line and i didn't.

4) Get involved! Be aware of what's happening in your government and get vocal with your friends and your representatives about it. For instance, a few years back the supreme court made a decision on behalf of a company called Citizens United that basically allows special interests to spend unlimited money on behalf of a candidate or proposal. This is a bastardization of our process and needs to be overturned.

5) Protect your rights! I have watched every administration over the last 30 years gradually strip us of our rights, from the right not to wear a seatbelt or a motorcycle helmet to restrictions on where and when we can smoke, and i'm sick of it. I firmly believe in a small government and part of that is not allowing our government to tell us that we can't smoke in certain places, whom we can marry or how we can get high. For the record, i'm a pleasure cigar smoker who despises cigarettes. Smoking legislation started off reasonably enough by trying to keep cigarettes out of the hands of kids and has transmuted so badly that in one town in California you're not allowed to smoke in your own apartment or car! That's insane. When the law was passed in Washington state that banned smoking in ALL indoor public areas, it included at least two restaurants who had segregated cigar rooms, one of which was hermetically sealed! We have to protect our rights or what else are we struggling for?

6) Stop bickering! My best friend is a moderate conservative and i am a moderate liberal. We frequently disagree, but have remained best friends despite that, and frequently wonder to each other why the heck our government officials can't do the same thing. I love to watch the Canadian parliament on TV because they're so darned civil to each other. Respect each other's views people. It's the only way.

Peace.

Randal.