Monday, November 1, 2010

Stop Being Lazy and Stupid


I know this is not the Nov. 2010
cover but it is still pretty, pretty nice.
Ah, democracy. In spite of historic health care reform, the Democrats are running for the hills because nary a job is being created in the land. And the Republicans, well, they haven’t had a new idea this century, unless you count tea bags and fear, which we don’t. And yet we have a Congress filled with extraordinary people. Extraordinarily stupid... 
–Esquire Magazine November 2010

Just about every day you hear someone you know complain about government and the people we elected to run it. It is either too big or too small, it spends too much or it is not doing enough. It is not defending our borders or it is wasting a trillion dollars a year defending our rights. For all this chatter, only a little more than half of the voting age public fulfilled their obligation to democracy in the 2008 General Election. And this was a good year! There is a pretty good chance that a third of the people you know over 18 did not vote in the last presidential election, and many more than that will fail to vote tomorrow. To me this is very sad, but not the most depressing part of the story.

Tomorrow nearly 80 million people will cast their vote. They will select the leaders of our nation, and charge them with protecting our families, recovering our economy and securing our futures. For all of that responsibility, the people they elect will be mostly nitwits, and we are the only ones to blame.
Of the millions of people that will vote tomorrow my guess is about 10 million will take the time to thoroughly review the issues and candidates they are deciding. You might say this is way off, and I agree, it is probably less than 1 million. Most voters will not even know what or who they are really voting for until they show up at the polls. The majority of people that do know, only do so because they have been inundated with attack ads for the past month between episodes of Dancing with the Stars and the Jersey Shore. Speaking of, I would bet good money that the average DWTS voter spends more time researching which celebrity they are going to vote for than they do researching any candidate for elected office. I digress.
We live in a world where sound bites rule the way we live; the way we act and react to life. So when you are flipping through the channels and you stop on MSNBC or Fox News you get a slanted, ten second summary of a candidate’s position on some topic, or their latest gaffe , and you make up your mind based on that small and mostly insignificant information. More ridiculous is that people are more than likely making these decisions on what they heard within 24 hours of going to the polls. We have gotten lazy and we are letting someone else do the work and provide us with the thought process. The problem with this is that when you do that you are letting someone else make the decision for you. And if you are going to do that you might as well be living in a communist country.
The fact is that cable news is filled with incredibly entertaining pundits, analysts and “experts”. But this is no excuse. Unfortunately, most people believe that because these so called experts are on TV they know what they are talking about and so they believe everything they say and do not take the time to look into the issues and candidates themselves. The reality is that these people are paid to provide their opinion, and that opinion is usually slanted toward the leanings of the program or to please the owners of the network. So when you let cable news make your decisions for you, you are doing yourself, your fellow citizens and your country a disservice.
A while back we had a military draft in this country. When a young man got drafted to go to war, he had an obligation to serve his country. If he didn’t show up he broke the law, and he was punished. If he showed up but was not fully engaged, he put his life and the lives of his fellow soldiers at risk. If you are a citizen of this country, you have an obligation to vote and if you are not fully engaged you are placing the future of this country at risk. We have low turnout regularly because voting is a not mandatory in this country. Even if it was, people would still have to be engaged and put forth an effort to learn what is going on if we are going to stop electing nitwits to represent us. Tomorrow go out and vote, but only after you take some time to research the candidates and issues and can make an informed decision on who is best to lead this country. If you are counting on a political party or cable news channel to do that for you, you are putting us all at risk.

Stay thirsty my friends.
A side not for my bros: I know we like to look at things that are visual appealing, but should we really be choosing our world leaders based on the hotness of the person providing you with the information? I have noticed a trend of middle-aged men growing more conservative. I blame this on the "quality talent" being hired at Fox News. I mean no one is arguing that
there is a contest in looks category
between Rachel Maddow and Meghan Kelly, but if you are going to get your news from Fox News because it is much more fun to look at, make sure you supplement this information with something that is really fair and balanced.

4 comments:

  1. I totally agree with you. remember these words:
    IF WE ALWAYS DO WHAT WE ALWAYS DID, WE ALWAYS GET WHAT WE ALWAYS GOT.

    MEGHAN IS MY VOTE

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  2. I voted, but I have to admit I didn't know all the names on my ballot.

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  3. Hey, t~bone,

    What's up? Joined recently and haven't seen any new content. I love your wit, though question your policy leanings, but want to hear more from this socialite.. My fans love fresh content. Lol

    Xoxo from the 818

    ReplyDelete