Mischief in Maytia

It’s not wise for an entertainment medium to go into religion or politics, but I think most creators are a little *too* fearful of those topics. Certainly, I have no place to throw my opinions at you at tell you who to vote for. But I think it is right for me to remind you to go vote.

Now for the five or so people here who are not from America, I don’t know what your political situation is. But for you other fifteen, in just a few days after Halloween it will be time to go to the polls and do your part to help decide the next President of the United States of America.

And while I’m not going to try to coerce you into voting for any particular party, I do have a few thoughts I want to share with you on the subject.

Especially with the advent of Facebook and other social media, there is an uncontrollable storm of media both great and small that is trying to convince you that each of the presidential candidates are a bad person, that they hate certain groups of people, that they won’t stand for what matters, and so much more. The catch is that nothing you ever see on Facebook and other places has to be verified. I have already seen several instances where friends of mine have shared some picture or quote designed to “humorously” jab a candidate, and when I ask them where the sentiment comes from, they talk about “something he said,” but when I ask them further, they can never seem to supply the actual quote. The reason why is obvious. People are spreading these quotes word-of-mouth-style, which means a lot of people are misconstruing the quotes to give them a much harsher meaning, if it was ever ever based on something they actually said in the first place.

All of this results in trying to get you to feel a certain way about a candidate, instead of actually looking at the facts. If you ever hear someone claim something negative about a candidate, find the source, find the original sound-byte and watch/listen to it in full in its proper context. If you can’t find it, it probably doesn’t exist. But such wishy-washy feeling stuff is all besides the point, you need to look at the actual issues, points, and plans they are actually standing on; NOT their sentiment, but the honest and factual decisions they’ve made. Also, don’t look at what they promise to do, but look at what they promised to do the last time they were running for an office, and how well they held up those promises.

There’s a lot of sleazy local politicians who are depending on people being too worked up over the presidential election to look too closely at them. Everything I just said in the paragraph above is ten-fold as potent here. With so many people only fixated on the presidential election it is incredibly easy for someone to just put up a few more banners and buy a couple demeaning ads about their opponent, and then when people get to the polls they know nothing about the candidates and have no choice but to rely on the feelings those ads have made, or worse yet, what political party they claim to be part of.

Truth be told, you’re probably not going to have any effect on who gets to be the president, but you easily can sway votes for your state officials, and more than easily can decide on your local officials. It’s really your state and local politics that you need to closely observe and cast a careful vote for. It is those officials, not the president, who have the real power to enact changes in your lives.

Seriously. Those issues will never, ever come across the desk of the president. The thought that there could ever be enough national agreement on these issues to get that far is preposterous. Most states can’t even get these issues agreed upon within their own borders. Especially for same-sex marriage; I mean, California, the state with the two largest population centers of homosexuals and homosexual-sympathizers IN THE WORLD has more than once voted to repeal that act, and re-elect the officials who overturned the people’s vote. There is just too much conflict on these issues for them to reach a nation-wide consensus.

These issues are extremely sensitive to many people. Congress will NEVER send a bill on these issues to this president. No congressman could stand the political suicide of casting their vote on a national level for these issues, let alone the congressman who proposes the bill in the first place. And it is simply preposterous to suppose that enough of congress could agree on the bill for it to ever reach the President. But these issues are extremely sensitive to most people, and it is easy to use this issue to push us to vote one way or another. But don’t let this issue influence that vote; you need to cast your vote for the President according to things that the President will actually have power over, like the economic recovery we still need.

 

Well that’s what I wanted to share with you. I’m not pushing you to vote for anyone specific, but I would simply urge you to vote responsibly. Take some time to thoughtfully consider the issues being addressed, and go vote.