Politics: A Shouting Match?

Hello to anyone who comes across this page.  I haven't kept my commitment of posting at least every two weeks very well (as this is the second post, and it is now mid-April), so I thought I'd post this one.  Think of it as a combination of an article and a mission statement for this blog (or at least for me - other [future] blog authors might differ in their decisions).

Many of you may have noticed that lately, politics has become increasingly hostile.  What started as a system of "We have different opinions - let's try to reach a middle ground," has become a system of "Your opinion is not the same as mine!  You're an idiot and a traitor to s!"  This, while not that hard to have predicted, is still shocking to me.  There are several people from both major parties who would agree with me that politics has degraded to mere shouting and threats.

Now, I expect it will inevitably get worse as people become, aspire to become, politicians only to show that they were right after all, and that everyone who disagreed was a big idiot.  That is one of the reasons I define myself as a Republicrat - I don't side with one side no matter what (like most politicians currently do).  But it doesn't have to be that way.  We just have to be practical (and perhaps just a little bit ideological) about things.

I try to take the time to see and hear both sides of the argument, and then looking at the facts for evidence, before making a decision and forming an opinion myself.  That is one of the key reasons I have not formed or published an opinion about the Health Care Bill.  I have only heard the destructive criticisms of it.  I still need to see someone other than Obama (for obvious reasons) promote it.  I still need to look at the text of the Act (which I hear is very long, so I will look for key points that are often pointed out).  If I find that some arguments that people are making for or against it are false, I will publish my best interpretation of what is really true about those statements.  I will not be for or against a political issue, as that will bias future thoughts of it.  I will instead try to be disinterested (which does not mean "not interested," but means "not biased") and impartial, and to have both sides of the story and the facts.

I know I am nowhere near perfect.  I will still have opinions on politics, but I will try to be as impartial as I can without overstepping certain personally-set boundaries.

I want to see comments on this post.

Open Your Eyes

I want you to think for a moment. How many people can you think of--who you know personally--who show respect for the current U.S. President, Barack Obama? Having trouble coming up with an optimistic number? Then you and I already have something in common. I honestly believe that Americans have lost the ability to look for the good, and therefore have lost the ability to respect. Following is an explanation of why I have this belief.

It irks me to the core that almost everyone I talk to shows little or no respect towards Barack Obama. I've never seen such disrespect towards a person in my life. I honestly don't get it. I recently heard one person disrespecting Obama because he supposedly (I only say supposedly because I don't know if he has verified this) smoked pot when he was younger--and this is when the person had run out of viable arguments (I would make a very good lawyer). Might I remind Republicans that their beloved Rush Limbaugh was once a drug addict? Or how about that he twists the story of things to the point where it's practically a lie? Anyways, back to the main point: EVERYONE (myself included) makes mistakes. EVERYONE'S choices affect more people than they could possibly know. Therefore, EVERYONE deserves some amount of respect.

I will also create a poll for this, to see what your opinion is.