Sunday, October 26, 2008

Politics, Schmolitics

I am admittedly clueless about politics. Pretty sad considering my husband almost has his PhD in Political Science. Growing up my parents voted Republican, still do, I think? So I thought I was a Republican. Then I went off to college and my liberal side came out to play and I voted Democrat in the very first presidential election after I turned 18. Since then I haven't been much into politics. I haven't live in the same town long enough to care much about the local political scene And every 4 years when it is time to vote for president, I wonder which candidate is lying more... Or I have a tendency to fall into the category of people that my husband despises - " People who want to vote for whichever candidate they would rather have dinner with."

When I was a senior in high school, I took a quiz in government class and I score exactly in the middle on both the Republican/Democrat quiz and the Conservative/Liberal quiz. I kind of still feel that way. I think both parties/sides have some ideas that I agree with and some ideas that I disagree with.

One of the local homeschool groups allows political discussions (well, if you can call it a discussion since most of the people's views are pretty one-sided). The other day I got brave enough to comment to someone who posted a political joke that had some elements in it that went against that person's religious views. Instead of responding to what I had commented on many people in the group started making all kinds of comments about how the government should not be involved in helping the poor. Apparently, I had been talking about the posts a lot and how many homeschoolers I know are anti government involvement and try and "stay off the radar" because this week as the girls and I were learning about presidents and reading about how President William McKinley was shot by an anarchist and the book described an anarchist as one who doesn't believe in government, my oldest said, "Oh, like the people in your emails..." Funny, funny.

I do know who I am voting for. It is my husband's job to understand international relations and ecomonics and the things he tells me make sense. So while I am becoming more curious about politics and would like to learn more so I can hold my own in a political conversation, I am going to vote with him on this one.

3 comments:

Linda said...

Aww, come on, name names! ;-)

Valarie said...

Well, at least you have decided, which is more than I can say for myself. I am leaning slightly in one direction currently, but I still haven't read anything that has made up my mind 100%.

Jean said...

The biggest thing that I know about how people vote, is why people vote. Everyone votes for different reasons. I vote 100% for moral issues. I will not can not...refuse to ever place my vote for someone who is pro choice. period. I have had to learn to be mature and realize that good people voting for the opposite of me are not believing that 40 mil abortions a year are good, they just think that other things like the economy are more important. That really helped me when I learned that :)