Politics and religion, issues not worth touching with a 100 foot poll for me. But I want to dip my toe in to the pool to make a small point. I have written and deleted this post a couple of times. It was harder to write than I thought but here’s my shot.
I got mad after I watched Food, Inc a week or two ago. In 13 states they have made it easier for food producers to sue their critics for libel. But libel laws already exist. Why do should they get an easier burden of proof than anyone else? Either we voted for the law or we voted for the lawmaker who voted for these laws.
So here it is plain and simple: Read and learn about what you are voting on. Don’t just follow your party lines. Don’t just follow your ideologies. Think it through and don’t let commercials do your work for you. Make an informed decision. A vote shouldn’t be a trivial thing.
JFK (I believe fought his own party) to make tax cuts and, ironically in retrospect, the Republicans called it irresponsible at the time. Decades later Ted Kennedy wanted to ignore that the tax cuts worked.
Massachusetts had been Ted Kennedy’s state for 46 years and Elizabeth Coakley thought she could walk in to Ted Kennedy’s seat without even trying just because she was a Democrat and Obama had carried the state by 26 points over a year ago. Oops.
Lastly, I read an article in the Portland Magazine about a woman who felt it was her civic duty to be a juror and not try to get out of it like you hear people talk about so often. She didn’t like what she saw from the other jurors and she came away from it thinking she never wanted her fate to be in front of a jury because of what she saw.
As you make your decisions to vote, are you making them with the intent and knowledge that you would want others to have if you had written the measure?
