Politics!

~Politics!

~My children recoil in fear. My friends turn their heads the other way and grimace. My husband cowers in his recliner, lowering the brim on his baseball cap so as not to meet my eyes. This is the reaction when I start talking about politics.

~It's always been this way yet it's something I don't understand. The nature of politics runs our lives. Political decisions are behind all the rules and behind most of our laws. You can get married, go to war and vote when you're eighteen but you can't have a beer at your wedding because of political decisions. You can drive when you're sixteen, but you can't have your friends in the car until your seventeen because of a political decision. In some states, you can talk on a cell phone while driving but in other states you can't because of...you guessed it...a political decision. On some roads you can drive 70mph but on others you can only go 55 because a group of politicians got together and looked at the facts and made a decision. The folks who make the rules in our towns, counties, states and federal government are all politicians. If we learn to hate politics, we have no hope of steering those decisions in our favored direction. The politicians will run roughshod over us. Kids grow up hating politics. Yet, they whine about the restrictions set upon them by politicians.

~Most of my friends and family members complain about certain laws and rules. Yet, they shrivel up when the subject comes up in a discussion. Or they groan and sigh and say, "I don't want to talk about it." Well...if you don't talk about it, you'll never figure out a way to take action on those things you are complaining about. Our young people today get their political news from the comedy network on shows like The Daley Show or The Colbert Report where it's hard to tell what's serious and what's not. I love satire, but it has to be coupled with real information. Unfortunately, there's no balance in our media.
~I think most folks hate politics because they dislike politicians. We all believe they are in it for the power trip and not for us. It's hard not to generalize when we see so many politicians disappointing us in both the personal arena as well as the public one. But our system is set up so that we elect these people to represent us and hopefully to do things for the general welfare of the public. It doesn't always work out that way. But if we don't stay tuned in and engaged, we hand over the reins. If we do that we can't complain about the outcome. If we "don't want to talk about it," then we don't want to know what's going on. We are content to let the daily talking heads on the morning shows tell us what's what. Too often, their so-called "news" is couched in their own political beliefs so we don't get the whole story.
~We all need to do a little research on our own. Information is abundant today. If you have a computer you can research anything and confirm its accuracy with a little more research. Armed with some facts, you'll eventually want to share them, discuss them, argue them. And when someone starts talking about politics, you'll jump at the chance to join in.
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~No politics there!