This Side of Paradise

If you can bet on but one sure thing during an election year it is that just about everyone will complain about the number of negative political advertisements that flood the airwaves. The telling sign however is that we live in a land where many will listen to these ads and base their votes on what they hear. "By golly he's right, I ain't gonna vote for that other guy..." We tend to limit ourselves and settle for that which is in front of us. The people who complain about having to vote for the lesser of two evils are the same people who accept campaigns in which the candidates go out of their way to prove they aren't as bad as the other, not that they have anything different to offer.

Another sign of the times is how little we can know about our neighbors, but know enough not to discuss religion or politics with them. Yet this is the time of the year when many don't have a second thought about displaying a sign in their yard in support of a political candidate. "Well if Edna and Harry are gonna vote for candidate X, I think I will too."

How effective are political signs? Do people get to a voting booth on election day, notice a name that they had seen on a sign and cast their vote merely on that small bit of name recognition? Probably. It is good to be living around people who share similar points of view, which can be demonstrated while driving into a neighborhood where a row of homes have the same candidate's sign posted in their yards. It may also tell you which parts of town you want to avoid.

Political participation is at an all time low and it seems many who do still participate do it only out of a sense of civic duty rather than any passion or conviction for a particular candidate or issue. We have raised a whole generation of voters who think the best anyone can do is be against high taxes, be tough on crime, and be the one who is going to ferret all of government's excesses. If all we need to do to fix what ails our country is to lower taxes, higher more cops, and make sure that everybody works hard and earns their own money, then I guess our country isn't too bad off after all. The relationship between the government and the disenfranchised, between our country and the rest of the world, the growing lack of job security, the growing distance between classes and races, hell who can be bothered with any of that?

When all of our campaigns are framed in terms of who is more patriotic, labels- who is a liberal and who is a conservative (what is the difference?), who is against crime and for a strong defense, who is more fiscally responsible, is it any wonder that people can vote their conscience based on a slogan, a sign, an advertisement? A Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights movement- we are taught to respect history but to end up where we are is to ask the question "is this all there is?" Democracy strives for parity which leads to mediocrity. We are happy enough to find a detergent that gets our whites just a little bit whiter and if it doesn't, we can always switch back to our old brand. This year, our senator is new and improved...

People are fed up with the status quo yet the fear of change leads to another round of who has the better name, who has the better face, slogan, more positive picture of America. It would be nice if the rest of our lives were as simple. Despite the emotion it arouses, politics isn't seen as something that effects every day life. More and more everything is derivative of that which came before. While stopping to seek greatness we haven't learned to lower expectations. Always looking for the next big thing and hanging those expectations on whoever claims to have "new ideas," inevitably we are disappointed and disillusioned. Good night my love and may the Lord have mercy on us all.