Something to see.

I just saw Slacker Uprising. It's free for anyone in the US or Canada if you are not currently residing in the US or Canada (like me) you can find it on You Tube. It's a Michael Moore film about the 2004 election, but there are many items that are prevalent today. I don't care who you vote for but you need to vote (if only so that you can complain).  It amazes people here in AU that we don't have to vote. It may seem that your vote doesn't count, but if you take your vote and my vote and my parents' vote, my brother's and soon to be sister in law's,  my cousins', my friends', and your friends votes together, pretty soon they start to count, and they canadd up quickly. If you don't like the way something is going, speak up, vote for or against it, hold your representatives accountable, and let them know your views. If you don't understand why they voted one way or another or what it even is that they are voting on, ask them to explain it to you, that is their job. 

I was nominated to go to Badger Girls State (a political camp put on by veterans) when I was in high school.  It was there that I decided that I didn't want to go into politics, and it was there that I learned how important it was to protect your freedoms, how important it is to stand up for what you believe in, how important it is to clearly communicate your views and listen to others, and how important it is to fight for these things when others are trying to tell you that you are wrong. It is okay to disagree with our sitting representatives, it is okay to speak out against them, it is okay to agree with them, and it's okay to speak out for them. The first amendment gives you these freedoms along with many others. But in order to do this, your voice needs to be heard, and voting is one very real way to do this. 

The McCain campaign has started to be surrounded with hate speech, and I don't like it, I don't agree with it, I think it's unethical and just plain mean. I do have to say that I think it was great of him to stand up for Obama, but I think that what he and Palin have said in the past is what lead some people to believe that Obama is a terrorist, an arab, and worse. But the beauty and the frustration of the first amendment is that they have the right to say those things, and I have the right to state that I disagree, but if things keep going the way that they are, we could loose those rights. The question then becomes, what has happened to the speech of politics, is it a protest against your opponent or a discussion and debate about the direction we want this country to take in the next four years, which reminded me of this quote by Spiro Agnew (Dec. 3, 1969)

Freedom of speech is useless without freedom of thought. And I fear that the politics of protest is shutting out the process of thought, so necessary to rational discussion. We are faced with the Ten Commandments of Protest:
Thou Shalt Not Allow Thy Opponent to Speak.
Thou Shalt Not Set Forth a Program of Thine Own.
Thou Shalt Not Trust Anybody Over Thirty.
Thou Shalt Not Honor Thy Father or Thy Mother.
Thou Shalt Not Heed the Lessons of History.
Thou Shalt Not Write Anything Longer than a Slogan.
Thou Shalt Not Present a Negotiable Demand.
Thou Shalt Not Accept Any Establishment Idea.
Thou Shalt Not Revere Any but Totalitarian Heroes.
Thou Shalt Not Ask Forgiveness for Thy Transgressions, Rather Thou Shalt Demand Amnesty for Them.

Something to think about.