Drinking Conservertarianally

After reading posts and comments floating around the Delaware Blogosphere the past week or so, I have become utterly convinced that many people (bloggers, commenters) are drinking some serious Kool-Aide.

As I have mentioned on other blogs and on this very blog, it is the responsibility of Americans nation wide to make rational, educated, and responsible choices when the time comes to vote one way or another in November.  It is fine to vote for John McCain or Barack Obama or Bob Barr or Donald Duck if and only if you have taken the time to first listen to, then consider, and finally draw conclusions about all candidates running. No longer can I accept the pandering, lying, and partisan bullshit that goes on at places like DelawarePolitics and DelawareLiberal among others.

I had a pretty intense conversation over some drinks with my best friend this afternoon, and we came to the conclusion that it is utterly unacceptable to attatch character issues to candidates. By pandering to the masses, talking heads have effectively turned the Presidential race into a refferendum on race, gender, elitism, POW’s, community organizers, oratorical skills, and countless other character issues. These issues are just a means to realate your life experiences to that of a candidates. And although you may share certain characteristics or qualitites with a candidate that doesn’t mean you both have come to the same conclusion about these life experiences. Yes, Sarah Palin is a mother of five, however that doesn’t mean she needs to be at home all day like the lady down the street who has five pain in the ass kids.

No, the adjectives used to define these characteristics are false facades that allow the voters of America to remain uneducated about the issues facing the country. The media has allowed the focus of the election to shift from issues to adjectives, and if the American public does not step up to correct this, we are going to face some serious issues down the road.

“How do we fix this?”

Well, one solution my friend and I came up with is to use a ground up approach to reporting on issues, and by ground up, I mean the local blogosphere.

My solution would be frequent roundtable discussions on Real Issues. As a Democrat, if I personally wanted to read something about how I already stand on an issue, I would go to DelawareLiberal. That is precisely the problem, though. No one wants to leave their box. No one wants to hear where the other side stands on an issue. They go to familliar settings and revel when they all agree with each other.

To combat this, I believe it is our duty and responsibility as Americans and Delawareans to present the public with rounded and well covered issues. If we have someone from DelawareLibertarian, Kavips, DelawarePolitics, DelawareWay, DelawareLiberal, and all the way around the blogosphere, available to discuss issues, not only will we better informed on our own convictions, we will better inform the public. It is not about the web traffic, it is about the substance, and unfourtunately the Delaware Blogosphere is lacking in the latter. Wouldn’t you be stronger in your convictions if you actually had to discuss and defend them rather than be told, “Yes, sir.”??

There is my challenge. Forget a blog convention. That is counter productive if you ask me. Forget Progressive Democrats or Progressive Conservatives. If you really want to see progression, strive for Progressive Americans, because in the end all we are and all we always have been are Americans, and to progess together is much more important than to fall divided.

Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, delaware liberal, Delaware Blogs, delaware politics, America, delaware blogosphere, sarah palin, kavips, delaware way, delaware libertarian, pow, issues, democrat, republican