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First off, a general clarification: when I was frothing and venting and lamenting on Wednesday, I was quite angry (chorus says: No DUH, Brian!). When I decried those who are talking about departing this country because of the election, I should have specified that I meant those who were debating leaving for solely political reasons. If you've other considerations (religion, race, sexual orientation, i.e. just about anything that we're not supposed to discriminate against), I don't count those as purely political concerns.
Now, what I'm thinking about, there are two primary things that I want to work on (with your help, if you'll give it, folks).
1) Voter education. Yes, this is an old trope, many folks have tried. You can't lead a horse to water and all that. I want to work this in a different way. I feel confident that the folks who are for or against certain measures work hard to educate about the issues directly. I want to educate voters about their politicians. I want voters to go into those booths knowing just what the candidates do, versus what they say. I want voters to know what the candidates aren't saying, and aren't fessing up to. Given that I've a number of information junkies (err, information savants?) on my list, I'll be looking for ways to track a given candidate's whole political history, as well as how to condense it into an easily palatable form. And yes, I aim to do this to both sides of the political fence. Heck, I aim to do it to any candidate running.
2) Electoral process reconfiguration. This winner-takes-all-us-vs.-them crap is getting old. Hell, it's been stale for most of the last century. I would like to change how people vote, and how elections are viewed. Ranked voting systems, instant-runoffs, wholly open elections (i.e. no primaries), all of these will facilitate this. Furthermore, these steps will open up the political spectrum to all the wannabe players. Let people vote for their honest-to-goodness first choice; and if they know that their first isn't likely to win, they can select their second, third and nth choices, and bolster the chances of those to win. 'Fringe' groups will suddenly find they've a lot more support than they ever imagined, and the Republicans and the Democrats both will wake up to realize that they're but two out of seven, or out of twenty.
The best thing about both of these? They're non-partisan. Well, techincally the second one is (depending on your view) anti-partisan or uber-partisan. But these are ideas that everyone, left, right or center, can get behind. All you need is a desire to improve elections in this country, and to get the chance to vote on a candidate you actually want to see in office.
Personally? Yes, I'm a liberal, always have been, pretty much always will be. According to that recent meme, I'm a 'bleeding-heart' liberal. That doesn't change the fact that what I want may very well benefit 'the other side' more than it benefits 'my side'. Frankly, though, I doubt it.
You in?
Now, what I'm thinking about, there are two primary things that I want to work on (with your help, if you'll give it, folks).
1) Voter education. Yes, this is an old trope, many folks have tried. You can't lead a horse to water and all that. I want to work this in a different way. I feel confident that the folks who are for or against certain measures work hard to educate about the issues directly. I want to educate voters about their politicians. I want voters to go into those booths knowing just what the candidates do, versus what they say. I want voters to know what the candidates aren't saying, and aren't fessing up to. Given that I've a number of information junkies (err, information savants?) on my list, I'll be looking for ways to track a given candidate's whole political history, as well as how to condense it into an easily palatable form. And yes, I aim to do this to both sides of the political fence. Heck, I aim to do it to any candidate running.
2) Electoral process reconfiguration. This winner-takes-all-us-vs.-them crap is getting old. Hell, it's been stale for most of the last century. I would like to change how people vote, and how elections are viewed. Ranked voting systems, instant-runoffs, wholly open elections (i.e. no primaries), all of these will facilitate this. Furthermore, these steps will open up the political spectrum to all the wannabe players. Let people vote for their honest-to-goodness first choice; and if they know that their first isn't likely to win, they can select their second, third and nth choices, and bolster the chances of those to win. 'Fringe' groups will suddenly find they've a lot more support than they ever imagined, and the Republicans and the Democrats both will wake up to realize that they're but two out of seven, or out of twenty.
The best thing about both of these? They're non-partisan. Well, techincally the second one is (depending on your view) anti-partisan or uber-partisan. But these are ideas that everyone, left, right or center, can get behind. All you need is a desire to improve elections in this country, and to get the chance to vote on a candidate you actually want to see in office.
Personally? Yes, I'm a liberal, always have been, pretty much always will be. According to that recent meme, I'm a 'bleeding-heart' liberal. That doesn't change the fact that what I want may very well benefit 'the other side' more than it benefits 'my side'. Frankly, though, I doubt it.
You in?
