(quote) halo.. Not sure I get your point except that you think global warming is so important that you named it twice... I shudder to think what the views of democrat socialist blue people think about all the other subjects you named tho... I was only naming the ones that were most important to me... we can take the others one at a time if you like... I'll start.... death penalty... for it.
(unquote)
Didn't mean to mention global warming twice; no hidden message there.
My point is there always are many crucial issues; they usually follow Maslov's hierarchy of needs (survival on the bottom, self-fulfillment at top); and people usually disagree about what should be done and what is most important.
We usually wind up in sound bite discussions because it is so difficult to present any issue clearly enough and with alternatives distinctive enough to accurately represent what we believe at a given moment.
That's why, as others have said, overall labels like Republican or Democrat or X candidate or Y candidate at best can represent only a blurred snapshot average of all the facets of issues we believe individually.
For example, I'm a strong supporter of gun rights (Republican Red) but I also support some limitations (Democrat Blue). I believe women should have the right to manage their own bodies with abortion or anything else (Democrat Blue) but I also support some limitations (Republican Red).
Any gathering of people requires some restrictions and compromises, hence the eternal need for politics. In high school I used to effect a condescending attitude toward politics until a girlfriend's father, who ran his own small oil company, sat me down and told me if I didn't like what was going on I better become a player or I would have myself to blame if things were not satisfactory to me. No sense just railing to the heavens.
So the way to change things is to get involved at local level and make our druthers known. Look at important issues from the widest of spectrums, then work our way toward opposing viewpoints until we can pinpoint where we disagree.
Along the way we often find many more points we agree on, and sometimes realize our disagreements are much more manageable than we first thought. Somewhere compromise and tolerance will be essential. That's western world politics and democracy, a heckuva lot better than endless bloodshed.
America definitely needs to get out the vote more. It's disgraceful how cavalier we have become toward our heritage. The biggest obstacle is candidates obfuscating issues and playing chameleon so we never know exactly who we are electing and whether they truly represent us or not.
But at least we get a chance to then vote them out. It never will be easy, it often is not to our liking, but there is no escaping the importance of informed participation in democracies.
End sermon . You are now being returned to regular programming. Do not touch your dial.
