Sadly, It's Not a Game

So it's here.  It's election day.  I voted early, a few days ago, in fact.  I did it because I kept hearing my parent's voices in my head saying over and over, "It's your duty as a citizen."  So, ever dutiful, I did it.

Ashamedly, I must admit that in voting the local I was as uninformed as I have ever been.  In the past, I would watch debates, read about candidates, research.

This year I couldn't stomach it.  In today's acrimonious climate, how do you really find truth?  News stations are so obviously slanted as not to be able to trust reporting.  Internet sites are skewed and endless.  Even the debates are so filled with rhetoric that fact checkers immediately come on to point out where the candidates were, at best, misinformed or, at worst, lying.

People post and follow and cheer as if it were the Lakers versus the Bulls.  Our team is good and yours is bad.  But it's not that simple.

I listened in vain for the open exchange of ideas; but all I heard were the childish put downs.  "Not him!  Me!  Me!"  I heard precious little of solutions and policies.

A popularity contest was bad enough when it was Homecoming Queen, but it's devastating when it is an election.

If it were the Superbowl, it doesn't matter really whose team wins.  By the time the rioting in the winner's city is over, all is forgotten.  But when it's an election, whether it's the school board or the president, these are people who can and will make decisions that will change my life.  It's a lot of power to give in the name of popularity.

I promise to dig in and do better next go around.  I really am ashamed that I didn't do my part.  I can only hope that in following my gut, I made some decent choices.  Somehow I feel that, in spite of it all, I've let my parents down just a little.