You Should Care!

Hello. My name is Mike and I'm not entirely sure why Bri and Sara invited me to post on this here blog. Last night/early this morning they told me that I should start writing about politics on their blog, so I guess that's what I'm going to do. I just decided on my own that the general theme to my posts will be that there is an entire world out there and there are a ton of different ways to look at it, so my posts will basically be about world events, world history, world music, world film, and the occasional babbling about topics that are vaguely related to those things. I guess I'm going to start with some babbling.

DISCLAIMER: The views I represent are my views and are not the views of the other posters on this blog. I am only speaking my own views, so don't be a dick to them because of something I say.

Lurking around facebook has brought something to my attention that I find kind of alarming, no one gives a shit about politics. I have seen a disturbing amount of people who have listed their political views as something like "I don't care" or "none :)"(Yeah, I actually saw one with a smiley face. I guess they were right when they said ignorance is bliss.). Now I can understand why people wouldn't want to pay full attention to politics since a lot of it is kind of like a glorified version of the drama we all have to deal with in High School. You have these two big cliques(a few other, smaller ones) that are constantly bickering and calling each other idiots, and nothing seems to ever get done, nothing seems to ever change. Although I feel like it is reasonable to not want to watch C-SPAN all the time(I sure as hell don't), I feel like it is important for you to care and pay attention even just a little bit. Why? Because when you aren't paying attention those bickering politicians can pass a law that negatively effects you, a world event could happen that directly or indirectly effects how the world works and how you live and you could not even know that it is happening. Doesn't that scare you a little bit? Politics determine how we rule our selves, and if you don't pay attention you are only more likely to be ruled in a way that doesn't at all please you.

Another reason I feel like people may not pay attention to politics or current events is that they even if they know of all the terrible things in the world that are going on, they don't have the power to change it. They might feel that politics should be left to the politicians, and they cannot do a thing because they are just an average person. It's kind of scary that people feel this way since we always say we live in a democratic system, which I believe should mean that every person has the chance to say how they feel. There are times when average people got together and fought for what they believed in, and made some solid progress (The protests in the Middle East probably being the best current example. If 30 year old dictatorships in the Middle East can be toppled by protest, people should be able to change things here easily with similar methods). Other times it doesn't work (There was a pretty large anti-Iraq movement and that obviously didn't stop the war), but nothing will change if you don't try or don't even pay attention. There are thousands of issues out there, there's bound to be at least one that you can identify with and at least pay attention to and maybe even fight for or against.

Politics can be so much more than a bunch of old white men arguing to no one, it can be the people standing up for what they believe in. Do yourself and the world a favor, pay attention to at least some of what is going on, you might change the world.

-Mike