I’m not a life long political junkie but over the last 16 years or so, I was drawn into it. It was perhaps the advent of social media or politics using the Internet as a new place to reach out to potential voters.

I have always attempted to be someone who is neutral, non-biased, someone who can see both sides of an issue. Strangely enough, the party that my parents followed and I assumed my views closely aligned to, turned out to be a party that was rejecting people like me. I felt alienated by their political views. Finding my political leanings was nice and it’s always nice to interact with like minded people.

The one thing I find, being that neutral, non-biased person who can see both sides of an issue… The line of politics gets drawn in the sand and it splits the population in half. I’m not saying we should always agree, it just seems politics is forcing people to choose sides.

If Party A is Pro Choice, Party B needs to be Pro Life
If Party A is Christian, non-Christians will choose Party B
If Party A likes Yellow, Party B will choose Green.
If Party A is conscious of Global Warming, Party B is against it.

For those who have independent thoughts, thoughts that differ from their political party, they are considered “In Name Only”. Rino (Republican in Name Only) or Dino (Democratic in Name Only). Isn’t that silly? Why should all my views match a fellow “Party A” member? That would require no independent thought. I’ll just have my party dictate what I should think. It wasn’t always that way, views didn’t depend on whether you were Democratic or Republican, just as bad, your views depended on being from the North or the South.

I’m making a generalization. I know of many independent thinkers but there are far too many people who just follow along with their parties daily talking points. People who listen to the talking heads and parrot what they hear. Millions of dollars are spend in politics and trying to convince you what you should think. And millions of dollars will continue to be spent while it can sway opinions. How much time and money was put into trying to convince the public that Obama didn’t have a US Birth Certificate? How many people repeated it again and again and again. How many times do websites like Snopes and Politifact have to set the record straight? How about Mark Zuckerberg? Did he send you any money/stock?

Step away from the politics and think critically 🙂

 

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