I have a question that has been bothering me for awhile...its a serious question and I'm not trying to spark a huge political debate. But, is it possible to be "for" your candidate but not "against" the other? I am supporting one candidate for president, but I don't feel like that makes me automatically "against" the other. I admire the other candidate, I do not want the demise of the other candidate, I am not sending mass e-mails that lie about the other candidate...I have been incredibly surprised during this election, and its not over, at some of the things that I have read and seen. I have friends on Facebook who have pictures of a certain candidate on their "flair" board with a big red "X" through his face, people have joined groups called "Down with.......in 08". It has honestly surprised me. I don't know if this is the normal level of hostility and this is just the first election where I've really been aware of what goes on? Is it because of the amount of media coverage which is completely out of control?
I really want to know what people think...what is up this year? I hope the answer is not that we are all racist...but I fear that that may be part of it...I used to be part of a discussion site and someone admitted on there that he felt like America really had to get used to the idea of a non-white person as president and that is why everyone is being so hard on him...that scared me a little. I realize that we all have policy differences, but I'm asking more about the mean, hateful, untruthful things that are going around and wondering if this is normal? Can anyone tell me???
3 comments:
I personally feel that you can be "for" someone and at the same time not be "against" the other. However, I'm not everyone. To me it is the same as anything else in our lives and it all started in kindergarten. We have winners and losers and I only want to pick the winner. To use sports as an example (apologies for those who are not sports minded), it is not enough to like the Cleveland Browns (I'm from Ohio, so I know about this rivalry), one must also hate the Pittsburgh Steelers or vice versa. You just can't like one and be indifferent to the other citing their good qualities, it is essential that you hate everything about the other opponent/team. So if you love the Browns, you must ignore all the good qualities/ players/coaches the Steelers have to offer. To me this is ridiculous. Why can we not keep an open mind about people who are different than us? Different perspectives, different skin color, different views on hot button topics (war, abortion, marriage, etc). Sure, we can vehemently disagree with someone (I think this is good and ought to be the case), but hating and mud slinging is petty. Can we really not prefer one over the other all the while admitting that the one we do not choose actually does have some favorable qualities or for that matter is an actual human being who has thoughts and perspectives and opinions based on upbringing, influence, experience just like the rest of us? People are who they and believe what they believe because of a myriad of experiences, influences just like the rest of us. Sure we can disagree but to tell someone they are straight up "wrong" or of the devil is to ignore that a certain person arrived at certain conclusions based on life experience. I would like to think that we could be adult about that but we will see. I, too, am frustrated with all the hating that is going on. We can agree to disagree - a "right" we have but we must make sure that our "right" to our opinion does not cause hatred. We can be "right" the wrong way and where does that get us?
I just watched the roll call at the DNC and saw the first minority be nominated for President by a major political party in the US...Very emotional, we've come a long way...
I think fear has a lot to do with it.
Kathryn
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