Saturday, May 09, 2015

Election Season - How to Promote Civility and Reason

I'm in the process of trying to decide how I want to handle the election season.  Last time I chose to just watch one television program that covered politics and then didn't vote for the first time in my life.  Where I live I'm so outnumbered that it doesn't really matter if I vote or not.  I was feeling physically not so good and just didn't bother.

This time I found myself dreading all the mud-slinging and hate and shaming on Facebook, email, and television.  Since I'm feeling a lot better physically I decided that to the best of my ability I will try to put my principles into election season.

For starters I'm going to change parties for the purpose of voting so that my vote does have impact in the primaries.  I'm going to look for candidates with the most civility and reason and truthfulness.  Maybe there won't be any with those characteristics but I'll find the ones that comes closest. 

I'm going to write letters to candidates asking them for clear positions on the things that matter to me and those that respond will get my vote even if I don't agree with them.

On social media I'm going to do my best to check out the truth of anything posted from either side of the fence and share what I find out. 

I'm going to promote solutions rather than point out problems.  I hope I can find candidates with solutions.  If not, I'm going to propose some to the candidates that seem to have their heads screwed on the straightest.

All this is going to take up some of my precious time.  However, I can't think of much that's more important at this stage of my life than being the best citizen I can be.

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