Local Planner Joins the Party

So I think I may finally give in and register with a party, just for the primary. I’ve always hated party politics and still do. I firmly believe the two party system is detrimental to democracy. George Washington gave me this idea.

There is also the work thing… the potential for repercussions which are often bandied about the office and at happy hours. I don’t have a chance to be promoted again until someone dies or retires, though, so I guess I can deal with that. Also, I haven’t seen it actually happen.

After the speech on race given by Barack Obama on Tuesday, though, I think I have to overcome that. It made me tear up a little.

That was written yesterday, and today, I must say I feel better. After I filled out the voter registration card, a lot of the tensions and worries I was feeling about it were gone. I get to vote for someone I like AND someone who might win. That’s never happened to me before. It feels kind of nice in itself. To think I might not have to swap my vote in November is unique in my voting history.

I’m still not a fan of winner take all politics. I think there are far more sensible systems already in use, like Instant Runnoff Voting. I still plan on changing back my registration after the primary. I hate the fact that it had to come to joining a party I don’t agree with to vote for someone I do. It seems to really go against the idea of democracy when you think about it and debase it to politics. Oh well, the American way… To go back to good old George Washington who predicted the current political climate.

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."

-George Washington

This was the most patriotic picture I could find.