My Political Party (Week 8)

So last week we looked at the local campaigns, and I couldn't help but wonder how informed the average American is on the actual issues. Based on the research I found, an overwhelmingly large amount of Americans simply vote on which party they think represents them, instead of looking at the actual issues. I polled my friends, family and people from my church and discovered that 9 out 10 of those who voted in the recent election knew next to nothing on the issues.

After some discussion in class this week about political issues, we all took tests to determine our political parties. Expecting to be more of a libertarian conservative, I was blown away that I was the exact opposite. Most of the class had similar reactions. It just goes to show that we as Americans aren't educated on our political viewpoints as well as we need to be. Washington feared that a party-system would be detrimental to society and would split the country. His ideas were a little extreme, but try to think about a government where the candidates aren't affiliated with a party. Would there be so much bitterness between voters? We might even start paying attention to the real issues if we take out the ability to blindly choose sides. Are political parties even that important? Not really.

Okay, so this week we started to watch This Divided State, which focused on events that occured at Utah Valley State College in 2004. The controversy occurred when the student board asked Michael Moore to speak at their university. The citizens of Utah, being a primarily conservative group, didn't handle this gesture lightly.

This relates directly back to what I stated previously. I'm not saying that our government needs to get rid of our two-party political system. However, this event and all its absurdity wouldn't have occurred had it not been for this idea of blindly following one party. It all seems kind of ridiculous when you think about it. Mind you, Moore is not an innocent man, and I can kind of understand where these people are coming from, but a lot of the people in the film blow things way out proportion without even having all the facts first.

It is my understanding that a similar occurrence took place at BYU with Dick Cheney not too long ago. For next week, I hope to look a little more into what went on in that situation and if this is a pretty common situation speakers deal with.

Sources:

Political Compass Graph. Photograph. The Politcal Compass Test. Web. .

This Divided State Cover. Photograph. Flickr. Web. .

Your Quiz Score: Conservative. Photograph. World's Smallest Political Quiz. Web. .