Politics

In my last post, I briefly introduced the purpose of the blog and, to some extent, myself. For those of you who don't know, I'm a student at American University in Washington DC studying Political Science and Economics. Washington. Politics. It makes sense.
Coming into college I was pretty gung-ho about politics. I was ready to fight for liberal causes (as I am a liberal) and get Democrats elected (as I am a Democrat). And while I still keep up with politics and could see myself going into the field after school, the whole business has started to seem kind of unappealing to me.

Maybe it's just today's political culture. No one likes division and everybody would like for everyone to get along. I'm certainly not an exception. But from what I read, I get the feeling that a lot of people in our government have forgotten that. Republicans oppose policies and legislation for opposition's sake. They don't take an open, honest look at the content of a proposal. They ignore facts in their speeches and frame their arguments towards the negative. And I'm depressed because I know that if Democrats were in the minority, they'd probably be doing the same thing.
My dad has always said that I'm a really laid-back guy and he's right. I hate making a big deal out of small issues and I tend to let others have their way if it's not really important to me. Don't get me wrong, I'll put my foot down if it's something I care about, but for the most part I try to avoid drama.

Politics, or at least national politics, has become about making a big deal out of small issues. Health care reform was a big deal. The "death panels" were not. But I still had to hear about it for months on television. I get the politics of it. Death panels make people angry and it gets them fired up. I don't want my leaders to make me angry though. I want to be inspired.
I'm only taking one Government class this semester, Political Speechwriting. It's a lot of work, but I love it. I get to read great speeches in (mostly) American history. Reagan, FDR, the Kennedys, even Lou Gehrig. In times of fear and sadness, these men managed to make people forget all the bad things that were happening. They made people want to be better and work harder. But when I left class the other day, though I remembered that people aren't doing that anymore. I don't think you can inspire people by trying to say "bailout" or "destroy social security" 50 times in two minutes. I don't want to do that. I like writing speeches, but I don't want to do that.
It's alright though. I've still got two years before I graduate.