Here at Daily Kos, we have been having some rather intense debates about which political strategies and/or governing styles are most effective.
One thing I think many people lack however, is perspective, specifically a perspective other than your own.
The illustration that follows is designed to simulate the perspective of someone who doesn't know very much about politics, but is attempting to make a decision based on the information available to them easily today.
Imagine that you walked onto a basketball court, and on either side of the court there were two opposing teams, a Red Team and a Blue Team. You are a prospect that both teams would like to recruit.
The Red Team has on sleek matching uniforms and are gathered around their coach listening intently. The coach is telling them that if the Blue team wins, life as they know it would come to an end. He tells them to do anything they can to win, because the fate of humanity was resting on their success.
The Blue Team looks pretty good as well, however you can't help but notice that although the uniforms match, each player is wearing a slightly different shade of blue. The coach of the Blue Team tells his players that if they if they play hard, they can make life alot better for themselves and their fans. Some of the Blue Team players can be seen whispering amongst themselves as the coach is talking.
After practice, you have an opportunity to speak with the players on both team. The Red Team players tell you that if you believe in working hard and being self reliant, they are the team for you.
The Blue Team players tell you that the Red Team is full of liars, and they are starting not to trust their coach, because he refuses to call the Red Team liars, even though they clearly are. One of the players slips you a piece of paper that says that the coach of the Blue team is in fact no better than the coach of the Red team.
Which team would you choose?