Another week, another diary. I'm going to have to start posting more than weekly to get all of this stuff down. Apologies for it being so late...my internets were down. Somebody apparently H4x0r3d my M3g4hur7z!.
Yeah I'm a geek...read below the fold if you want to hear geeky rantings.
Ok first...Football. Superbowl was last weekend. Wooooo superbowl. I noticed something about it though. Leading up to the bowl my coworkers were fighting with each other over who would win. There were two particularly vocal fans of each team. It was somewhat amusing to listen to them, but somewhat pathetic. Following the game the Eagles fan almost got in a fistfight because somebody cheered for the Patriots. The more I thought about this the more I thought how it applies to politics.
People find their identity in their party like they do in their football team.
This seems like common sense to many people here, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense to me why the way many people try to "convert" people is way wrong. It also helped me come to grips with how my parents could disagree with the current administration in so many ways, and yet still call themselves Republican. Republicans have built themselves a brand identity that is unshakable, and people have tied their identity into it. They do not want to have this identity scratched in any way.
For my parents it's the identity that conservatives embody Christian ideals. Even though I will argue with them until the sun comes up that that the Democratic party is more in line with the teachings of Christ, they'll believe that the Republican party embodies these ideals no matter what. It is because to question this might cause them to have to change their very identity.
And who is willing to change when they're over 40?
Now this helps explain the mindset of the older Republicans, but what about young whippersnappers (like myself). Simple...everybody likes a winner.
The issues don't matter to many young people (unfortunately), but winning does. Many people root for the team they think will win when they don't care which one does. This leads to voting with the political party that is perceived as having the best chance of winning. This perception can be driven by the media as well as their pears. Then when the pony you pick wins, you feel like you're a winner too, just like Patriots fans felt like they were winners because the Patriots won, even though they had NOTHING to do with it.
So to summarize my football/politics analogy...for the older people show that their mindset actually agrees with the Democratic party (if it does), and for the young people prove to them just how much of a chance the Democratic candidate has. This will go a long way towards spreading our message.
As for rallies, I went to my first Democratic meeting. Found it using www.meetup.org. Don't mean to pimp other sites, but that's a great way to find people with your interests if you don't know many people in a new area. They mainly discussed state issues, and since I'm registered to vote in Michigan they didn't really bug me much. A representative of the ACLU got in front of everybody and explained the system they have in the Georgia state House and Senate, and I was nearly shaking with rage when I heard it.
Picture this...Republican majority, Republican speaker assigns committee to create committees. Committees make most decisions, but a person called a "hawk"(appointed by the speaker) can walk into a committee and make the committee vote a certain way. Democracy at it's finest.
Other scary ass laws that are going to be coming into a vote in Georgia soon. SR-49: faith based crap which would nullify the Georgia State Bill of Rights (adding a caveat that says basically that the federal bill of rights covers everything). There's going to be legislation to try to allow government buildings to post the 10 Commandments and other Christian religious stuff on the walls of government buildings. If anybody sues over it the lawsuit money would come out of taxpayer money. Good stuff. There's also these great "Choose Life" license plates that they're thinking of offering. Florida anybody?
Anyway I've been really bored at work lately, and reading more politics. I'm tired...so tired. I will still keep fighting the good fight however, and I will keep looking into things and seeing what I can find. If you live in Georgia please go and lobby. Other than that...give me any comments so we can discuss them. I love discussing things with people.
Peace.