I don’t know much about politics, but I’d love to share my opinion with you anyway!

May 3, 2010 1:55 pm 0 comments

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Parker Evans

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   Politics isn’t my strong suit.
   Frankly, I can’t tell the difference between Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi, but I’ll be danged if I don’t have a disproportionately loud and obnoxious opinion about both of them!
   Don’t worry, though. I’m well informed. I make it a point to watch at least 10 minutes of all of the unbiased, completely neutral news on the airwaves every day.
   Plus, I have NPR set to one of my car radio presets, so if that doesn’t make me an informed voter, I don’t know what does.
   I got a B+ on the “Constitution Test” in 8th grade, and I understand about one fifth of what Dell’Orto talks about in AP US, so I think I have the basics of American government down pat.
   For instance, healthcare is good. This is an issue that is clearly black versus white with absolutely no gray area in between.
   For those of you who might be confused, let me break it down for you. People who didn’t have healthcare before have healthcare now. This is most certainly not an oversimplification, and the issue is not any deeper than this.
   A white guy in a suit on my TV said that the issue of healthcare is actually really complicated, but I don’t believe it. I tried to read the bill one time, but all that mumbo jumbo made less sense than YouTube comments.
   So to be honest, I haven’t actually read the bill. My knowledge of the bill extends only so far as the 24-hour news networks want to make it, and they don’t want to burden their viewers with something as large and complex as healthcare,
   The other day I was debating the merits of environmentalism with a friend, when he told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
   Please! My older brother passed Westberg’s class, so that makes me qualified to share my political opinion with you.
   I have freedom of speech! Just because I have the right to say something, means that I am automatically obligated to say that exact thought, regardless of the misinformation and outright bias that I’ve been force-fed through my equally misinformed friends and media with an agenda.
   I grew up in a society pervaded by the Internet, where everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how skewed or incorrect it might be.
   Nobody can connect my user name to my face, so why bother making a defensible, well-documented argument, when I can type inane/inflammatory/racist comments with the caps-lock button on?
   This logic translates directly to real life!
   So while I may not be the poli-sci nerd, who always seems to have an opinion about everything, I can be the regular guy who has a louder opinion about everything.
   And when all else fails, I can just make a disparaging comment about Sarah Palin.

Signed,
– That kid in your Gov class who mutters under his breath a lot.
***
Parker Evans, a junior, is a Gazette web-editor.

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