ilubmoney

From an email I wrote to a friend the other day:

Everyone's got their reasons for their candidate/party, and his reason's probably not the worst I've heard. :P I've been tired lately of the political animosity between the constituents lately, and I'm especially embarrassed when the liberals say or do something stupid... just doesn't make us look good. Like when they talk about the Republicans being complete morons. They're not morons--they just have different needs and priorities.

MF and I were looking at a map of the red/blue states the other day*, and we were talking about guns for some reason. I mused that maybe gun ownership was more important in the central states and rural areas because by the time the trespasser/serial killer/etc. gets to your place, it'd take too long for law enforcement to arrive because facilities are so spaced out in those areas. I'd want a way to protect myself, too, if I were in that situation. In the big cities, one can argue that law enforcement could get there faster, and civilian-owned guns end up being more of a liability than an asset. Same with business regulation: concentration of big businesses is greater in big cities, and as an average consumer, how could you really protect yourself from Big Corporation XYZ? A consumer has greater power in the rural areas where businesses, particularly small ones, have greater sensitivity to the market.

Looking at issues by need makes a lot of sense that way and takes a lot of the "good party vs. bad party" out of it. Your friend's voting reasons fall along the same lines: he's just looking at what he'd need. :P

I had a conversation with my mom recently about the upcoming election, too. She usually doesn't care much for politics, but this year she's been much more interested and involved with it. Because my parents are Republican, I asked my mom out of curiosity what she thought of McCain and Palin. She was happy with the Republican ticket, and I was really surprised to hear her cite the war as being a strong reason for supporting McCain. "I don't think the US should pull out yet," she said.

Before those of you holding an olive branch get testy with my mom, keep in mind that she's a Vietnamese-American immigrant who was a refugee from the Vietnam War. In her mind--and many Vietnamese-Americans in Southern California--the American military departure from Vietnam was premature and left the country in a lot of pain and hurt with the Viet Cong. She sees pulling out of Iraq in much the same light and wants to spare Iraq the same pain Vietnam went through post-war. I see this reason as a kind of "need" for Vietnamese-Americans like my mom, too. For her, it's a different way to heal from the experience of war: to see the US make a different choice this time and help "save" another country when hers couldn't be "saved."

In response to her explanation, I related an analogy about resources. "Say you have a certain amount of money available to loan out to people. You have a lot of family and friends who need a loan from you, but you just don't have enough to loan out to all of them. Do you first loan it out to your friends or family?" She processed this thoughtfully, too. I continued, "Maybe after years of war, Americans just needed their government to focus on issues back home instead of abroad. Maybe it was terrible for Vietnam but good for the American family." "Maybe," she responded. "Maybe we should both look into whether America as a whole was better off from pulling out of the war." (Vague suggestion, I know, but I'm sure there are ways to examine the issue more concretely.)

All in all, I just wish people could be more respectful in their discussions of politics. Mom was so used to having polarized political discussions that having me just listen and trying to understand her perspective actually made her think that I was going to vote Republican, too. (I quickly corrected her, and she was respectful about my choice, too.)

We may not all know the details about the histories of each candidate/party/etc., but everyone's just working with what they can handle. If political education is an issue, then I'd hope such educators keep it respectful instead of name-calling. Every party's got their skeletons and scandals, and every constituent's got their need that they need addressed.


* I was thinking about how liberals commonly use the map to say that more educated areas tended to vote Democrat. I think that it just tends to be bigger cities vs. smaller towns, which of course are going to have different needs and vote accordingly.