Snap judgment

I went out on a coffee date recently with a nice guy. We'd emailed a handful of times and then met for a face to face chat to start getting to know each other. I thought things went fine, the conversation flowed smoothly, no awkward pauses, we seemed to have plenty to talk about and plenty of things in common.

Well, he decided that things would never work. After only one meeting and a handful of emails. He even explained why.

Because I vote.

To him, the fact that I vote indicates that I believe in our current political system and he can never be close to someone that does. Mind you, he never actually asked me about my political views. Instead he drew this conclusion through several assumptions and by inferring various things from emails and our conversation. I used a buzz word when I described something (what isn't a buzz word these days?). I asked him if he voted in an email. It happened to be the PA primary that day, so it was a topic of conversation all over the news, and in addition to the primary there were several ballot measures up for the vote.

My political views, however, are not as simple as he thinks they are. He would know this if he had asked instead of making a snap judgment based on assumption.

As you all know, I'm a big proponent of voting. It's important to exercise your right to vote, to exercise your voice. And I will continue to vote until they forcibly take the right away from me by prying it from my (still warm) dead hands. I'm grateful I live where I do have the right to voice my opinion. But that doesn't mean I believe in our system as it exists today. Our system is broken. Our system is imperfect and flawed. But it's what we have to work with right now. And to change it, you have to participate. You can't change things while sitting on the sidelines. You have to use your voice, even within our broken system, to push for the things you do believe in. If you choose not to participate, then shut up and deal with the outcome. Don't get all high and mighty and lecture me about how the system sucks. I've said it before, by choosing to not participate you've given up your right to b!tch and moan about the way things turn out and the way things are. To put it another way, if you don't participate by choice, then you become nothing but a victim. I don't want to go through life as a victim, thankyouverymuch, so I choose to participate in an imperfect/messed up system in an attempt to make it better. I prefer to be active and try rather than just exist as a passive victim of the system. [OK, getting off my soapbox now. Thank you for indulging me.]

Frankly, I'm kind of glad he made the decision quickly. Looks like we agree on one thing: it clearly wouldn't work. I now know that for sure. Because I could never be with someone willing to make such a snap judgment and jump to conclusions based on nothing more than assumption. I could never be with someone so closed minded or someone that could only be with someone if they agree on everything (sameness is boring...I prefer a diversity of opinions). I could never be with someone that didn't take the time to actually ask and learn about a person before making a decision.

Obviously he and I approach the world very very differently. And that's OK. He's still a nice guy, despite the fact he made a snap judgment about me that happened to be quite wrong. But he was definitely right that it would never have worked out.

All eyes on us

Never mind that it's Earth Day, it's the Pennsylvania primary today. And if you watch/read the news, you'd assume that's far more important than little old Earth Day. I don't think I could have forgotten to vote today if I'd tried. It's everywhere. The papers, signs stuck up anywhere and everywhere, the news (both local and national), blogs, etc. You can't escape it.

This whole presidential election has been like this. It's been everywhere and a near daily topic for a year and a half now. And we still have a little over 6 months to go. I don't remember a presidential campaign season being this long before. And frankly, I'm sick of it.

I've always been an informed voter. I read up on the candidates and other ballot measures up for the vote, and make my decisions. It's the in your face push of this election that's getting to me. I don't need it stuffed down my throat. Not to mention that if I got all my information from the news and didn't do any of my own research and reading, I'd be grossly misinformed.

I'm not sure what I'm looking forward to more...election day in November so this campaign will be over, or Bush's last day in office so his entire farce of a term will be over.

A woman's right to choose 2

Feministing is posting highlights from Blog for Choice posts all day today. At the end of one such post, a blogger echoed my favorite bumper sticker on my car, which reads:

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.

She ended her post with a list of the reasons she votes pro-choice. The last one reads: "Most of all, I vote pro-choice because of my belief in the radical notion that women are people."

You go girl. Women are people that are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves and making sound decisions. No one has the right to tell me what to think or what to do.

A woman's right to choose

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that gave women the right to choose and access to legal and safe abortions. Happy anniversary!

And yet, the battle to retain those rights wages on. It's not about what I would or wouldn't do if I was faced with such a difficult decision. It's about someone else that doesn't know me or my life telling me what I can and cannot do. Choosing whether or not to have an abortion is a personal decision. Just like choosing to have children is a personal decision. The government has no place inserting itself into my personal life and decisions.

Of course, that's my personal opinion. And you must form your own opinions. But do so in an informed manner. Educate yourself and think for yourself. It's not anyone's place to tell you what to think, anymore than it's anyone's place to tell you whether or not you have the right to to choose whether or not to have a child.

Primary election day

Today is the primary election in Philadelphia. While this is a primary, in terms of our mayor, it's actually more important than election day. Generally, whomever wins the Democratic primary for mayor becomes mayor of Philly. OK then, I guess I better vote.

I registered to vote back in March when I got my Pennsylvania drivers license. It makes it so simple and easy when you can do both at the same time, so there's really no excuse NOT to be a registered voter. My certificate of voter registration arrived in the mail a few weeks ago, which I promptly signed and filed away in a safe place. I consider the right to vote a big deal. I remember being very angry as a child being told that I couldn't vote and arguing with my parents about it. And I was only around 11 years old. Still, true to form for my parents, I was encouraged to decide who I wanted to vote for and why, and I had to have a good reason. I don't believe they ever told me who they voted for. Not once. Who you vote for is a private thing and it shouldn't matter who everyone else votes for if you've thought about it and made your decision on your own. It's your right and duty to vote, but who's name you select from the ballot is your own business. One of the benefits of living in a "free" society.

Besides, I'm of the school that if you don't participate, you don't have the right to complain about the outcome.

So I'm off to vote. I've done my research, and decided which candidates I like. As for who they are, well, I'm not going to tell you. Go read the ample amount of information available about the candidates running and decide for yourself. And think before you vote.