Ryan ChartrandMy biggest fear for the 2008 election is that we’ll be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.
This summer I officially became a naturalized American citizen, and in doing so, gave my heart over to a nation that was founded on the principles of freedom, democracy and most importantly – personal independence. And yet, for all the glory of the moment when I held up my right hand and thereby earned the right to vote, I felt a different kind of emotion rising in my gut – that of uncertainty.
I’ve become an American at a time when the country is trying to recover from the failed decisions of a president who, for almost eight years now, has lied to his people, pillaged foreign resources, sponsored war crimes and is now bidding out his final year in the White House as a lame duck.
It would seem that with the next presidential election less than a year away, the nation would be more hopeful, but sadly, we’re once again faced with having to choose our next leader from a pool of candidates who don’t even remotely embody our national ideals.
The two-party system reduces democracy to a frustrating process. It subverts independent thinking and intelligent inquiry to the amorphous will of being either a Republican or a Democrat and leaves no room for individual preference.
The two-party system works to distract voters with small, binary issues such as gay marriage and abortion, hoping that they’ll forget the larger issues of America’s place in the world and their own duties as free-thinking voters.
I thought about writing a column decrying the futility of voting in an election that has already narrowed the selection down to a few undesirable candidates, but have instead chosen to take the risk of looking overly optimistic and writing what I truly believe: that non-partisan voting and a movement toward grassroots democracy can save the American political process.
With the true potential of the Internet and information technologies still begging at our fingertips, we as young Americans have more access to knowledge than any generation before us.
Maybe that’s why, among my fellow college students, I’ve noticed an increasing and hopeful trend toward “independence” – a mindset that rejects the limits of partisanship and embraces the wonders of reasoned inquiry.
Thirty-five percent of all Americans currently recognize themselves as independent, and a substantial number of those who are registered Democrats or Republicans say that they have registered that way only to be able to vote in their state primaries.
Just as those people who restrict their musical tastes to the Billboard 100 are missing out on some of the best indie music out there, those who stubbornly affiliate themselves with a political party are limiting their political choices to the few candidates who’ve managed to play the game right with corporate interests.
Partisanship places intelligent thought in a box – it limits innovation and reason. Independence, on the other hand, both embodies and practices those principles of freedom that make America the nation it is.
I challenge those of you who truly think that you are intelligent, reasoned and independent-minded to shed the chains of being tied to a political party, and to explore the many other possibilities being an American entitles you to . like voting for someone you actually want to see in the White House.
Marlize van Romburgh is a journalism junior and a Mustang Daily reporter.