an open letter to the politically ignorant;

for all the people who only think about government every four years for the month before the election, this goes out to you.

please, please - if politics is not a passion, or even something you wish to spend any small amount of time educating yourself about, stop talking about it. sharing your uninformed opinion about, well, practically anything only breeds more uninformed voters. and then we all end up in trouble.

it isn't anything to be ashamed of - some people literally do not care about voting for the person who controls whether or not government subsidized health care becomes a reality, whether the government can search you without a warrant, whether we nuke iran or not. that's fine. i invite you to carry on not caring nor paying attention. my only stipulation is that when things are tough, i don't want to hear you complain first.

i understand that the election process is confusing, that not everyone is aware that sarah palin has been a governor for 14 months and joe biden has served in the senate for almost 26 years. i get it, it's cool. sure, you can tell me who won on i love money, but wait - why is there a 700 billion dollar bill going through congress? i know that it's tricky, believe me. that's why we don't have to talk about it.

you don't have to tell me that things haven't been working, so we have to do things differently. people have been saying that since 1776. and the fact that you're saying it right now, expecting me to throw my fist in the air and agree, is just annoying. if you think that this election will drastically change america and the systems that operate within it, you are a fool.

do i think that obama winning this election will begin to put in motion a modicum of positivity - of course. do i think that in 2009 america will be out of iraq, offer government subsidized health care, and have a booming economy? of course not. all change of that magnitude takes time. i am willing to give obama (and a new congress) that time. january 20th is the beginning of a very long process, whether mccain or obama are at the helm.

please, though - if you say out loud 'i don't know anything about the senates' (meaning senators) maybe you shouldn't be opening your mouth about politics. it's okay. it's why i don't talk about car maintenance or complex math - i don't know anything about them. having to listen to your attempted political discourse, however, is making me wish i were ignorant just so i didn't know the difference.

two weeks after the election, no one will care anymore besides the c-span junkies. and that's okay with me.