Today while we were having our end-of-class potluck (this seems to be very popular in community college) for my speech class, one of my classmates asked me whether I was a Democrat or a Republican. I asked said I was neither, and then she asked me what political party I believed in. I told her none, and she seemed unable to grasp the concept.
I don't know why it seemed to bizarre to her that somebody would be reluctant to simply accept the policies of any one political party as gospel, without applying critical thinking to the process. But it was. In fact, it was so befuddling that we attracted quite a bit of attention, and soon I was surrounded by people asking me questions like, "How do you decide who to vote for?" or "How do you choose between two politicians?" These are all people who vote -- they all said they do, anyway. I don't know why it was so amazing that I choose my candidates and issues by reading the voting materials and researching the issues on the Internet. I mean, it doesn't seem like a lot of work to me, and it's all a lot easier now that I don't have to spend a couple nights at the library before the election.
When I explained that I felt that working that hard to be sure I really believed in my vote was my duty as a citizen, she said, as if she'd figured it out at last, "You don't have any children, do you?"
I'm still puzzling over that one.
Anyway, the class is over, I believe I got an A (apparently I was one of only 3 people in the class to get a perfect score on the OPEN BOOK test on Friday), and I've put in my transcript request so that the transcript will be sent off to Calpoly when grades come in next week. Now I have a few days off before the rest of my summer classes start (accounting, law, and economics).
