Ramblings
» What is "Change"?
This is one of those questions that always prays on my mind but never grants me a clear answer.
As most of you may know, certain political candidates tell us that we need to have more change. They tell us that change will solve all our problems, but at the same time, these people are so incredibly vague as to what they really mean when they use the term.
Maybe they’re advocating a bad kind of change–a change that will only hurt our country. Maybe they’re advocating change that will get us into more wars and bloodshed. The truth is that we’ll never know, because these people never specify.
Now, ordinarily, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. However, what scares me is that many Americans have been deceived by this whole “change” doctrine and suckered into how pleasing it sounds, instead of actually investigating what these politicians believe. To make matters worse, because this whole concept of “change” sounds so great, Americans are willing to vote just based off of that, rather than look into the politician’s stances on all of the issues.
If you’ve been paying attention to American politics lately, you’ll probably realize that I’m alluding to Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate who is renowned for his great speaking abilities. He’s been able to convince many people into voting for him by sharing his eloquently presented speeches on “change” in America. And these people believe that his advocacy for change is enough to warrant a vote for him.
Obama may be a great speaker on vague concepts that are pleasing to the ear, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he would make a great president. His lack of experience–a mere two years in the Senate–shows us that he probably isn’t prepared to make as much change as he tells us. Furthermore, because most of his speeches consist of “change” and other broad generalities, one of the only ways to figure out his stances on the issues is by going onto his website.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if I have to go onto a candidate’s webpage to get an idea as to what he believes, that only shows me that the person lacks confidence in his beliefs. Either that, or it shows me that the person has no idea what he’s talking about regarding those issues and would like to avoid speaking about them as much as possible.
The only positive thing I can say about Obama is that his lack of experience means he probably hasn’t been corrupted by politics yet. But even then, that’s likely to change in a short period of time (let’s face the truth–it happens to the vast majority of politicians). And anyway, I’d rather have a somewhat corrupted politician who knows what he’s doing than a good-hearted one who doesn’t. Remember now–whoever’s elected will have to run a country containing 320,000,000 people. Personality won’t be enough to help that person there.
Don’t get me wrong; I like Obama as a person. He’s a nice guy with great speaking abilities, and I would love to have dinner with him. But please don’t let his charisma block your judgment when you’re deciding whether he should run one of the biggest global superpowers.
Written: March 21, 2008
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Please note that I’m not insinuating that all people who support Obama aren’t using their judgment properly. There are probably people out there who know all the ins and outs of Obama’s stances and firmly stand by them. However, realize that I’m only addressing something I’ve noticed–That many Americans support the candidate because of the idea that “he’s a nice guy”.