An open letter to the undecided......

To Whom It May Concern:

Well,  here I go, breaking my promise to not pull politics into my blog. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times, in this ever more and more polarized world, I truly believe it is just as difficult to change someone's political beliefs as it is to change someone's religious beliefs, so I never even try. That being said, I feel like I need to do something...

Politics today is an entirely new animal. You are able to feed your personal beliefs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if you want. You can find blogs, websites, tv stations and articles to back-up every belief you have. Whether or not it is accurate, you can find an article to back up your "beliefs." I think much of politics is honestly opinion sold as "facts." There are some things, clearly, that we have some historical perspective on (what works and what does not), some that IS scientific, but much of politics is kind of about your own philosophy and beliefs about how people should function and ultimately what role religion and the government should play in shaping how people are able to function. Let's face it, that is really what everything comes down to, the official role of religion and the role of government.

Rootstrikers

Part of me hates that I find myself writing a blog while on vacation, but I guess it goes to show that I find this to be important enough to brain dump as quickly as possible. Not only am I on vacation, but this is my last night here in Hampton Beach, NH.

I have alluded to Lawrence Lessig in previous blogs. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Lessig, I highly suggest you look him up. An Intellectual Property lawyer and professor, by trade, turned into a political activist I highly admire. I was lucky enough to see him speak at All Souls last year and have been a witness to the adorableness of watching Greg look up to him for years.

Mr. Lessig is most recently known for his stance on money in politics. More specifically, for his arguments for the need to get money 100% out of politics, and elections more specifically. There are numerous lectures on-line  you can watch to learn more about Mr. Lessig, his stance and his Rootstriker mentality http://www.rootstrikers.org.

Basically the thought is that until you find the root of any problem and are able to strike down the problem at its root cause, it will continue to be a problem. I feel like there are so many major issues in the world we are all afraid or unwilling to discuss. We don't take the time to think about what the root cause of any problem is, so we try and attack the peripheral issues, never ever solving the root issue.  Mr. Lessig (and I) believe that with all of the corruption in politics, the low levels of confidence in congress, the stalemate that Washington has currently perfected, the lackluster amount of those who vote in elections (after so many fought and died for the right to vote), the root problem to all of this in money in elections and money in politics. People feel like their vote doesn't matter and won't make a difference because they know that in the end, big money usually wins.