First Post!!

For my first post I am going to make that same, tired argument. It's been said that politics is just about who gets what, when. That is a spot-on description but I would add "...to make tomorrow better than today." At least that's what it should be. It's really what we all want (for those of us with our feet planted here on Earth). To start, everyone needs to figure out where they stand on political and social issues. If people don't become more aware of political and social events then the pool of people who do care will be much smaller than it should. These people's voices would then take on a disproportionate amount of influence. What if those people are too narrow-minded in their opinions? Is this presently the case?

The most important thing to for a person who is invested in a political or social agenda is to simply make his or her opinion heard. This is even more important than voting in the US presidential election. Mathematically, the average voting citizen does not have a realistic effect on the outcome of this election. However, raising your opinion by doing something like calling your legislators is far better.

I won't make any other argument about the importance of participation. To me it's as simple as this: If you do not involve yourself, someone stupider than you will. The more we allow stupid people (perhaps "ignorant" is kinder) to make our decisions for us, well let me just say that the net intelligence of our nation does down. Now how can that make tomorrow better than today?

So figure things out for yourself, I hope your opinions aren't wrong. Here are some starting points:

• http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz -this is small and quick
  

• http://www.electoralcompass.com -cool presentation, kinda long
  

• http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm -very good, comprehensive
  

• http://www.politicalcompass.org/ -not sure about this one, but does match you with political and historical people.