I kind of got into it with a complete stranger on Facebook. I guess I just need to get rid of all my Utah facebook friends, so I don’t get sucked into political discussions online – but this one is a little more generic, so I’ll throw it out here for the 3 of you who actually read my blog…
To give you background, in Utah, an old lady is running a negative ad against Jim Matheson (the democrat incumbent) and for the challenger republican (Morgan Philpot). One of my Facebook friends works actively for his campaign, so it was no surprise when she posted the ad. The ad itself isn’t disturbing or anything; it’s your run-of-the-mill negative ad, casting Matheson as a Pelosi cronie. No big deal. Let me emphasize, this isn’t about one candidate over another, I could care less who wins the election.
Here’s my issue… the title/subtitle of the ad: “Personal Patriotism” and “Random Acts of Patriotism”
Here is the exchange I had…
Now, here’s my question… Am I way off base here?
Does having a personal political opinion and buying up scobs of air time to express it count as a real “act of patriotism”? Especially when you’re only using your first name which isn’t the same first name you actually go by in real life?
I didn’t even learn a stinking thing from her ad, not about Morgan Philpot anyways. What a waste. Negative campaigning is the norm in politics today, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still tasteless. If these guys don’t have enough virtues to get elected on their own merits, then I don’t want them in office anyways.
First of all, I think it IS patriotic to get involved in the politics of your country. To study the issues, then to take a stand and make yourself heard. All of that is patriotic regardless of which side you take. Her ad is certainly patriotic, not because of which side she took but because she stood up for what she believes in and made her voice heard. I also don’t believe that she was being deceiptful because of the way she stated her name. Hey, she stated her name! Middle or otherwise. I don’t blame her for using only her first initial and her middle name. It’s not like she was dishonest or lied about who she was. I also don’t believe it was a negative ad. It simply stated the fact that she believes this country is going in the wrong direction and that she believes that, to change it, you’ve also got to change who’s in office. She believes that under the Democrat control it is taking away our liberties and that to fix that you’ll have to vote against that party. It makes sense to me. I also don’t believe that you don’t care which side wins. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be making this fuss. If you didn’t care you wouldn’t even be paying enough attention to have noticed the ad, let alone what it meant. But I wish you the best in your quest for the moral high ground of so-called neutrality.