Why Tuesday?

Why Tuesday?

I listen to Air America quite a bit. I mostly listen to Thom Hartmann and Rachael Maddow, but I will have it on the in background just to break the silence. I tend to absorb interesting information and trivia through osmosis even when I'm not really LISTENING per se.

Lately a couple of different shows have had on people from Why Tuesday? on to discuss their organization. Why Tuesday? is and organization dedicated to improving our democracy by increasing voter participation. (The United States is ranked in the bottom third of all industrialized countries in voter participation.) One of the avenues they are pursuing to increase voter turnout is to get a discussion going on why we still have elections on Tuesdays.

Apparently the reason we started having elections on the first Tuesday in November was it was the end of harvest season and people would be free to travel to the polling locations. This obviously isn't a relevant reason in modern America because not only are we an increasingly urban society, modern farmers have the ability to jump in their truck and drive to their poling location without too much bother.

So Why Tuesday? The most benign reason I can think of is simply tradition. We have had our elections on Tuesday for so long people don't even think about it. If this is the case then it should be fairly simple to change the day to a weekend to help increase voter participation. A less benign reason is that there is a conscious effort to suppress voter participation by making it inconvenient to vote. Surpressing voter participation would not only benefit the more conservative elements of government (check out this video) but also would probably to favor ANY incumbent. This would be a reason why more liberal lawmakers might be against moving Election Day.

One objection to moving Election Day to the weekend is that people might blow off voting for their regular weekend leisure activities. I think this argument may have some merit. I know I tend to sleep in and relax on weekends, so it might be worthwhile exploring another alternative. Making Election Day a National Holiday.

Making Election Day a national holiday would cut many people free from work and giving them more time to make it to the polls. I suppose an argument could be made that having a holiday would have a similar effect to moving Election Day to a weekend, but I think it wouldn't because people wouldn't be used to slacking off on a weekday even if it was a holiday (as long as they didn't move it to a Monday to get the 3-day weekend.) There would of course be the same conservative/incumbant push against the holiday. But, the advantage of making Election Day a holiday is that it would probably be an easier sell to people than moving it in the face of the inertia of tradition and heck who doesn't want another holiday.

Why Tuesday? is leading an effort to improve voter turnout by challenging what really amounts to government tradition. I think we really need to be doing more of this kind of thing. The government shouldn't do thing because its the way we have always done it. That is a good way to keep our country hidebound, and at only 230 years old we are way to young for that.

Net Neutrality - Letter to My Representative

Rep. McDermott,

I am concerned about the possible loss of Net Neutrality. In order for the Internet to truly serve as an Information Super Highway, the free exchange of information must not be inhibited for any reason, especially for a profit motive.

I own a small business and I understand the temptation to use any means available to drive people to your web presence. But the free exchange of information is more important than my or ANY business.

It is vital not only for the betterment of people all over the world but it is vital for the preservation of our democracy. The Internet is a source of information unfettered by corporate filters and it must remain so if we are to be able to make informed decisions about our elected representatives.

Please work to preserve Net Neutrality.

Sincerely,

Scott M. Taylor

Organized Religion is Not for Me

Religion is a personal thing for me, and I think, many others around the country. We are the people that check the “other” box in surveys. We’re not Christians or Jews, Muslims or Hindus, for that matter we’re not even Wiccans or Mormons. We don’t go to church but we believe in God or at least a Supreme Being or Beings. Some of us like to discuss religion in an attempt to understand what compels people to gather together and celebrate their beliefs in a group. Is it the need to reassure themselves that they are following the “Right” God? Is it the need that almost all people have to form a community of like-minded individuals? What drives their belief in the same aspect of a Supreme Being? I am one of those that would like to have a serious discussion with religious folks about their religion.

Unfortunately, religion has always been one of those topics that are difficult to have a real discussion about without falling into an argument. This seems to have gotten worse in the last few years. The religious fundamentalists have always seemed to ally themselves with the most conservative politicians in our country, for obvious reasons I suppose. Both groups dislike change and are generally representative of the less tolerant members of our society. This alliance has emboldened both parties and allowed them to exert influence out of proportion to the members of each group. These groups have worked together to make it tantamount to political suicide to not be an overtly religious person (of the Judeo-Christian religion of your choice). And if you disagree with the government wearing the Christian religion on its sleeve, then you hate God right? Or you are prosecuting a “War on Christianity.” It is the same method the Right uses to shore up support for its political policies: “Why do the liberals hate America?” Both methods use the easiest method of persuasion; they twist people into believing that everything is an “us against them” proposition.

Organized religion, especially Christianity, seems to be uniquely suited to this proposition. The very foundation of most Christian sects is that the word of God comes to them through the Bible and one of the most important parts of the Bible is the Ten Commandments where God says, “thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.” This is not exactly a tolerant attitude. If you combine it with the proselytizing that seems to be a part of most Christian religions, then it can easily be warped into the attitude that anyone that doesn’t accept their version of religion is the enemy. This is not reflective of the majority of religious people but it seems that a frighteningly large number of the more fanatically bent “people of faith” are drawn to these types of religious sects.

It may be unfair to dismiss organized religion based on a small subset, but the influence that these fanatical people exert paints all similar religions with the same brush. If the more moderate and reasonable sects of a religion don’t want to be lumped into the extremist category of their more fanatical relations then they should make an effort to distance themselves from them. Just as Christian religious leaders call upon moderate Muslims to denounce the terrorist acts of their extremist sects , it’s only fair if other people can call upon the moderate Christians to denounce the extremist Christians.

Where I live (Seattle, WA) there are many churches that do good charity work. They save lives by hosting and feeding the homeless; they raise money for disaster relief and host informative forums about political and social issues affecting the area. They do good work and are an asset to the community. But I also feel that I live in an area that is not dominated by extremist sect. We don’t have an aggressive push for prayer in our schools, or at public events. We don’t have churches calling for rewriting science textbooks to include creationism or push for banning books.

Other areas of the country aren’t so lucky. They have churches pushing their Christian agendas on the secular arena. They use their influence to push values that they believe in on the general public that may not believe in them. If the more moderate sects don’t believe that this is right, why don’t they speak out against it? Why don’t they use their status as religious leaders to call for a more tolerant attitude from these more fanatical sects?

I don’t know why. Some kind of religious politics I suppose, maybe someday someone will explain this to me. But until then, this will be one of the reasons that organized religions don’t appeal to me. It seems hypocritical to be for tolerance but not speak out against intolerance in other sects of the same religion. It is a failure of sorts and one that has a profound effect on the country. Until I see some organized religion that is willing to stand up to the fanatics, especially those in their sects, organized religions will be forever lumped into the category “watch – may be dangerous.”

The First Amendment to our Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” to my mind this reflects the intent that government should stay our of religion and religion should stay out of government. Organized religions don’t seem to be able to grasp this concept.