“People I work with seem struck with how grandiose our problems have become and yet how lousy are our choices for a new leader to fix them. It’s almost as though both political parties had too much to drink and vomited McCain, Hillary and Obama onto our kitchen floor and are now asking us to “choose one” to take home for four years… “Never in my entire lifetime have I seen a weaker field of presidential candidates and sadly for America, one of them is going to win” said one fellow.”

Above is an excerpt from Jeff’s (KE9V) blog post of a recent lunch with his co-workers where they discuss the woeful situation that America is in – which I would guess happens to echo the sentiments of many other Americans.

Below is my response, which I left in the form of a comment on his blog (which might also show up as a trackback since I decided to post it here).

I do know of a candidate that I wouldn’t consider a “lousy” choice, but due to the mainstream media largely ignoring him, not as many people have heard of him, or don’t believe that he has a chance of getting elected.

Another problem seems to stem from the fact that even if there is a candidate that is worth voting for, people won’t vote for him because they are afraid of the possibility of voting for someone that isn’t in the lead.

It is kind of a vicious cycle. People won’t vote for candidate “A” (who the United States really needs) because they are afraid that other people will not vote for candidate “A”. They fear that instead, others will vote for candidate “B” who appears more “electable” (based on what they hear from the mainstream media). Then other people with the same mindset will not vote for candidate “A” because he does not have as many votes.
It is a type of “herd mentality”. This is a good analogy – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_behavior#Everyday_decision-making

And at this point, voting for “the lesser evil” really won’t cut it because, as you pointed out, neither McCain, Hillary or Obama are what this country needs. And because people refuse to vote for who they know is really the best for the country, we never get who we need, but continue in a downward spiral continually voting for the most-electable, yet “lesser evil”, until we have come to this.

It is in this light that I ask you and others to investigate, consider, and hopefully tell your friends about presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Even though it is late in the election cycle, I still feel that it is necessary to spread the message that Ron Paul works for – one of limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. His website is http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ .

This is a long-term effort to educate the American people and raise awareness of this message. So even if Ron Paul doesn’t get elected (which is highly likely), the effort is not wasted.

Until we as a nation overcome this “herd mentality” and learn to vote for who we know is best for our country, things can only get worse.

-Jordan
KE5TLB

Update: I found this comic which seems appropriate to mention in light of my herd mentality comment.

I read this post over on tidbits by Joe Kissel. I liked this article because it expressed the feelings and tendencies of someone with a very similar personality to my own. I also liked his definition of “introvert”:

A common misconception about the word “introvert” is that it means someone who’s shy, withdrawn, afraid of crowds, or lacking in social skills. If you’ve ever seen me give a presentation to a large Mac user group, you’ll surely know that description doesn’t fit me at all! I will happily stand in front of hundreds or thousands of people, give a speech, answer questions, make jokes, and generally take charge of keeping the group interested and involved. If anything, I have a reputation for being long-winded in social situations, telling stories that go off on one tangent after another – and for being among the last to leave. I like people, and I think I’m reasonably competent and comfortable in a crowd of any size.

I strongly agree with the following statement he made in regards to multitasking and chatting online:

Now, I happen to think “multitasking” is a concept that should never, ever be applied to human beings (regardless of personality type), but be that as it may, I can certainly say that I’m easily distracted, and having more than one thing to think about actively at any given time is sure to make me both ineffective and grumpy. Chatting online while also working on another task, therefore, is unthinkable.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I’m easily distracted, but I greatly value solitude and quiet when I’m trying to study something.

If you are interested in learning more about my personality, then read the article and you will get a fairly close representation of one aspect of it.

As the title says I’ve updated WordPress to the latest version and now I’m trying to make sure that everything is working. It appears that my Twitter widget isn’t showing new tweets and my NextGEN gallery stuff isn’t showing up. I’ll be working on that. The LiveJournal crosspost plugin didn’t make it – hopefully there will be an updated version.

Edit:

NextGEN Gallery had an updated plugin and I had changed my Twitter username and had not updated it in Twitter Tools.