Pet peeve of the day

Surprisingly, I've been a lot better at keeping these things to myself, but this is just irritating. I've noticed on Facebook (the networking mechanism of the hour) that there are so many politically-related groups such as "Stop Obama (1,000,000 strong against Barack Obama)" and during the primary season there were several anti-Hillary groups as well and I'm sure there are anti-John McCain groups out there, too. This is one reason I am proud to be an American, the fact that we have the right to freedom of speech, that we can say what we feel or what we think.

When I click on these groups, though, I'm very disappointed in what's there - a lot of nothing - and this makes me realise how many uneducated people are roaming about. What's intrigued me about the 2008 elections to date is the huge interest it's brought about in so many Americans and people all over the world for that matter - the excitement, the participation that seemed to have been lacking during the last 8 years. For this, I'm encouraged. But when I see these facebook groups, I'm again disappointed for the following reasons (Note: I'm a complete moderate - I vote in a state where you don't have to affiliate with a party so I'm writing this from a neutral perspective):

• Why have a group entitled "Stop "so-and-so""? - Why not put a positive spin on it so that you are promoting the support of your candidate and not promoting the non-support of another candidate?
• If you do want to support the non-support of a candidate, be engaged, be familiar - don't just throw a picture up of a candidate not placing his hand on his heart as your reason for disliking him. Be educated, be informed. Talk about policy or the lack thereof.
• Conduct IQ tests before you let people join (I'm sure this could be a facebook application). I'm slightly joking on this one.

Having lived overseas on two different continents for the last 3 years, one of the things that inspires me about America is that despite the fact that we have 2 main political parties, we don't have to play party politics. We can claim to be moderate or undecided and actually choose a candidate based on policy, decisions, voting records and not just because they are a Republican or Democrat. In talking to British friends, this is one of the problems that has often times plagued the British election process - many people have always voted the party their parents have voted and not engaged in the process any more than that. In parts of Africa, people engage in extreme violence if their party doesn't win despite the fact that they may know nothing of what their candidate believes in or will act on.

When I see our "anti-candidate" mentality and that it looks often times to be based on nothing besides party politics, I get frustrated. We are doing a disservice to ourselves and our nation. We, as Americans, are arguably the most privilieged people in the world. We have access, and convenience to anything / everything we need. We have the opportunity for education that so many others would sacrifice so much to have - and yet, honestly the rest of the world thinks of us, on the whole, as getting dumb and dumber. We owe it to ourselves to be informed, talk, debate with our friends and look at the real issues which face our nation now and in the November elections. I truly believe there is more value in that than creating facebook groups.