Partisanship in the 21st Century

Growing up with a red family in a blue state with blue friends, I did what anyone would do when those she respected were at odds: I disenthralled myself.  For many years, that meant political apathy.  I dismissed politics like a disillusioned practitioner dismisses religion. Politics were divisive, cruel, and most often without point or resolution.  It was only years later that I realized it wasn’t politics I hated.  Politics is simply the science of government, the affairs of a state.  For centuries, we’ve viewed it through the lens of democracy.  

So, then, what did I hate?  Well, you know that feeling you get when all you want cable for is to watch Shark Week and Breaking Bad, but you have to pay for atrocities like TLC and Bravo to get it?  That’s sort of how I felt about politics: like a frustrated, cable-bundled consumer. What’s worse, I knew everyone around me hated it too.  But one conflicting viewpoint into a conversation and they were singing the bundling song and dance.  Suddenly, because I liked watching shark documentaries (I mean who doesn’t?) I also must like Bridezillas because, after all, it’s part of the bundle.  

This makes total sense

In a country that prides itself on democracy, the supposed lens of politics in the 21st Century,  we all seem to be complacently running on an alarmingly small number of choices based on the fear that finding new ones will only result in the least desired outcome gaining ultimate power.  We are stuck in a holding pattern that has forced us to bundle issues that have little logical relation to one another. As a nation, we’ve divided ourselves into teams like some bureaucratic game of capture the flag.  And it’s only getting worse.

In his post-election concession speech in 2012, libertarian candidate Gary Johnson stated, “A wasted vote is voting for somebody you don’t believe in and there were a lot of wasted votes tonight.”  Whatever you think of Johnson or his affiliations, the sentiment here expresses a missing piece in the heart of a democratic society. We’ve started to vote against the person we loathe rather than vote for the one we believe in. It has turned our participation in public affairs into a negative right, one based one the absence of real choice.

Nevertheless, the polarization appears to be increasing.  With one party hoping the other goes the way of the Whigs, and the other clamoring to redefine itself into another bundle combo. The result is either a one party system, or another two party standstill. It changes nothing. 

Uh, what?  Credit: zazzle.com

There’s a perception that red is limited government and blue is big government.  There’s also a perception that we can whittle every public policy view down to a couple primary colors so I don’t know why I find this surprising.  In any case, the assumption overlooks the fact that limited or big government is circumstantial, dependent on priorities. And like everything else in bipartisan America, priorities come bundled.

Some hope--and others dread-- that libertarians will introduce a third party to the system.  But in my experience, it’s generally treated like an ideology more than a party. And, once again, when opinions clash, many are quick to assign that ideology red or blue colors, if not dismiss it entirely.  Perhaps all this is easier on us, this dichromatic, paint-by-the-numbers approach to a citizen’s participation in public affairs and discourse. We vote for candidates primarily based on what team they're on, and yet we couldn’t be more displeased with our representatives.  Perhaps this is justified with the knowledge that our color is on the side of the good and the righteous, even if it is outrageously prone to hyperbole.  But how far are we willing to oversimplify policy and dilute our voice for the sake of a lesser evil?  When does this bundling system itself become the worst outcome?


This is not about what stance I take on public policy issues.  My stances are wide, varied, and open to growth based on new information and perspectives, all informed through the lens of our democracy.  This is about having a real choice to hold views free from the platforms they’ve been locked into. If only to dispel party prejudice and return civility and efficiency to political discourse amongst ourselves: color me disenthralled.

Galactic Perspective

The Earth, rotates at over 1,000 miles per hour.  This is your speed on the ground.  The Earth is moving around the sun at over 67,000 miles per hour.  We sit on the edge of the milky way galaxy, in a solar system moving over 400,000 miles per hour around the galactic core.  It takes takes roughly 200-250 million years for our solar system to orbit the galactic center once.  The milky way galaxy we reside in is part of a cluster of galaxies called the local group,  Within, the entire milky way moves about 2,237,000 miles per hour through the universe.

Altogether, this means, at this moment, you are hurling through space at roughly 2.7 million miles per hour around a supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy.  Supermassive black holes’ gravity are largely responsible for the formation of galaxies, and the gravity is so intense, it literally distorts space time around it.  The black hole at the center of our milky way accounts for .1% of the galactic center.  In the largest known supermassive black hole in galaxy NGC 1277, it accounts for 59% of the mass of the galaxy.

Our sun, 1.3 million times the size of Earth, is a yellow dwarf.  The largest known star, VY Canis Majoris, is over 2000 times the size of the sun.  The most massive known star, R136a1, has the mass of 236 suns and burns 8,700,000 times more brightly.

There are 200-400 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy. There are at least hundreds of billions, possibly trillions of galaxies in the known universe.

The radius of the observable universe is about 46 billion light years.  However, thanks to the WMAP satellite, temperature fluctuations have been recorded over the entire sky measured at a very narrow resolution.  The readings are consistent with the universe being flat.  However, if the Universe does curve back and close on itself, its radius of curvature is at least 150 times as large as the part that observable to us. Meaning that the entire Universe extends for at least 14 trillion light years in diameter.

Hubble Deep Field:  a tiny spot in the sky.

Finally, there are about 610,000 asteroids that are actively tracked in our solar system. This number represents less than 1 percent of the more than 60 million asteroids that orbit the Sun. Of these asteroids, about 1.5 million are larger than 1 kilometer in size meaning that are what people would call 'dinosaur killers'.

So, you know, when you’re stressed about something, just remember to relax and enjoy the ride.