Republicans, Democrats and voting: learning the ways of politics
By Natale DiBitetto
You’re at home flipping through channels as a political map comes on the screen. It’s just a matter of time before the Presidential election is over. You hear the newscaster talking about each candidate’s future plans. You look at the bottom of the screen as the number of electoral votes each politician is receiving from the states. You sit back wishing you knew what was happening. You don’t understand what each side stands for because it’s discussed in detail. Before you can understand the details, you need to know the basics. However, there’s more to it than that. Maybe you don’t understand how voting works, either. You think to yourself, what are electoral votes? I thought that citizens cast their ballots and whoever received the most votes won that state. That’s not necessarily the case and not knowing what’s happening around you makes for a frustrating election.
The issue of unfamiliarity of politics is a problem that faces many people, especially teens, today. When teens turn 18, they’re allowed to vote so long they register. However, many people don’t vote, regardless if they’re registered, because they don’t know what they’re voting for. There is the question of whether they’re Democrat, Republican or neither and they don’t know how to tell. While tuning into a news station or radio may talk about politics, the parties and who is winning each state, you may not be able to understand unless you are already politically informed.
Democrats, also known as liberals or even socialists, are the left-wing party. People of this party are more open to change and believe the government should be controlling many aspects of your life (i.e. healthcare). They are more open to changing laws such as a gay marriage law, which has become a huge issue among the country as a whole.
Republicans, also known as conservatives or constitutionalists, are the right-wing party. In general, they believe in more moral and traditional values rather than change. They don’t believe the government should be controlling your life. Republicans tend to have a stronger religious background. The separation of church and state has always been a liberal/conservative battle. Conservatives would rather bring Christian morals into government decisions whereas Democrats prefer that separation. A controversial example of this would be abortion. For the most part, Conservatives are pro-life whereas Democrats are pro-choice.
The two parties share very different opinions on penalties against people who commit crimes. Democrats tend to lean towards prosecution whereas Republican’s lean towards execution, depending on the crime committed. For example, most Democrats would rather see Scott Peterson who murdered his pregnant wife in December 2002, be jailed for life where all his rights would be taken away and he would suffer in a cell until he died. Many Republican’s lean toward Peterson be murdered because they believe he deserves to have the same thing happen to him as he did to his wife and unborn child.
On the subject of taxes, Democrats believe that they should be used towards everyone, whereas Republican’s believe they earn their money and they should get to do what they want with it. Democrats believe taxes should be taken out of the wealthier class where Republican’s tend to disagree.
To sum up the difference, Republican’s believe in small government and individual freedom and responsibility. Democrat’s believe in government programming at the expense of personal freedom and responsibility.
Voting may be a confusing concept for people who are just learning politics. Instead of the population winning a state over, the electoral votes decide who it goes to. The number of electoral votes is different in each state, according to how many number of Senate and congressional seats there are in the house. So in other words, in New Hampshire there two Senators and two house members which gives New Hampshire four electoral votes. The number of seats each house has is determined to how many people live in the state, thus leading back to population. If the population is tied, no candidate receives the electoral votes and it goes to the House of Representatives. Each person in the House votes and the candidate that receives the majority vote wins that state.
The best way to learn about politics is from people around you. Your parents, peers and teachers may have a greater knowledge of politics. Sometimes it’s hard to get both sides of the story if most of the people you talk to favor one side. Going online and listening to both radio and television talk shows is another way to learn the Republican opinion vs. the Democratic opinion. Once you learn the basics you can start to understand the specifics of politics.
mwalsh @ April 14, 2008
This is exactly the article needed for high school to college aged people. Not enough people know about politics and about the different parties. The article was extremely informative but in a brief easily read way which was nice. If our generation wants to see change they need to get out and vote and after reading this article there will hopefully be more informed, smarter voters out there.
I agree with you completely. I also think that schools should increse the education about how important it is to vote and what you should be thinking about while voting. I remember I learned about voting anf electoral votes in 8th grade. In some ways I think that age group may be to early. Yes, its great that they are teaching us about it…but we need to reminded when we are approaching the legal age to vote.
Very interesting inference. Would agree with you for the most part. Even though this a very well thought out piece, there are some differences I have as far as semantics go. Democrats don’t tend to have an appeal towards government controlling people’s lives. Who really wants anyone having their life dictated to them anyways? I believe what appeals to democrats is having more governmental regiment and intervention. Sure most liberal want to have universal healthcare, but not necessarily at the expense and exploitation of health insurance corporations. I completely agree with you on your inference of the differences between democrats and republics. Liberals are certainly willing to change and have money (taxes) being used the right way in more socialized programs. Conservatives are definitely more resilient when it comes to their money. Overall, great piece of sociological-political writing.
This is pretty interesting stuff. Starts out talking about how one can be informed and then quickly shifts to comparing parties and political views as if that really matters in the process of voting. I think what should be more significant is whether or not you agree with someones values rather than what party they are based from or affiliated with. Perhaps that is what you were attempting to do, clarify the sides so that people could understand what ideas were more relevant to them, but it kind of came across as showing which one was better than the other. Certainly nothing wrong with conveying your opinion I just think you should make it clear that’s what you’re doing from the beginning. I like the comparisons of parties because it really highlights what stereotypes people have about the parties although I don’t neccessarily agree with some of them pertaining to both sides.
I really enjoyed reading this, it was certainly informative and insightful, but also easy to read. I agree with you in the notion that it is important for people to be educated and informed with whats going on around them.