An Independent’s Perspective on Voting

My good friend, Barb, bakes four loaves of bread for her family every weekend because she doesn’t trust the additives and chemicals in store bought bread. Even though she’s a nurse and works in the health industry, she doesn’t take her daughters to the doctor unless she absolutely has to because her pediatrician always tries to pressure her to get her girls vaccinated against HPV (Human Papilloma Virus).

She makes her own soap because she doesn’t like the detergents and chemicals found in the bars you buy at the grocery store. In other words, Barb is an independent, do-it-yourself kind of woman who is mistrustful of many things most people think are okay.

Barb was over at my house a couple of weeks ago to instruct me in the ways of soap making, my newest hobby. I’ll let you insert your own Chuck Palahniuk joke here. Eventually, the conversation turned to politics.

“So who are you voting for?” Barb asked.

“I’ll probably vote for McCain. There are some things I don’t like about him but he’s closest to the way I want to see things run.”

“If you don’t like him, then why are you voting for him?”

“It’s either him or Obama and I disagree with Obama on more things than I do McCain,” I said.

Barb said, “I had this same conversation with a co-worker. If you don’t like who you’re voting for then you’re part of the problem. Vote for the third party. People in Washington keep expecting you to pick between the two parties and they aren’t going to straighten up if you keep voting for them. My co-worker told me I must like throwing my vote away. But I don’t see it that way. I think it’s throwing your vote away if vote for someone you don’t like. Your true voice isn’t being heard.”

Not surprisingly, Barb is a big Ron Paul fan (I think she may have done work for his campaign and/or contributed money to him) and plans on voting for him in November.

We talked about other things. She plans on having her house paid off next year because she thought the economy is too uncertain (she called that one). And she told me about the study done in Australia where eighteen women died after getting the HPV vaccine (“The vaccine just protects against four strains of HPV out of a hundred different kinds. It’s just not worth it to me.” she said.)

I love talking to Barb and I admire her a lot. She has her ideas and convictions and she sticks to them. That’s something you don’t see very often. More importantly she always gives me something to think about.