In The Beggining . . .

    In these times of political upheaval in America, it is on the minds of many that there needs to be a revolution in order to accomplish the change we want to see in government. While I do not yet support the idea of a violent revolution, I do support the idea of a grass-roots revolution from the bottom up. The purpose of this blog is to suggest ideas and provide information in order to help the electorate, namely You, understand how we can change government. I will focus on Indiana's 9th district primarily, but I hope that anyone who reads this blog can get ideas for how to initiate change in their own districts. We will start with a few basics.

1. The number 1 way to initiate change in our political system is to stay informed. Don't just watch the nightly news, don't just read articles on the Internet. Go out and learn about the candidates yourself. Approach them and ask them about their positions if you can. If you can't ask them directly, submit questions to their campaign team and if they are not willing to respond, then that's not a candidate you likely want to support. Learning everything that you can about a candidate will help you with our next suggestion.
2. Another way that we can start to initiate change in our political system is to get involved in the primary elections. If you are not getting involved in your primary elections, you have given up the right to choose the candidates that will run in the general elections. For many, the reason that they do not get involved in politics is because they feel like there are nothing but bad options to choose from. By becoming involved in the primary elections, you get to help choose the candidates which run in the general elections. In many ways, the primaries are FAR more important than the general election.
3. With the explosion of the Internet, interactions with new/different people are on the wane. This means that we are far less likely to know our neighbors well, and even less likely to understand their positions in politics. I'm no saying that you should go door to door in your neighborhood and start preaching politics at people, I am just advocating getting to know your neighbors and from there you can gain a better understanding of their problems and concerns. If you only ever interact with people that agree with you, it not only means you aren't changing minds; but it also makes you more likely to become too sure of your own positions because you never question them.
4. Try to understand both sides of important issues. If you only ever look at an issue from one side, you are probably missing more than half of what that issue is about. It's like putting blinders on and preventing yourself from seeing the potential negative impacts of your position on an issue.
5. When you find a candidate you want to support, talk about them with your friends and neighbors (if they are open to it). Explain your reasons calmly, and if they disagree; be willing to let the discussion move to other territory.