Today is an election day. It's an odd year and chances are that people are much more concerned with what will happen in 2012 than they are about the elections that will take place today.
To be fair I have not always participated in my duty as a citizen. However, in November of 2004 I adamantly checked a box indicating I wanted another four year of Bush Jr. It was my first presidential election that I had voted in and I was proud to be a part of it. I was voting for my candidate of choice because he was an evangelical and pro-life. I'd like to tell you I did a lot of additional research beyond this, but I really didn't.
Two years later (in 2006), I checked a box making it more difficult for gays to have the right to marry in the state of Wisconsin. At the time, I was defending the sanctity of marriage.
That was only 5 short years ago.
It's amazing that my views have changed as dramatically as they have in this short span of time. I see my earlier views as being single minded. The institutions of thought I was involved in gave me the answers and I didn't need explore my own reason. This imposed ignorance to my own capacity for thought is one that eventually left me hollow.
I'm thankful that now my mind is a comfortable place to wander, even if that has made the "answers" more complicated.
It's my hope that my ballot decisions of the future will reflect a broader view and consequentially wind up on the other end of the spectrum.
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