We Love to Hate Others Who Don't Love "Our Candidate"

I read an article this morning which focused on some demonstrators shouting at a Rick Santorum speech.  It was outside, and apparently a nice day, but after watching it, I was very unhappy with the Rick Santorum supporters.

I can understand that supporters would not want protesters yelling things about your candidate which you thought were wrong, and not wanting their "polluted and crack-headed ideas" to cause others to question the candidate.  I really can.  However, what gets me riled up is that those supporters were holding signs inches from some of the protesters' faces and yelling in their faces.  That, to me, shows an utter lack of respect for others and their ideas.


When people show that kind of lack of respect to others, I get angry.  What does that tell about us in general?  Doesn't that say that we no longer care about others, and that we will stubbornly defend our ideas (no matter how wrong they may be) and attack those who question them?

This is what I hate about politics.  There is absolutely NO respect for anyone outside of themselves.  Politicians don't really care about their own party; they only care about what will get them what they want - nothing more.

Sure, they will say what you want them to say to get re-elected, but in reality, once they get back in, they won't care about you or I until they need to start campaigning again (or they want more money for their war chests).

Sadly, we, as lemmings, get too attached to "our candidates".  We think that they're the only things that matters in the world.  We will follow them to the end of the earth.

We don't realize that they don't care about us.

Since they don't care about us, why do we so blindly follow them and hang on their every word?  We need to realize that they are just people who should be doing our bidding in Washington.  We need to know what they did, and if we don't like their actions, we need to kick them to the curb without a second thought.

That's how a strong democracy should work - one where the politicians follow the will of the constituents, and there is no love lost if they don't follow our will.  They are just kicked out of office.

Yes, that means that we need to follow their votes and be more active in our individual political responsibilities, but if we do that, we will actually have a more robust and well-functioning political machine which will be guided by us, the people.