Political preference

I try to stay away from politics here--those kinds of conversations are best held in person--but I think this is important, so please bear with me. I promise that this post will not impose my beliefs on you, but it may change who you vote for in a couple of weeks.

I strongly urge all of you that read this to go visit Glassbooth and take the quiz. It's pretty easy--first you rate the topics that are most important to you, and then you are presented with a quiz on all topics, with more questions about the topics that are important to you, rating them on a scale of 1-5. When you're finished, it will compare your answers to those of the 5 "major" candidates (Barr, McCain, McKinney, Nader, and Obama).

The answer may surprise you. I strongly urge you to vote for who your beliefs most line up with, and not who the media crams down your throat, even if it's not one of the major two parties. If you live in Illinois, your vote is going to Obama, so if it's different, why not mark a vote in protest of our system?

If enough people start voting against the two major parties, we may see more of a push to switch the way our country votes. With modern technology (note, I'm not necessarily advocating e-voting--especially not as it stands today), we have the ability to easily support ranked choice voting, which helps make those alternate party votes count. There are many cities in the US that are already using this process for local elections (mayor, city council, etc.). The state of North Carolina is using it for it's general assembly. If enough places do this successfully, there could be a significant push to do it for national elections, perhaps Congress at first.

All of this to say, regardless of who's name is on your presidential ballot, please make sure you do vote--it keeps this country running. If you don't vote, don't complain about the outcome.