Bombarded by Politics
I am being bombarded by political ads, telephone calls, visitors and junk mail. It has never been this bad, and I'm getting really fed up with it.
To start with, the TV ads are all playing dirty, appealing to emotions and sometimes don't make any sense at all. Yes, that person "voted against tax breaks", but tax breaks for whom? Is that person really trying to kill my family, or could the truth perhaps be a little less dramatic? It's idiotic and insulting, and it would make me seriously consider "the other side", if only both sides weren't doing it. And to top it off, everyone is pronouncing Missouri like "Missouruh", as though they were "one of the people", even the out-of-state celebrities doing Missouri spots. Nobody actually talks like that here, and the fact that you do means we see right through it.
And then there are the telephone calls. I'm on the Missouri (and FCC) no-call lists, so it's rare that I get any unsolicited telephone calls. Of course, non-profits are exempt from these lists, and for the last couple of weeks I've been getting 2-3 calls per day from 800 numbers, "private" numbers, 000-000-0000, or calls from out of state. It's gotten so bad that I just ignore all of my calls now, and I'm tempted to disable my voice mail, because this is all that I'm getting. "Hi, I don't make enough money working my minimum wage job, so vote yes to raise the minimum wage." Or how about you get a better job?
The visitors I can see coming. The trick is to see them coming without them seeing you see them coming. The junk mail is equally easy to deal with, but it's still annoying. I used to hate just the normal junk mail I normally get. Now I have a pile of it mixed with political messages.
Now, I understand the need to inform citizens about issues of public concern. And elections are right up there on top. It is very important to make sure everyone understands the candidates, the issues, and the propositions, and takes the time to vote on these issues where they have an opinion. So perhaps all of this is a necessary evil and I just need to shut up and deal with it. But I'm the type of person to research all of these things before I vote anyway. Why can't I "opt out"?