Shed your intimidated silence and declare your conscience

"It is time that the great center of our people, those who reject the violence and unreasonableness of both the extreme right and the extreme left ... shed their intimidated silence and declared their consciences."

There's a great article in the Deseret News today titled, "It's time for unaffiliated voters to get rid of polarized politics" http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700018469/Its-time-for-unaffiliated-voters-to-get-rid-of-polarized-politics.html?pg=1

Kathleen Parker points out that independents are now a full 40% of the electorate but we're still largely ignored in state and national politics.

One line I particularly loved is, "Why have we given the loudest voices so much power when their numbers are so few?" It seems to me that the people who believe so strongly in a political ideology that they are completely unwilling to compromise are the same people who throw civility to the wind and attack others who don't believe in them.

From the article:

Centrists — who may be broadly defined as fiscally conservative, socially libertarian-ish — have been relatively quiet as "patriots" have made threats, building armies of "hunters" to bring down RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and DINOs (Democrats in Name Only), or creating online "Leper Colonies" to post the names of those who, for example, dared speak out against Sarah Palin. The latter was the creation of Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com, recently hired as a CNN commentator and famous for calling retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter a "goat-xxxxing child molester," among other similarly trenchant observations.

I would guess that most people in my precinct feel like I do, we're mostly younger college students who feel alienated by the partisanship and irrationality of politics. I would also guess that the vast majority of us won't be attending our caucuses because we're so turned off by it all. So I can go and speak my point of view or even try to be elected a delegate, but if I'm honest about my political views I'm certain I'll be booed off the stage by all the other people attending the caucus, the majority of whom are going to be die-hard conservatives. So that's my dilemma, I don't feel like I have a place in the Republican party, and my social views are too conservative for me to feel comfortable actively supporting the Democratic party. But if I do nothing I'll be presented two choices at the polls, one chosen by hard-core Republicans in their caucuses and primaries, and one chosen by hard-core Democrats in their caucuses and primaries.

Is it better to abandon both politically parties and try to start something different, or to choose the lesser of two evils and try to work from within for change?