Sarah Palin ...

To everyone who tried to win a debate about Sarah Palin by bringing up her wardrobe, her baby, her children, her beauty pageants, or the fact that she is from Alaska, I have only one thing to say.

You won.

If by win, you mean higher taxes and fewer freedoms.

The thing is that elections may be won using trivial sideline information like that, but countries are not run using it. Winning an election is a means to an end, not an end in an of itself. A campaign is not a game, and an office is not a prize. When the right person wins an election, the whole country wins, and when the wrong person wins, the whole country loses. There can be rational debate over who the right person is, but bringing in random facts and allegations does not contribute to positive political discourse. It does not determine who can help the economy the most, or who will be the best in foreign policy. It does not determine what should be done about healthcare. The fact is that we are all part of the same country, and we all recognize and face the same problems and challenges. There can be rational debate over which solutions are best, but arguing based on petty, personal attacks, and treating elections as things to "win" for your party, rather than times to seriously sit down and evaluate what need to be the solutions to problems, and who will best implement those solutions, is the height of apathy. Dismissing arguments based on who made them, arguing to win rather than arguing to further the cause of the country as a whole, those are all apathetic things to do.

Apathy is not not voting.

It is voting without taking the time to understand the issues. How do you know when you understand the issues? You know when you can argue both sides without assuming that the person with another viewpoint is fundamentally different from you. If you say "yeah, I guess you could say that, if you were stupid, racist, rich, etcetera," you don't understand the other side. If you vote without this understanding, you are being apathetic. If you argue without trying to achieve this understanding, you are being apathetic. If you try to defend your side without even trying to accept criticism of it, or put politicians on a different level than normal people, saying that we should simply trust them for one reason or another, you are being apathetic. Freedom cannot survive in an apathetic environment.

Running a democratic republic in this way is akin to digging yourself into as deep a hole as you possibly can, and then admiring yourself for your accomplishment.

You better hope someone will be there to help you out at the end.