Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Reminiscing

Last night I was walking past the FOX News studio and I saw the Hannity and Colmes show being filmed live. As passionate as I am about sports, I was also taken with politics. That all started in high school. On my commute home I used to listen to the Sean Hannity show, a conservative political talk show. I became a Hannity groupie and after growing up in a house of Democrats I realized that I identified most with the Republicans. I made sure to stay informed on all the issues and had long debates with my father, especially when I told him I was registering as a Republican.

When I got to college I decided to make politics my future career and really became active. I volunteered and interned on many campaigns during my summers and free time. In class I had daily debates with all my professors and many classmates. It was me against all the liberal Democrats, and believe me there were many. Slowly I began to find more Republicans to gang up with, which made class even more fun. But, because of all my work and my daily commute I began to listen less and less to political talk shows after the 2004 election was over and started listening to more music and more sports talk shows. Yet, I always followed current events and the main issues of the day.

Ultimately sports won out over politics, but last night reminded me that I have to get with the political program again. I miss those fiery debates even though I still have my sports debates. Politics is much more important than sports when it comes to its effect on our daily lives. I think it's past time I let it slide.

4 Comments:

Blogger Ze'ev said...

If yo find political debate and discussion exciting, then Israel is definitley the place for you. Everything is political here, and no one agrees on anything...

3:13 PM  
Blogger bellanny said...

T- I'm not underplaying sports. I definitely agree that they overlap especially with building stadiums and steroids (Congressional hearing...). However, who runs the country has more of an effect on a person's daily life, whether they follow it or not. Most people do not follow news or politics at all. There are MANY people who do not even know who the president and vice president are. That is sad. Politicians have the power to make so many decisions and laws to keep the country running. The government decides if the country should be at war or peace, they have the highest number of people employed in the country, they have a hand in education, agriculture, homeland security, defense, economy, jobs, I can go on forever.

I am sure you are above average when it comes to politics. You just have to kow the basics and elect the right people to offoce :)

Z- Yup. Lot of politics in Israel. My "expertise" is mostly with American politics, but I will learn. If I had decided to consider aliyah earlier I would have taken a class on Israeli politics, but hindsight is always 20/20.

3:47 PM  
Blogger Ze'ev said...

Don't worry, in Israel you dont need to have taken any classes on "politics' to have an opinion.

Most people are very passionate about things here, even if they can't explain exactly why they believe what they do.

Also, one big difference that I found between politics in Israel and the US, is that "politics" and political decisions have greater ramifications here than in the US.

Personally, I never felt that the majority of political decisions in the US would affect me personally. Issues like gun control, abortion, and even taxes didn't seem like things that would greatly change the way I lived my life or affect my future.

That's not the case in Israel, where it seems like every decision affects everyone in Israel (and perhaps the Jewish People).

4:14 AM  
Blogger bellanny said...

Good points.

10:01 AM  

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