One Vote

You see all the ads every four years that try to appeal to young adults - "Your Vote is Important! Go Vote!" But the sad truth is, the only election that has any major visibility is the presidential vote, and for us lucky Californians, our votes don't matter. California will vote for the Democratic candidate unless his depravity is so extreme that Bush pales in comparison. So will all the other "blue" states. In terms of electing a president, those extra votes are essentially useless, since as long as you have a majority you win the state. One person, one vote, not quite. This is a form of national gerrymandering seeded by our good friend the Electoral College. Regardless of whether the Democrats win by 2% or 20% California delivers the same number of votes. The same effect is created in a smaller scale when states redraw their districts - concentrate the Dems in a few districts, and the rest can run unopposed. The major difference nationally is that state borders don't change.

If politics were a wargame, and people could change residences at will, the Democrats could plan their own D(emocratic)-Day, with the invasion of Fortress Red. Move all those extra votes to swing states like Ohio and Florida. GOP copying your strategy? No sweat, forget Ohio and invade the stalwart Red states with your superior numbers.

But unfortunately, that's not life. So why not end the Electoral College system, which gives smaller states disproportionate power? California has a population over thirty times larger than that of Montana, but Montana receives 3 Electoral College votes, and California 52. Essentially, it's much more cost effective to win the smaller states since they have a smaller population to sway and each voter is worth more. An example: Joe Prez visits Montana to campaign. The Montanans were wary at first but grew to love his down-to-earth style and focus on values, and when election time comes they deliver their 3 votes to Joe Prez. Assuming he got 51% of the vote, this means ~450,000 people had to vote for him. It would be a different story if he went to California. That same 450,000 is now barely 1% of California's population, and probably wouldn't guarantee him shit since CA is not known for being a swing state.

Who knows...maybe in a few years the hardcore Dems in big states will be moving from state to state every 4 years and they'll win. Until then...good luck.

The Rape of My Innocence

or more subtley put, How I Lost My Political Virginity

I don't like to remember the horrible middle school years, when everyone was a hormonal, bitchy wreck with various symptoms of adolecence. But in order to get a full grasp of how an innocent, rather ignorant little girl turned into a wildly liberal and blog-whoring leftist, I would need to go back to seventh grade, when I was actually apolitical. I discovered AIM, once I hit advanced band my flute techniques rapidly degenerated, and oh, I still liked boys. My favorite subject since like fourth grade had been history/social studies... Probably because I never had a REAL social science class before I came to the U.S. (I don't think they had social studies for younger students in Korea) and math and science had lost their respective charms way back in Kindergarten. But still, apolitical.

Then came eighth grade... The aftermath of the 2000 fiasco called "The Presidential Election". I "liked" McCain during the primaries because he looked nicer than this weird son of a former president. I didn't know anything about Gore except what Mr. Madsen would occasionally mention in class as an anecdote. I knew then that I favored the Democratic Party's policies, but I wasn't exactly drawn to the raw carnal energy of politics until Bush's notorious State of the Union Address in January 2002, when he called North Korea a part of "the axis of evil." I didn't understand much about it until I heard my apolitical and very-Korean parents fuming over it with my relatives in Korea. They all lived through the post-Korean War era, and they saw the hypocrisy of the U.S. foreign policy through their experiences. I mean, the United States supported a almost-tyrannical regime just to fulfill its own purposes at any cost. Then all of the sudden, they were decrying other tyrannical regimes as if they had some sort of moral superiority over the rest of the world. Quite infuriating, and I guess the distaste for the Bush administration began with that speech.

Then we went to war. I remember that I wrote the "CON" editorial on the Afghanistan/Iraq War because I was the only one in my class who was willing to write one, the only one with reservations strong enough to oppose this premature act of aggression. On the first Lincoln-Douglas Debate topic my freshman year, I personally favored civil liberties over national security. I actually believe that I was fundamentally more liberal back then because my comparative ignorance allowed me more idealism and optimism.

By my sophomore year, I was more anti-Bush, but still too enveloped in my own life to really look into detail and the facts. I fell in love with late-night television: Jay Leno, David Letterman, and especially Saturday Night Live. I loved the zinging one-liners on all these shows, Tina and Jimmy's antics on Weekend Update, and even the funky drum thing after each joke. This I guess transitioned me into a more passionate political junkie, but kind of kept politics as a form of entertainment- something sardonic to soothe my hidden rebellious side, I suppose.

The 2004 presidential elections kicked up into high gear with the Democratic primaries. This meant an endless source of gags for the wonderful people at Saturday Night Live. I fell in love with Seth Meyers, who played John Kerry for the sketches. My search for good LIBERAL humor brought me to some satire, then satire blogs, and then to places like Daily Kos. As a wide-eyed (as wide as my Asian eyes will open, that is) teenager, I was lost in what seemed like a highly sophisticated but fascinating haven for people who thought about politics, and more importantly, who thought like me.

And I suppose the rest is, well, history.

And so I find myself blogging in a purely political blog, right after spending a few hours on AP Gov notes, while simultaneously reading Daily Kos, Sacramento Bee political wire (the prescription drug measures for the special election that Monte told me about), and this Washington Post article.

So, what was YOUR "first time"?