Sunday, September 25, 2016

Football's a Game, Politics is Real

Most Americans like football and the fall and football go together.  Its a bit of a dangerous game with the health consequences becoming more known, but it still provides a game with strategy, raw strength but also plays that require split second timing and tremendous talent to execute.

If you ever played the game on any level on a crisp autumn afternoon, the lessons it teaches include a lot of things we use, from wearing down your opponent to tricking them.

It contrasts with baseball in that it rewards size and strength and direct confrontations in a way that baseball doesn't.  Baseball has more of an intellectual aspect to it while football is controlled by the people in the trenches.  While these positions have a lot of skill involve and techniques, they look pretty much like big guys trying to knock each other down.  They enable the skill players to excel or fail by how well they do their job.

At the end of a football game, both sides can shake hands and go about their business preparing for the next opponent.  The crowd has victory or defeat to discuss and goes home generally unscathed.

Politics on the other hand is serious business.

The result can have a profound impact on peoples lives.

When the Nazis won in 1933 Germany, not many would have predicted the consequences.

That is a bit of an extreme example, but each election impacts us, and in our case the world we live in.

Presidents and congress send young men off to fight, they determine how to spend our tax money, they have a profound influence on the stock market.

Unfortunately, we live in an age where I see many people treating politics as a game, thinking nothing is going to change anyway so I'll vote for this outrageous candidate because I can.

Well things do change.

Wars happen.

Young men die.

Economies collapse.

You may not think your vote matters, but it does and you should really make sure you use it wisely.

It is the greatest benefit of being part of a free society we have.

Use it wisely, it will impact your future.

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