"You have to be a real, low-life piece of **** to get involved in politics"

Politics and I don’t get along anymore. Once a self-proclaimed political junkie, I grew weary of the petty partisanship and idiocy of everyone involved. Political discourse in America is basically non-existent. As I watch the entirety of the political spectrum being devoured by the extremists from both the left and right, finding an independent voice in the media has become an exercise. Whether it’s Ann Coulter’s book on the ‘God-less liberals’ or Michael Moore’s book on social security, all anyone does is insult each other. The only outlet of (semi) intelligent voices is the internet. But with this brand new technology we’re faced with a completely different set of issues. Here there is absolutely no quality control, and no qualifications are necessary. Anyone is able to post their blog, and this is how the truly unbiased and central views can be heard.
The biggest problem we face is reigning in the forces of extremists and promoting the voices of independence beyond the internet to the mainstream news media. Our candidates do little to help this goal. They promote and reinforce the political extremism of the popular culture and, therefore, never focus on the true problems and issues, but on a party and an ideology. Now purely about beating the competition (as opposed to true love of the game) it’s a high-stakes game in which there is nothing but total victory for one side. The conservative domination of the political landscape has found its way into the very ideology and institution of the mainstream media. The networks, newspapers, and personalities of the media elite have chosen their sides and it is up to the American people to take the control out of their hands. The voices on the internet, the informed bloggers, are exactly those who, according to our founding fathers, provide a stable and true Democracy. It is their job to promote an independent voice in our media, and help to ensure (and not expose for the sake of exposure) freedom and lawfulness within our government.