Just politics

By CECILIA TUCKER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 3, 2000

I've heard enough already about the upcoming election, and we are still months away from the real thing. This is the first time I have paid much attention to the whole political scene. I guess what I have been learning in school has informed me of the importance of political elections in this country, but I don't get it!

I used to love going to the polling places and being allowed to help my parents when they would vote. On the night before we voted, we would talk about whom we were voting for and why. It was my job to make sure we brought the premarked newspaper ballot with us to hurry up the process while we were there. My parents told me what a privilege we had in this country to be able to vote and select our leaders. I believed them! Now I am not so sure I am nearly as enthusiastic about this whole process because I am more informed.

Is there any truth in politics? Do politicians possess any integrity? I watch the paid political advertisements (as they are referred to on television) and actually find myself laughing. This has begun to scare me because it seems we are getting ready to elect people in high places who don't speak the truth, and each politician claims the other has no integrity. So what's up with this thing we call the democratic process? What's so democratic about being able to vote for someone with an obviously questionable past? This whole system seems somewhat hokey to me. It seems that voting in the primaries is all about eliminating certain candidates more than about choosing an ethical person to lead our country.

Maybe there is no truth or integrity in politics. Maybe long-distance accountability is unobtainable. Maybe democracy, the way it was meant to be when our country was established, is passe. I know I am only a teenager, but when the best people we can find to run our country all seem like criminals and liars, something is wrong. If I chose friends to hang out with who had these kinds of pasts, I'd be questioned about my choices. But these people are not my friends! These are our supposed leaders of this great United States of America. These are people that I would be encouraged not to choose as friends, but we are electing them to run our country's government!

I am learning how the system works, and I am not sure getting to vote is nearly as big a deal as I once thought it was. I know my vote is to make a difference, but let's be real. I also know that only one-third of the government is elected by the people. I am voting to eliminate one questionable candidate over another questionable candidate. What's so right about this process? The system was meant to give all people the right to be represented by someone the majority of voters desired. What appears to be happening is that none of the candidates are very desirable. I don't have another answer, but like most things our ancestors decided upon, we don't change what is already etched in stone. Maybe this system has never worked the way it was intended to work.

New information surfaces almost weekly about our great leaders of the present and the past. Many of them have skeletons in their closets. I am not so naive as to believe that we could ever elect someone who has no skeletons! It seems, though, that often the people we choose have skeletons that could have landed them in prisons if they'd been caught. They didn't get caught then, so now we bring out their crimes in the political arena and say it is "just politics." I want to believe in the democratic way, but for it to work, don't we all need to have a commitment to truth and integrity? My whole life, these two values have been drilled into me. I've been told that my reputation goes with me wherever I go, so I need to protect it. I have been reminded that honesty, integrity and accountability are values that make a difference in how I feel about me. If this is true, then something is wrong with our system! Why bother? Cynical . . . of course, I'm just a teenager!

IT! (Private thoughts of the Indomitable Teen) is written by Cecilia Tucker, a licensed marriage and family therapist at the Counseling Center for New Direction in Seminole. Tucker, who has been in counseling practice since 1979, writes this column under the guidance of a panel of teenage advisers, who approve the topics and offer their insights (in exchange for pizza). You may write her c/o: IT!, X-Press, the Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail Floridian@sptimes.com.

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