An Incomplete Manifesto

I'm working on a personal manifesto, inspired by my frustration with the fact that I have a hard time even talking about politics with people out here - the dialogue and the subtexts are so entirely different than at home. I can't understand why that is; people aren't that different across the country. We all seem to want more or less the same kinds of things. How can we have such completely different understandings of the most effective ways to access those benefits when we have so much otherwise in common? Anyway, the manifesto: this is a very rough beginning draft, spawned during an MSN conversation tonight about the election:

I don't believe in right wing or left wing; I don't think the west has it right or that the east does either; I think government always has been and always will be more or less haphazard and that once they get a system that works the people within that system get power-hungry and accordingly corrupt. I love the idea of NDP values - equality and democracy and share and share alike - but after living in an NDP province most of my life I’m a little skeptical as to the possibility of implementing those values effectively. I have no problem with people being rich, but I do have a problem with those who are rich showing a blatant disregard for the poor. I believe that people should help one another in a personal capacity, regardless of the government's social involvement or lack thereof. I do believe in universal health care; I think a basic education should be available to everyone, and I believe that those who show promise and interest in an area should be given the opportunity to fulfil that promise. I don't believe that the perfect political system will ever be formed; I do believe that it's absurd for people to complain about the corruption and uselessness of everything when they completely and perpetually neglect to do anything to remedy it. I value a person's integrity more than that person's political theory, but I also realize that personal integrity may be reflected in the type of political theory adopted and, more importantly, in the reasons for adopting it. I would love to see an election race in which the parties devoted their energy to developing viable and honest platforms and communicating those platforms to the public instead of spreading (mis)information about one another.

And I'm tired and have a job interview tomorrow, so I'm going for bed. Goodnight!