Politics in downtown Madison are famously unmuted. Voices from the political left and right shout at one another across Library Mall, Capitol Square—even the lunchroom of Gordon Commons. Opponents in this November's mid-term elections again will look to faction this campus and recruit young soldiers to vote for their cause.
The problem, of course, is that not everyone is interested in fighting. Political factions may be useful in defining candidates and recruiting loyal followers, but ""black and white"" politics do not address real concerns in the ""gray world"" in which the rest of us find ourselves.
These ""black and white"" politics are found in the political lexicon we drown in whenever the TV is tuned to election coverage. ""Pro-choice"" versus ""Pro-life,"" ""cut-and-runners"" versus ""support the troops"" and most distorted of them all, ""liberal"" versus ""conservative."" These are simple phrases imbued with almost sacred power by the politicians who campaign on them. The phrases are used to divide light from dark, good from evil.
But what we define as ""truly evil"" or ""truly good"" is subjective. Do all people really believe that society must either completely allow abortions or ban them completely? Is it as simple as leaving Iraq completely, withdrawing all troops or staying and finishing the fight?
Neither issue has a simple ""check yes, check no"" sort of answer. Most hot-button political issues are oversimplified to anger voters and get them to the polls, rather than mitigated to offer real, workable solutions.
This is an issue that permeates modern politics, right down to its very roots. Take the campaigns employed by proponents of both the Living Wage Referendum and the Student Union Initiative, two distinct referenda on the ballot last year during the Associated Students of Madison election.
By some of the flyers handed out by the Student Labor Action Coalition and other living wage proponents, one might think a vote for union renovation was a vote directly and irrevocably against the living wage.
Advocates of the living wage carried their cause as a golden solution to all the inequities of the employment policies of this university. Conversely, one flyer described the SUI as a plan to build parking structures and hotels for alumni and have nothing to offer to students.
This flyer, however, ignored the fact that the part of the renovation includes mandatory safety upgrades to Memorial Union that, if the referendum does not pass on its third attempt this fall, must come from the operating budget of the unions, further decreasing student services.
All these proponents were too focused on the ""good"" their cause could do to admit that passage of the living wage would mean college kids working sitting at a desk or serving ice cream would earn a wage to support a family of four, $10.23 per hour.
Supporting a cause you believe in is great; distorting and simplifying that cause to make your beliefs the only acceptable ones is entirely different.
Sadly, political activists can never be expected to correct this problem. It will likely plague politics until society reaches some far off Shangri-La of enlightened democratic discourse. Until then, students need to focus on what they came to this fine university to do in the first place: learn to think for yourself.
Take every pamphlet, read the paper, conduct your own interviews and extensive research if necessary—get all the facts before you head to the polls. If everyone had a realistic opinion based on personal experience, maybe modern politics would wake up and realize it could reach more voters by operating in the same part of the political universe as the voters.
