Making Choices

People choose to communicate the way they do. People choose to be direct or evasive; up front or underhanded; truthful or deceptive; insulting or kind. (I was going to include "serious or funny" in that list but from my first-hand experience I know people can try to be funny, yet end be taken seriously or, even worse, not funny.) The national debates and day-to-day speech making currently underway are a case in point. As has been feared, given the history of the last few presidential campaigns in particular, things are beginning to get nasty. Charges of being unpatriotic,dishonest, and corrupt are being tossed about with as much zing as a tennis ball in the final set of Wimbledon.

Arguably, presidential elections should bring out the best in all of us, including the candidates. President of the United States is the most powerful position in the world and deserves more than people who are willing to lie and mislead their way into it. Does any one doubt that we the people deserve more than that, too? Yet in campaign after campaign we seem to accept less-than-decent behavior of candidates and, in some cases, support it. Why do we do that? As ones who are on the receiving end of the messages being sent to us, we need to be more strict in our assessment of those who seek to represent us on the national and international scene.

Constantly, the hope is stated that our nation needs another Lincoln or Washington at its helm. Yet when is the last time we demanded that candidates possess the qualities that we attribute to those two former giants in American history? Looking back at American television, it was once observed that programmers do not give people what they want. Instead people accept what is given them. Perhaps we the people should begin communicating the candidates we really wantas opposed to accepting those who step out behind the curtain each election cycle.