About politics, which I normally don't do, but since I did end up watching a little of the inauguration coverage I kind of got thinking about politics and I realized why I hate them so much. It's totally because of the party system. I hate it because it makes it that much easier for people to go vote without taking the time to actually do research on the party platform ("I've always voted Democratic/Republican/Green/Bull Moose Party, so I might as well just vote for them again without bothering to inform myself!") and that's just a mark of laziness and utter stupidity. I also hate that it basically just sticks you with only two options (hate to say it, but voting third party is basically throwing a vote away), and those two options are often stuck with their party's agenda instead of what would really be good for the people, and those two options never seem to leave enough middle ground.

This is a really big problem for people like me who, even though I am not old enough to vote yet, are all over the place on the political spectrum, varying issue to issue. For example, I'm liberal when it comes to gay marriage. They ought to have the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples, imo. I don't care what genders the people in a couple are as long as they are faithful and truly love each other. It's really just ignorant to deny them something as simple as a legal state wedding (Church/religious weddings are where it gets a little tricky, so I won't even go there. I guess it should be up to the individual church/place of worship to decide.) On the other hand, I'm totally conservative when it comes to things like gun control laws. I know people make the argument that selling more guns would cause more crime, but if you were an armed robber, let's say, and you knew there was a good chance that the guy you were about to rob could be packing, you'd probably think twice about it.

Those are just a couple examples, but I know my friends are more than intelligent enough to get the picture. =)

tl;dr version: Partisan politics blows.