politics

i have really enjoyed watching the west wing over the last 6+ months. i never thought i would love the politics so much, but i've learned a lot. it's interesting how policies are made, and then politicized so they can be implemented.

i have never cared for politics, at least the manipulative, conniving, numbers game part. when i was in high school, i had an amazing government teacher. she even won teacher of the year shortly after i graduated. while taking her class, i thought that i could potentially end up in politics myself. there was a weekend trip to washington that she invited me to go on, but the trip failed to materialize. but considering whether or not the cost of the trip would be worth it, i realized how much i was indeed interested in politics and policy and governing.

in politics today, i'm all over the page. i'm often too lazy to be truly informed, but i find myself more and more interested in policy decisions that involve social justice issues. when i lived in virginia, i attended a church that was very anti-abortion, and a lot of people there made it seem like abortion was the one issue that mattered, that this one issue should determine which candidates to vote for. their stance and they way they declared it turned me off to politics, and it definitely turned me off to that church. i quit attending it soon thereafter (but for a number of other reasons, as well).

so here i am, about to write a paper on immigration. i haven't done much research yet, but it is certainly a hot topic here in california where our economy is built on the backs of immigrants, documented and undocumented, historical and current. (and not to mention that this land used to belong to mexico, so who's the immigrant?)

i remembered the other day an exercise we did in that high school government class. for about 3 weeks, we created a mock congress. we each were assigned to be senators from different states, and we were each required to bring forth 2 pieces of legislation, which then went to committee and some made it out of committee... to be honest, i don't even remember the full process. (anyone have that school house rock video of "i'm a bill" i could borrow??) what i do remember is that one of my bills was to increase the quota of immigrants allowed to enter the US annually. my bill didn't make it out of committee, and i was disappointed that i didn't even have a chance to argue my case.

perhaps that chance is now.