If you’ve read my recent posts then you know that I spent a day in Washington, D.C. visiting my to oldest children at their school recently to celebrate my sons induction into the schools student government as the President of the Class of 2010. With the focus of our visit being a pseudo-political event, I  may have been more acutely aware of the political activities taking place around me. Maybe this years students are more politically active, or maybe the pending mid-term elections are generating more student activism, but one thing is for sure… Students from all of the major Colleges and Universities in the D.C. area can be found scattered around downtown staging rallies or protests at any time, any day of the week.

This sense of activism carries over onto the campuses themselves and within a short walk from one section of campus to another I noticed a wide variety of T-shirts, all sporting political slogans of one type or another. I’ll list just a few of them here to give you a flavor of the atmosphere on campus:

1. Young Republicans
2. Bush Cheated (with the word “again” hand written in marker)
3. No war for oil
4. Don’t blame me, I’m a Democrat
5. Responsible people vote republican
6. Che Guevara for president

Seeing so much political activism coming from college students is certainly not a new thing, and seeing young people being called into action by their beliefs does not cause me much concern. What does concerns me however is that the “Party Machines” seem to be waiting around every turn to hijack the free thinking of these young people before they have even begun to think for themselves. If you disagree with a position taken by the current Republican Administration, tada! You must be a Democrat, here’s you shirt. If you were apalled at the moral failures of Bill Clinton, tada! You must be a Republican, here’s your shirt.

It makes me long for a comeback of of Ross Perot and Pat Choate. Perhaps therin lies the rub as they say. If young people today were encouraged to delve deep into the party platforms, public stances and voting records of the people who are said to represent them they may well find themselves coming up with an unlikely answer to the question “Which Political Party is Mine?”. The answer that they are likely to come up with is “Neither”. For this reason alone I ask you to encourage all of the young people you know to delve deep into the party platforms which they are pledging themselves to. Many of them may well be surprised at what they find, or at least disappointed at the consolations they are making to fit within party lines.

As for the T-Shirts, some take them as serious labels while others view them as momentary inspirations. Perhaps the most interesting point to make note of is that the “Young Republicans” and “Don’t blame me, I’m a Democrat” were both worn by young men visiting my son in his dorm room. The “Che Guevara for president” may seem most alarming until you realize that the young woman wearing this shirt was making the same statement I just did in a somewhat more in-your-face manner. That statement being “Question your Government, not just the other party”.

I think the past ten years or so has helped us to do just that if we are to be honest with ourselves. No good hearted Democrat can be proud of the moral failures of Bill Clinton. No true Republican can be proud of the fiscal policies of George Bush. In the words of a good friend, “Its time to put on your Big-Boy Pants”. Its time to be honest with ourselves and vote for people, not parties. Maybe its time to take the “Party Machines” out of the parties. Maybe its time for new parties. In any case, its time to admit that what we have today isn’t working very well, regardless of party, and its long past time to fix it.

Someday, perhaps when my children are my age, I’d like to be able to answer the question “Which Political Party is Mine” without the hair on the back of my neck standing up like a warning sign.