So its no secret that I am voting for Obama (see my previous post, Vote).
This, I think, is a fine thing to do. Not fine as in grand, but fine as in generally acceptable. However, some of my close friends have stated that this may have been a, not necessarily bad, but at the least a somewhat dangerous thing to do.
My wife said that I should keep my official position to myself. The logic behind this being that nobody wants to be to blame for putting the wrong person in office should things not get better. She wanted the ability, I think, to participate in a thrashing of the candidate along with her friends should they be doing so. Following the crowd in the simplest sense. While it may go deeper than that, that is what it seems like to me. Perhaps she simply wanted to avoid any unseemly remark by the same friends if they knew her political position. We tend not to talk too much about politics since I enjoy sleeping indoors.
My friend though expanded in a different direction when I asked him what he thought of it. He said that its understandable to keep such things to yourself for security reasons. If you back the wrong horse, so to speak, and the more militant portions of our civilian population know about it, you could potentially be making yourself a target should these yahoos decide to get aggressive.
Leave it to my friend to instill that extra bit of paranoia into my life (thanks Lindberg Baby).
I can certainly understand that particular position when it comes to telling the world who you are backing. However I cannot understand why people are afraid to say who they are voting for when it comes to possible arguments from their peers. These same people will tell a random stranger calling their phone asking who they are voting for. They will also post onto forums who they are voting for. They do this, I believe, because they think they have a certain amount of security in their anonymity.
This, however, is not true. You are not anonymous. As a web developer, I know how easy it is to get anyone’s life history and vital info with a few simple searches. And even thought I know this, I still spout to the world my choice. Am I crazy? Am I asking for a beat down from some militant wacko with too many guns?
No, I say. I simply believe that we should not have to hide something that we believe in from either invisible threats or from our friends and family. I also believe that we should not fear those that would sway our opinions and thoughts under duress or through fear.
But mostly because I know that should some ass-hat come to my door yelling at me and telling me I’m wrong and going to hell for my choice, I can either cause them great physical harm (if needed only) or verbally abuse them to the point of tears. Telemarkers, Jehovas Witnesses, bill collectors and Mormons are already aware of this. 
In short, I say don’t fear what may or may not happen should you choose to voice your opinion on something that your name is on. After all, if you are afraid to tell people who know who you are what you believe, then you shouldn’t bother voting.
OK. Let the comment spam and rude comments begin.
- Cheers