Vote Locally, Think Globally

I am an independent voter, perhaps as my brother-in-law claims, mostly because there is no Misanthrope Party. In conversation with my surgeon once, I told him I thought I was an anarchist. He asked “do you want the roads maintained?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re a Libertarian,” he observed.

My single precious vote has been cast for all sorts of candidates in the past, including the Green Party, the Socialist party and yes, even Democrats and Republicans.

My choice is simple: I prefer candidates who are not professional politicians, steeped in Washington D.C., smoked in leathery lounges, managed by machines, bankrolled by Big.

My grandparents all were immigrants to the United States of America. My parents are first-generation Americans. My father’s parents were English: my mother’s Finnish. From my paternal side, I got the independence of rural laborers and cemetery caretakers from the Hadrian’s Wall realm of the British Isles; from my maternal side, the Sisu of near-Arctic dwellers who are accustomed to a temperature that can crack stone.

Finns are big people, stoic, quiet. As Marilyn French said, if dominance was only about size and strength, the Finns would rule the world. Northern British Isles people are smaller, quiet as well; although given to whinging in the local pub at the end of the work week. Those who disagree will risk fists, if the subject is dear, the discussion long, the pints flowing.

Fierce, independent, American. I am an independent voter.

And I vote.