What happens when\u00a0you tell your best friends and family that you have\u00a0decided to scooter across country to capture the thoughts of\u00a0your fellow voters in the run up to the 2008 presidential election?\u00a0 Furrowed foreheads.\u00a0 At least at first.\u00a0 Followed by the most heartwarming support and encouragement.<\/p>\n
My plan is to ride my\u00a0250cc scooter from San Jose to Washington DC starting on October 4th, recording voter’s stories, perceptions and preferences along the way.\u00a0 Inspired by a personal revelation that, along with much of the country,\u00a0I had\u00a0lost the ability to engage in civil discourse with people who do not share\u00a0my world view,\u00a0I decided that I need\u00a0practice.\u00a0 And what better way to get it than to commit to a 2900 mile solo road trip through as many red states as possible carrying a promise to faithfully record and podcast, without evangelizing for or against, those views.<\/p>\n
The seeds for this adventure started after the California Supreme Court had overturned the gay marriage ban while\u00a0I was attending a friend’s wedding in Michigan.\u00a0 Sitting with family that\u00a0I love and admire, and with whom\u00a0I share similar upbringing and education, the conversation turned to this most current event.\u00a0 But the debate was short lived.\u00a0 Early in the discussion, when I asked how gay’s being married diminished their conventional marriage,\u00a0a family member responded,\u00a0“Where do you stop?\u00a0 If men can marry each other, then why don’t we just make it legal for people to marry dogs?”<\/p>\n
And there is was.\u00a0 An audible clicking noise in my head.\u00a0 The discussion was over.\u00a0 All the neurons in my brain had disengaged and I was rendered mute. This became the metaphor for many of the discussions that\u00a0I would\u00a0observe as the McCain\/Obama nomination and election process wore on.\u00a0 Civil discussion among like-minded thinkers juxtaposed against the strained dialog of declarative and often inflammatory statements hurled at people with opposing views.<\/p>\n
And so\u00a0I am\u00a0off.\u00a0\u00a0A personal journey to listen to and understand different perspectives, and maybe, to discover if civil debate is alive and well in our democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What happens when\u00a0you tell your best friends and family that you have\u00a0decided to scooter across country to capture the thoughts of\u00a0your fellow voters in the run up to the 2008 presidential election?\u00a0 Furrowed foreheads.\u00a0 At least at first.\u00a0 Followed by the most heartwarming support and encouragement. My plan is to ride my\u00a0250cc scooter from San […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hwireroad.org\/2008\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}