Dan Olsen’s Weblog

So I attended my first caucus last night as a mentioned in my previous post. I went in with the intent to just get a feel of what actually happens at a caucus. I must say that it was an awesome experience. For anyone who wishes to be active in politics, attending your state caucuses is a great way to actually get involved. There were about 20 in attendance last night which is far from the number of individuals who reside in the precinct. In some ways it was nice to have a small group but on the other hand I was disappointed that more people don’t care.

I am a believer in the idea that if you don’t participate in the political process you have no right to complain about your government. A young man I took with me to the caucus was not excited about going but he left with the understanding that if you want the government to hear your voice then you must participate in how officials are elected. The other young man I took with me loved the caucus. He was even more excited to find out that he could actually participate since he will be 18 by the November election. I wish I saw more young people getting involved even though they can’t vote. I’m sure if more adults were active in the political process we would see more young people joining in. Just because you can’t vote doesn’t mean your concerns about the government can’t be heard.

In conclusion, the two main topics that were discussed in our caucus were the budget/debt and education. I think I was in the minority since I voted against private school vouchers in the state of Utah. I believe that vouchers had good intentions but did not provide an equal opportunity for everyone. If we want to allow people to choose whether to send their kids to private school then we should give the poor as much of an opportunity as those with money. I don’t know how to do it but we need to make sure we don’t make more of a divide between the rich and the poor. I actually think that we should focus on making our public schools better and I think the best way to do that is require that parents be more involved in their children’s education. That is a big reason I believe charter schools and private schools are more successful. A student must have more then just the school educating them.

And there you have my brain dump.