Thursday, March 12, 2009

Questions from an inquiring young mind

You now how LONG drives can make you think about all kinds of things? We just drove to Fairbanks (350 miles) and back, driving through a lot of beautiful wide empty spaces, but also along some rather rural & poor Alaska. Quite frankly, some of the homesteads you see along the Parks Highway are hovels: delapidated trailers, plywood shacks, big collections of defunct vehicles, all covered in snow.

Youngest was taking that all in, together with the prolific McCain-Palin signs, and was wondering: "Where we live, a lot of really rich people are Republicans. But then why do poor people vote Republican?"
"Good question", the Prof and I answered, "Conservative Alaskans often vote for Republicans because they're against abortion, gay marriage, etc."

"But the Republican Party is, like, the 'Party of Greed' -- they're always promising tax cuts for the rich! Why don't more poor people vote Democratic? Especially after all the economic mess that the Republicans got us into? At least Obama is trying to make things better!"

How I wish I knew ....

Later, in Fairbanks, near the University where our friends teach and live, Youngest noticed the abundance of Obama signs.

"Mom, I have a theory. The people around the university are more educated, right? So maybe educated people just spend more time thinking about what the Republicans and Democrats are really saying and doing?"

All I can say is: Go girl! You just keep on THINKING, questioning, analyzing...

2 comments:

RunninL8 said...

Eyes wide open!

Anonymous said...

A nice way of saying that smart people are democrats.