I voted!

Today is the Federal elections for Canada where we vote for our next Prime Minister. Kind of like what's going to happen on November 4, 2008 when McCain will lose. No one knows about today because well...it's Canada. Anyway, a student asked, "Mr. Yamamoto, who are you going to vote for?" It made me think and pause for a moment, then I replied, "I'll give you my honest answer: I don't know. But even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you." Gotta save my job ya know.

So of course at lunch in the staff room we were talking about politics and I mentioned how I can't even vote because I'm new to Canada plus the fact that I don't know who to vote for. My gracious vice-principal went to the polls in the gym and asked them if I could vote. They looked it over and said I could if I had ID or a witness to vouch for me! I CAN VOTE! So after all my classes I looked up the platforms and quickly got caught up as best I could as to where each party stood.

It was interesting. I shun labels, and I don't affiliate myself with any particular party. But if you pin me down on it, I'm closest to being a libertarian. Often people see me as liberal, which I'm not, neither do I consider myself conservative. It still raises hairs on the back of my neck though when people call me liberal or conservative. I'm neither. I'm a freethinker. I've learned correct principles and now I govern myself. Blah blah blah. Anyway, as I was reading through the platforms, I was thinking, "I'm totally siding with the conservative party." Not the Marijuana Party? Or the Bloc Quebecois??? Whatever, it's all semantics. So I voted today. I may be the first Yamamoto to do so. It's a good feeling. It really is. And now that I've expressed a little of my views that I prefer to keep to myself, I hope we can still be friends.