{"id":1451,"date":"2008-09-19T18:48:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-19T23:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/autisticme\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2023-11-26T16:34:28","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T22:34:28","slug":"shame-on-me-an-independent-voter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/2008\/09\/19\/shame-on-me-an-independent-voter\/","title":{"rendered":"Shame on Me? An Independent Voter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was informed recently, &#8220;People like you should be progressive Democrats because Republicans don&#8217;t care about people.&#8221; Activists are always blinded by prejudices&#8230; and if you decline to state an affiliation, they assume the &#8220;worst&#8221; and try to save your political soul.<\/p>\n<p>And people wonder why there is so much venom and vitriol in politics?<\/p>\n<p>I know a lot of caring, supportive, and generous people. They come from all walks of life, all geographies, all religious, and all political backgrounds. One slice of America does not have a monopoly on &#8220;caring&#8221; about people like me.<\/p>\n<p>Autism, palsies, seizures, scoliosis, and whatever else might constitute the characteristics of &#8220;me&#8221; are not restricted to a specific population. &#8220;We&#8221; are not a uniform group, whoever we are. If anything, members of the Dramatists Guild or university humanities departments are more uniform in beliefs and biases than other groups to which I belong.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to be told what I should believe. I am not rushing to join a party. (I&#8217;ve joined several over the years to receive their mailings. Does that count?) I like to contemplate quietly, alone, and come to my own decisions. One aspect of my existence does not dictate who I am or to what groups I belong. I define myself&#8230; period.<\/p>\n<p>Most people do care. I&#8217;m not about to judge &#8220;caring&#8221; about others based on political affiliations &#8212; that&#8217;s simply shallow and judgmental. A lot of good people exist, if you&#8217;re willing to move\u00a0beyond stupid labels.<\/p>\n<p>Shame on me&#8230; I like &#8220;Declines to State&#8221; as a party. Just treat me with respect and I&#8217;ll try to do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was informed recently, &#8220;People like you should be progressive Democrats because Republicans don&#8217;t care about people.&#8221; Activists are always blinded by prejudices&#8230; and if you decline to state an affiliation, they assume the &#8220;worst&#8221; and try to save your political soul. And people wonder why there is so much&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/2008\/09\/19\/shame-on-me-an-independent-voter\/\">Continue Reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Shame on Me? An Independent Voter<\/span> <i class=\"fas fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":14,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[245,364,413,523,538,557,759],"class_list":["post-1451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","category-news","tag-elections","tag-identity","tag-labels","tag-partisanship","tag-persuasion","tag-politics","tag-voting","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2023\/12\/Podcast-HD-1920x1080-comp-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfivLC-np","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3891,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions\/3891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}