Washblog had a great headline to a short post that really got to me. It referred a horsesass.org post about Microsoft giving more money to Republicans than Dems. Well, any money at all it turns out.
Either way, here it is: “Linux, Apple, Open Source, Competition, Democrats.” Contrasted with the text of the post: “Windows, Diebold, Proprietary, Monopoly, Republican.”
This reminded me of all the stuff I was writing about over the summer when I was all abuzz about the Top Two primary. My point back then was that there is a deep down difference between nature of the the two parties. Now I just have a different way to articulate it:
Democrats are Firefox (or some other open source software).
Republicans are Explorer (or some other failed proprietary software).
In the Top Two realm, this would mean that Democrats would be ok with whomever chose to vote in their party ranks, even up to election day. Republicans would be a bit more stodgy about such an arrangement and get all bent out of shape.
The Democratic Party should be an open source party, because when you get down to it, all politics should be so called open source.
Good ideas are good ideas, and good candidates don’t neccesarily get endorsed by the state chair.
Being involved in politics or your community (I don’t think they’re exclusive at all though) is good, it means your part of the solution. Not being involved is being part of the problem.
Open source software works because there are lots of people involved, making “whatever” work for the good of the everyone.
Politics works when everyone gets involved and everyone is heard. Its our democracy and it should be our Democratic Party.
Actually there are lots of people in the Washington State Democratic Party that work for Microsoft. And Microsoft donates to several key Washington State Democratic politicians.
Sometimes when I get on my high-horse about the party, I have a hard time getting across what I really mean. I wasn’t trying to say that Microsoft or there employees aren’t good Democrats, or can’t be. I was tring to argue for a particular spirit of the Democratic Party, and that as a party we should be more like the open-source movement than the typical American corporation.