>>can we get a public vetting vote?

In a day and age where almost everyone forms their opinion based on PR, media spin, and un-verified internet article claims, this idea sounds just as ridiculous.

C'mon, a platform of "Change"? Really, that's a political platform? (and I'm NOT particularly anti-Obama)

How did this get modded to 'Insightful'?

Most people don't understand Luddite-type choices. We (Americans at least) live in a culture with an emphasis on automative (er...sic) technology to "make life easier". And while the argument is often made that the omnipresent devices and inventions that make our lives easier are time-saving technologies that allow us to trade work for more free time to spend on family-and-friends/leisure activities, I feel that they mostly just allow us to live in a kind of 'automatic pilot'. By this I mean that "the hard way", which often takes longer and requires more of our attention or labor, forces us into making deliberate and conscious decisions about the hows and whys of our activities. I value this 'deliberateness' because it makes me live in the present moment, fully aware.

For example, I have been riding a bicycle (also fixed...but that's neither here nor there) 9 miles to school daily, and around town with trips of similar distance for a couple of years now, and yet still have friends that know it's my personal choice try to pick me up and give me rides. Sometimes when the bike transporation comes up in conversation I feel like I have to tell people that I DO own a car, I just choose to ride the bike, and not solely or even primarily for monetary reasons. What it comes down to for me is that my lifestyle and feel form my personal world/community context have been fundamentally transformed by this discipline. When I ride I am much more aware of the area I'm traversing, the people I'm passing, the energy it takes to get me from here to there. (which has really changed my relationship to food.) And when I do drive, it's not an automatic activity that I take for granted. Instead I'm aware of the costs, environmentally, monetarily, and otherwise, that I almost never thought about when I drove as my primary means of transportation.

This is just one example, but if you try something similar - taking the hard way instead of the easier technology-assisted way - I believe this aspect of 'deliberateness' will become very apparent.

(and yeah, I understand a bicycle is a piece of technology.)