Consensus rather than hierarchy set our course. In class, direct collaboration among all participants determined curriculum and grading. On the debate squad, everyone together decided travel, scholarships, budgets, partners and arguments.

Responsibility resided in the group, not abdicated through recourse to some outside authority. Decisions took longer and involved more interpersonal consternation by members, but the results were dramatic. Students and debaters were personally invested in their respective communities.

We never voted. No need for tyranny of the majority. Not everyone agreed all the time with the consensus, though dissenters always had their say and regularly decided to disagree without preventing consensus. Policies were made openly and fairly.

Unanimous direct democracy is discordant, difficult, loud, and beautiful. With responsibility came overriding commitment and intense loyalty to the group and its decisions. Dissent rarely became divisive and never festered, as authority-driven decisions often did.

My voluntary political disenfranchisement left me wanting, however. Eight years of Cheney, Bush and their cronies of genocidal violence forced me to reconsider my political path. I almost voted in 2004, but blood-red Kansas convinced me otherwise, or perhaps fed my anarchist disinclinations.

Kansas is changing, and so is America. Kansas' radical turn to the right after Wichita's 1991 Summer of Mercy has forced moderate conservatives to abandon their party. National ridicule about absurd science education practices further sowed the seeds of moderation.

Nearly three decades of Reaganomics have convinced many Americans (and Kansans) that the only boats raised on rising tides were the yachts of the already wealthy and that all waves eventually crash. Conservative trickle-down economics became a sad joke more reminiscent of overflowing diapers than financial justice.

John McCain scoffs at Barack Obama's notion that fairness should help chart our future capitalist course instead of greed and avarice. Hell, even the greatest proponent of free market ideology, Alan Greenspan, admits his assumptions about corporate America were seriously mistaken.

The weeks since the financial implosion have revealed Mr. McCain to be frighteningly uninformed, erratic and ill-equipped to shepherd America through the myriad crises that face our great nation. Even his running mate Sarah Palin has gone rogue, hoping to preserve her political future.

Joy Glick, in a recent letter to the editor, is convinced "nearly everyone" believes I am incapable of judging character. How Ms. Glick knows what nearly everyone thinks, I do not know, nor am I convinced that 8 minutes of video are sufficient to judge my capabilities.

Nonetheless, you certainly are capable of judging Ms. Palin's character and finding it seriously wanting. An independent investigation found she "abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act." Simply, she broke the law.

Ms. Palin was chosen, according to Mr. McCain, due to her ethical character and independent streak. Yet, when the RNC offered her $150,000 worth of designer clothes, she did not refuse what should have been an affront to her "hockey mom" status.

This pattern of unethical behavior is easily gleaned from her close political association with newly convicted felon, Sen. Ted Stevens. Ms. Palin was the director of his 527 group, an independent political corporation designed to circumvent campaign finance restrictions.

Whatever doubt about Mr. Obama's qualifications as commander-in-chief were vanquished when America's most venerated warrior-diplomat, Colin Powell, endorsed Mr. Obama and castigated Mr. McCain for his selection of Ms. Palin, his poor performance responding to the financial crisis, and the despicable tenor of their campaign.

Mr. Obama can restore America's lost luster. What Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin denigrate as "socialism," Mr. Obama celebrates as equal economic opportunity and a reversal of the devastating economic policies of laissez-faire capitalism run amok. The only hope to recapture the American dream for the middle-class and working "poor" is to elect President Obama.

Complacency is a real danger right now. Do not rest on the laurels of an extremely well-run campaign or succumb to the lure of attractive polling data. Send Washington and the rest of America a message: Nothing is the matter with Kansas. We learned our lessons and want to stop the bleeding.

This anarchist is going to vote for the first time in a long time, for a true giant, Barack Obama. America the beautiful again. Yes, we can!