We try to draw physical boundaries (states, counties) around illogical regions (blue-tards vs red-tards). Which has always added confusion to our landscape in America as far as how we expect people to vote. Every state has varying degrees of left-vs-right depending on which geographic area you happen to be in.
But I don't buy into the notion that one side of the tired left-vs-right debate has inherently "better" followers than the other. The red-tards are knuckle-dragging, tobacco-chewing neanderthals for the most part, but the blue-tards tend to be smug, obnoxiously close-minded and prima-donna-ish while espousing having a more "open mind" yet any counter-opinion is immediately and venomously attacked as being red. If you’re not blue, then the blue-tards call you red. If you’re not red, the red-tards call you blue. There is no tolerance for purple or green, not from either side. I see it is another cycle in the long rolling history of America's polarization, which follows economic cycles.
When things are bad, the red-tards come out swinging with anti-immigration and conservative rhetoric, church this, school that, and the usual book-burning diatribe of isolationist idealism. But the blue-tards come out with the kool-aid and insist everyone drink it and all will be fine. Gay tolerance for everyone, no bounds on topics for books tv radio for anyone, regardless of age or (gulp!) religious leanings, no more torturing peoples that want to destroy us, pass all kids through school regardless of their ability to add numbers or read a sentence and so on. One side is no free lunch, not even if you’re starving to death. The other insists on free lunches for all, even those who have a full refrigerator.
I ask this question to everyone that jumps into political discussion after each election: what has really changed from this? Tell me. What specific improvements have you seen that directly impact your life? Every time it’s the same response: A lot of hemming and hawing. Let me translate that answer for you: NOTHING.
Looking over the elections of the past 30 odd years that I’ve been involved or familiar with, I can summarize the impacts of each election:
- It impacts the lives of people in oppressed lands around the world
- It impacts the lives of people in disaster-stricken areas
- It impacts the world markets
- It impacts the banks and financial systems
- It impacts defense spending
- It does nothing for Americans
I’d like to see improvements to public education, health care, the environment, transportation, personal taxation, energy resources, national security, space exploration, undersea exploration, and the general well-being of mankind around the planet.
But we will never see that.
Why? Because no two humans agree on what those improvements should be. Some actually think those individual topics are fine as they are or should actually be eliminated. Politicians simply play to the statistical base of their demographics. They have to, or they don’t have a paycheck to count on. They will eternally tell us what they think we want to hear. Why wouldn’t they? That’s why you will never hear a politician directly admit that we’re in the midst of a religious war around the globe. That would be political suicide.
So ask yourself how the following issues have been improved as a DIRECT result of any given election:
- Conflict in the Middle East (as bad as ever)
- Public Education (as bad as ever, maybe worse)
- Public Health (worse than ever, even statistical mortality)
- Environment
- Taxation (ha!)
- Transportation (in isolated areas it has improved. overall it’s worse)
- Terrorism (oooooh. Not better, sorry)
- Economy (nope. it heals itself. everyone else just takes credit)
- Unemployment (same)
- Immigration (same)
- Gay marriage (hey, didn’t they promise this too?)
- Drug Enforcement and Drug Crimes (no difference at all, ever)
I have voted for blue as often as red. Not because I’m keeping a quota, but because:
- There are usually only those two choices
- I vote by individual clarity of agenda (i.e. do they have a lucid plan?)
And when neither side has an idiot-liar, oops, I meant “candidate”, I feel is worth voting for? I skip. It hasn’t hurt anyone, so relax.
Wearing a badge does not make a person automatically viable, smart or worthy of my vote. That's my biggest gripe. I'm just fucking tired of people telling me I have to drink the kool aid. I stopped drinking that crap years ago. I don’t give a shit about NASCAR or gay marriage. So the next time you feel like trying to aim your bullhorn in my direction, just please STFU.
No comments:
Post a Comment