{"id":601,"date":"2012-10-22T13:29:34","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T18:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/wordpress\/?p=601"},"modified":"2020-11-03T09:09:14","modified_gmt":"2020-11-03T14:09:14","slug":"the-political-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/the-political-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Political Machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>So, I heard that the general public is now convening every four years to compare unreasonable expectations and misinformation in their bid to tout a singular person to represent complicated issues with either the color red or the color blue. Crazy as it sounds, I encourage this sort of behavior because not only does it embiggen a sense of individual empowerment, but it gives people something to root for in the off-season of the [popular athletic team].<\/p>\n

But I won’t vote. I\u00a0will definitely NOT be out at the polls,\u00a0instead choosing\u00a0to make flippant comments on the sidelines, baring teeth at ignorant arguments, and to\u00a0be heckled by the wife for my grudging acceptance of\u00a0the futility of it all. Hello. I’m your typical jaded individual who has seen tyrants come and go with thunderous applause. No one is ever satisfied with the previous administration and boos at his passing as they cling to the next man (sorry, Hillary) who promises the world to a mere fraction of the actual world’s population. Each representative, to me at least, seems like the banner waving from a collection of people who swear they’ve got it all figured out.<\/p>\n

But they don’t, unfortunately. You have to break some eggs to get\u00a0policies changed, just like you have to sacrifice something else to achieve the stated political goal, and rarely does the\u00a0individual put the nation ahead of their own personal interest.\u00a0Candidate-wise, you get a mixed bag,\u00a0but sometimes that\u00a0flapping flag isn’t a dull and\u00a0obvious puppet but rather a charismatic one, sweeping us away with words that are well-written and well-rehearsed, well before the moment that they are designed to grace our ears. Whether you prefer a transparent idiot in the Bush puppet model or a golden-tongued, urban, “hip” version is entirely up to you, but neither seems to make a bit of difference as the two major parties trade the crown between themselves ad nauseum until the year that the Political Machine finally gains sentience and sends a robot back in time to kill John Connor.<\/p>\n

Americans (not you, of course) are some of the dumbest, laziest, unfit, ignorant-and-proud, single-minded apes on record\u00a0 relative to other nations, with terrible marks in education, a shameful obesity rate, and backwards-thinking approaches to important issues of our time. They certainly\u00a0don’t want one of their own to represent the country but rather a millionaire playboy, good-looking, intelligent (but not a flaunter), a hard-working, all-American Dude with a winning smile. Just like we send our Olympic teams out only to ridicule their performance from the comforts of our living rooms, snarfing down greasy potato chips and beer, burping loudly before flipping the channel to the next program that will inevitably hold our limited attention span until the next sexualized and over-volumed car commercial comes on, so too do we play an extraneous role in the political machine. The biggest difference is:\u00a0some of the Olympic contenders\u00a0aren’t trying to squeeze our wallets or trick us into a worse lifestyle (and I’m not saying that some aren’t).<\/p>\n

Luckily, the issues are simple enough that you can draw a line cleanly down the middle and be either “fer” or “aginst” hot-button topics such as defending ourselves (personally and militarily), procreation in general,\u00a0the simplicity of a trillion dollar economy, relationships with a couple hundred different nations, and of course: whether Americans do or don’t like the creation of Jobs when coming out of a recession. Instead of making everything available and leaving it up to the individual to decide if they do or don’t want an abortion, do or don’t want to own a handgun (something that can’t mow down a theater), we get racist and bullshit policies on immigration, “morality” arguments from religious zealots, “softball” propositions that give up more than what is being asked to be ammended and much, much more. And the debt keeps piling up.<\/p>\n

Your Debt. Our debt. China’s future.<\/p>\n

\"china_flag_pollution001_16x9\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These colors don't run.... the persistent wheeze is too debilitating.<\/pre>\n
Common sense says that we balance our finances before moving forward, earning back the money that would be lost to interest. Common sense says not to attack the people that bought our debt. Common sense says the government’s spending on people to do jobs to “help” the economy is as economically feasible as a man paying his kid an allowance when the man is unemployed. Common sense says that we need to regulate weaponry, food,\u00a0and encourage good decisions to keep our bodies and families safe and healthy, but without calling it Socialism. Common sense says we need to give local aid to those in poverty, while simultaneously encouraging them to help themselves. Common sense says that we borrow policies and plans from successful 1st world nations who have implemented health care and education policies without a revolutionary meltdown. Common sense says that politicians who flip-flop or are clearly dumber than a bag of Alaskan\u00a0rocks should be stricken from owning their own shows or Super-PACs, much less the remote possibility of them achieving a seat of real power. Common sense\u00a0says that pundits are inflammatory party-fed salesmen who suckle at the teat of their own 15 minutes of\u00a0facetime on major networks. Common sense says that Specifics, Statistics, and intended policy Changes\u00a0be presented to the people’s\u00a0judgment PRIOR to elections (not months of statements along the lines of: “I want America to do Gooder!”). Common sense also says that intelligent panels of fact-checkers be present at any debate to moderate in real-time, that any smear campaign must be 100% true and certified by a government-appointed body. And lastly, common sense is dead…. because no one else seems to give a damn about any of this.<\/p>\n
How did Ron Paul, the voice of reason,\u00a0consistency, and transparency, a DOCTOR no less, get buried alive in the shadow of Pizza Guy (who is hilarious by the way), Dirty Sanchez, Glazed-Palin Look-Alike, and the Gingrinch who stole Christmas? How did THEY get closer to the top than he did? Now we’re just down to the Rock ’em Sock ’em Robot match between Sniveling Rich Puppet and Incumbent Socialist Muslim Kenya Guy. Is SRP really the top, enthusiastic choice of that entire party?! Are you sure that the grueling GOP nominations resulted in this stilted tinman?\u00a0Not to say that I AGREE with Ron Paul, but he had qualities that the present contenders clearly don’t have. I don’t see Ron Paul politically\u00a0stabbing anyone in the back, spinning issues away from reality,\u00a0nor backing down from things that he has quite\u00a0literally\u00a0ALWAYS believed in.<\/p>\n
Voting for a third party is a futile exercise in laughable politisophical decisions based on principles alone, but I’m just waiting to get sucker-punched by these other two candidates. I’m just waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me, my poor little head cracking open on the floor, and to wake up to the realization that the whole thing was some orchestrated farce between opposing forces, neither one deserving the\u00a0throne they so desperately and vehemently continue to attack each other for. I’ll ostentatiously tack Ron Paul onto this Rant because he was deliberately denied\u00a0coverage from news organizations despite his strong (and growing) fan-base for no other reason than being a breath of fresh air from the traditional rules of this little game. I wouldn’t vote for him myself, but way to control the Democratic\/Republican outcome you media pig-dogs! Who needs three options when you have two perfectly incomplete (sometimes oblivious) candidates functioning as bannermen for the only two viewpoints that this country will ever have. WHIG PARTY 2016!<\/p>\n
\"red-states-vs-blue-states-map\"<\/a><\/p>\n
The game of Risk has gotten weird.<\/pre>\n
Why do I not vote? It’s only partially because of the disenfranchisement I feel from the system. In truth, much of it rides on an imagined faith I place in the United States. If I’m wrong and we truly are a people of intelligent, hard-working, fit, smart-and-concealing-it, open-minded progeny of a neanderthal race that crawled out of the primordial ooze and banded together to both protect ourselves and better our species, if we are that people, I feel that Americans should be able to think this through and do the right thing, choosing the right affiliations to lead us out of the quagmire, out of the bureacratic stew of intolerance, stupidity, and pride that will surely cook us all as other countries laugh deep-throated chuckles and point at the “super-nation” that succumbed to its own devices that we, ourselves,\u00a0pioneered. If they CAN’T choose their own leaders to forge that path with such blatant, baseless,\u00a0and unequivocally selfish\u00a0lies laid bare on the table, then maybe the American people deserves whatever they get. If that is the case, maybe we deserve to be surpassed by other nations. Maybe the United States deserves to finally have its infuriating pride-bubble popped and for the rich to milk this cow dry. This is\u00a0one of the biggest reasons why I choose not to participate in elections in general, nor to\u00a0throw my hat in on a decision that shouldn’t be this difficult to make with\u00a0one of but two\u00a0choices that we provided ourselves.<\/p>\n
That, and\u00a0I’d rather play the “I told ya so” harp from here to doomsday, however way it eventually finds us.<\/p>\n
2020 EDIT: Time-traveling Smike here. I did end up voting against Trump in 2016 and 2020 because America is a living nightmare now that being a fascist moron is trending. Stay here in 2012 where it’s safe! oh no, I’m being pulled back…. stay here where it’s safe…. where it’s saaaafe….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, I heard that the general public is now convening every four years to compare unreasonable expectations and misinformation in their bid to tout a singular person to represent complicated issues with either the color red or the color blue. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-buzz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4291,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions\/4291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}