9.10.2008

Yes, I am an asshole

I'm contemplating registering just to vote for John McCain in the upcoming election.

Wait... what?

Do I distrust him intensely?

Yes. What he's done since losing the Republican primary last time he ran is appalling.

Eh, fuck the pseudo-clever set-up. Let's get down to chewing the gristle.

The way this country is being run is comparable to a favored elderly relative, kept alive with needles and hoses.

Let it go.

What Washington's got now is terminal. Enough trying to jockey for a better will position.

Give it up.

This being a Christian nation, no matter how untenable it is to admit, we won't let ourselves pull the plug.

Kill it.

A new day nurse is not going to suddenly revive a patient who's been systematically abused by the rest of the hospital staff for the last forty years, the same abuse which engendered an atmosphere in which the critically flawed concept of compromise "for the good of all" being worthwhile.

Let it die with a shred of dignity.

Of course I prefer Obama by a landslide over McCain. But as powerful a thing that hope can be, it sometimes allows for years more suffering before the inevitable.

I'm no anarchist, but I sense the end of the Constitution, and it's for the best rather than the worse. It was a brilliant document in the sense that it protected the people from the public fear of a monarchy.

Well, it's been a couple of centuries since a king was dumb enough to seriously fuck with us.

Democracy's still where it's at, but we need a New Constitution. One designed to protect us from democracy and prevent bloodlines from being as important to politics as it is to horse racing.

As we practice it, democracy is an entertaining sham.

I saw a couple of kids (aka college age, which it still terrifies me that I am no longer) walking around with clipboards and pamphlets and local candidate teeshirts, and I can say beyond a doubt that my participation in a non-local fantasy football league will prove more important in the long- or short run than their campaigning.

Even if Obama hung out with hookers and lepers and made them all better, what good could he possibly do with a Congress hellbent for leather on spending more than it earns, regardless of having a credit rating that wouldn't qualify for a loan from itself?

Newsflash: nobody in politics above the local level is " a uniter, not a divider." You get above the local level, and most politicians are divisive within their own ranks.

Yes, while that is a nice reflection of society, that is only further proof that somewhere along some lines, we need to come up with a new Bill of Rights that is designed to protect us from the professional politician.

sigh...

I'm going to vote for McCain. I think it's best for America, in the long run. Obama represents hope, and that's the last thing we need right now, if we want to truly move forward. A vote for McCain represents, I believe, a vote for an American sub-majority too large to ignore. McCain as president, acting in the manner he can be reasonably expected to act in, will encourage discontent and the development of a better system.

Even to give both candidates ultimate faith: reform in the face of drastically different situations and opportunities is not as safe or wise as reformatting and rebuilding.

I hate to sound like a Mac snob or a product placement, but the next president is going to be Windows Vista, and even though no one initially preferred XP, we're going to go ahead and call it an upgrade anyhow.

Me? I'm a firm middle-class cynical do-nothing. I spent the RNC drinking and working, laughing at the people who clearly deserved to be arrested and doing whatever it is I do in lieu of praying for those who happened to get lippy near an out-of-town cop who didn't care about image because he was on vacation from his day job.

This is America 2008. We live in a world where many countries that we inspired with our revolution have governments that are in many ways more modern than our own. Yeah, a lot of the world is shit, but then again, what's more powerful to a national consciousness: a smart asshole getting killed for being a smart asshole, or a smart asshole being drowned out by legions of legally protected smart assholes, each one thinking they're smarter than the asshole before or beside them?

As a disenchanted dick, I ain't advocatin' nuthin'.

But that new America we all want? It's a phoenix.

A vote for Obama will put that process off for a bit.

A vote for McCain ought to start the proceedings quite toastily--

The America that soothed and anointed our ancestors worked for the time and technology it was born unto.

If I weren't so lazy, I'd feel inclined to influence what ought to come next.

j.

2 comments:

b said...

I read this almost immediately after waking up at 7 am. It put me in a weird mood all day. Love you.

J. Fantastic said...

The important thing about "hope" is that it breeds trust. Trust is what we're lacking. No matter what the circumstances in this country, the people have long outgrown their ability to rise up. There will never, ever come a day when things get so bad that the people will do something about it. A better system could feasibly grow from mass discontent, but not in this country. We're lazy, we're detatched and most importantly we are very, very stupid.

The only way this country is going to rework itself is from the inside out,if it becomes honest about its mistakes and then tries to learn from them. A New Bill of Rights that actually works can't grow from ashes, it has to be spawned from the old one.

I shouldn't write things like this when I don't have time to sit down and do it all at once. If it were up to me I'd break this country into eight smaller ones, anyway.

In summation: I agree with you, but that still doesn't warrant a vote for McCain. Nothing warrants a vote for McCain. If you're going to waste your ballot, do it on the green party. Or just suck it up like the rest of us and throw it to the only person in politics I've ever actually trusted, and his wife, who is kind of hot.