Politics (blarg!)

[hafoc]

I despise politics.

I spend three or four months before the Presidential elections hiding from the TV and radio, not answering the phone, closing the blinds and turning out the lights whenever somebody knocks on my front door.

What I really hate about it is the lack of intelligent discussion. Scaremongering, hatemongering, racism, mudslinging, namecalling-- you're probably nodding your head in agreement right now, thinking, yeah, the other side sure are bastards! Well, I'm talking about YOUR side. A plague on both your houses!

I do not prefer having my freedom regulated away to having it legislated away. I do not prefer the Thought Police hunting me because I'm not "patriotic" in somebody's self-serving definition to the Thought Police hunting me because I'm not "politically correct" in somebody else's. I don't prefer having all my money stolen as excess corporate profits in some job creation policy that doesn't create jobs, to having it all stolen as taxes for welfare programs that don't eliminate poverty. I do not prefer our being Policeman to the World because of suffering masses in Somalia, all of whom hate us, to being Policeman to the World because of the need for oil in Iraq. Where is sanity? Where is the middle ground? A plague on both your houses!

It's so depressing when people you admire or even love come out with statements along the lines of "You disagree with me. You must be really, really sick." Granted, I'm prone to that myself when I lose my temper, but I try to hold my tongue.

I used to say things like that in public. I hated liberalism, which I understood to be the government owning everything, running everything, taxing everything, regulating everything--

And an aside here. If you're interested in the art of political demagoguery, remember you will win all your political arguments if you put your own definitions on your enemy's positions. Works every time.

-- regulating everything. Since I work for the government myself, and since I study history, I have double knowledge that complete government control will never work. Therefore, I said in my wisdom, there were only four kinds of liberals; the stupid, the ignorant, the self-deluded, and the evil.

Of course athelind cured me of that. I think it was he. Somebody, anyway, sent me an Ozy and Millie comic strip, in particular http://www.ozyandmillie.org/2000/om20000827.html . Woo. I feel much more open-minded now!

Let me explain a few things that nobody in the media, in fact nobody who has discussed politics with me so far this year, seem to want to understand.

Insulting your opponent doesn't prove your point.

Saying your opponent is stupid, sick, evil, or deluded doesn't prove your point.

Saying your opponent must be a priveleged white guy (poor black, leftist Pakistani, Bolivian yak-herder, etc) because only somebody belinging to that hated demographic could possibly believe such a crack-brained position doesn't prove your point. Besides, it's racist.

Personal attacks don't prove that you're right.

Personal attacks don't prove that you're right.

PERSONAL ATTACKS DON'T PROVE THAT YOU'RE RIGHT.

That said-- and now that I've made people hate me-- I suppose I'll put forth my stand on the coming election. I'm going with the Dimmocrats and Kerry.

In part this is because I think the pendulum has gone too far to the right. In an era when people screeh mindless hatred at each other, play politics for points against each other only, and being in the middle of the road only means you get shot at from both sides, the only way to maintain any sort of sanity in government is to have approximately equal numbers of left wing scum and right wing slime.

But mainly it's because I am not satisfied with Bush's leadership. I feel he has betrayed the good conservative principles while throwing all his strength behind the bad ones. I feel he has failed to show competence.

I'm not vastly happy with the choice of Kerry-- yet another Taxachusetts Liberal-- but his history gives me some slight hopes that his character is fair or better, and there's at least some chance he won't be as incompetent and foolishly doctrinaire as, in my opinion, Bush has proven himself to be. I don't think Kerry will be a bad President, and I see signs he might surprise me and be a good one.

I have a feeling we'll get a chance to find out what kind of President he is, come January. Meanwhile, I'm going to see if I can't dig my bunker deep enough that I can't hear all this hate-filled mindless screeching, this sound of Our Betters trying to convince us The Other Guy wants to put us all in death camps, so that we Little People will vote the way our masters want us to.

And I would cheerfully kick both Bush and Kerry in the nads so hard their genitals would be in their brains instead of vice versi, if there were any candidate on the ballot who stood for FREEDOM, be he left, right, or anything. Because the fight should not be between conservative citizens and liberal citizens, almost all of who are reasonable people who really do sincerely want the best for this country and everyone in it. It should be between the common people and those swine, left and right alike, who want to use government to control our every thought and deed.

But nobody stands for freedom.

A plague on both your houses!

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