Death Chic

There are times, especially during election years, when I am asked why I don’t write about politics.

I usually beg off the question by claiming that - as a registered Libertarian – I never have a dog in the fight but really it’s because I’m congenitally incapable of taking the douchebags in either of the major parties seriously.

Take the Democrats for instance. Here’s a party filled with people who are dedicated to the notion that our government – an organization that, if it were a person, couldn’t find its ass with both hands and a flashlight – hasn’t fucked things up enough. No, they want to expand the reach of government despite a growing body of evidence that government intervention really only cultivates helplessness. They also want to put our government in charge of the care and feeding of every American citizen who looks the least bit perplexed in the face of the rigors of adulthood. And they want the rest of us to pay for it.

Then there are the Republicans. Now there’s a group of people who can’t seem to shed their civil liberties fast enough. I mean holy crap people, the ink on The Patriot Act wasn’t even dry before your were crawling into bed and asking the FBI to read you a bedtime story – which they’ll get around to just as soon as they’re done rooting through your financial records and looting your stash of internet porn.

Side note: If I were a betting woman I would put a thousand bucks on the fact that somewhere deep in the bowels of the Republican Headquarters there is a shrine to the director of Homeland Security that says “Freedom and liberty were overrated anyway.”

Then there are the candidates themselves, whose sole purpose – so far as I can tell – is to avoid saying anything on the campaign trail that might be interpretted as the least bit substantive. Yesterday I was talking to an acquaintance of mine when she divulged that a particularly stirring speech by her flavor of candidate had her “on the chair clapping and crying.”  

“I just felt so good. Someone running for president has never made me feel so good.” She said.

Well good for you. That’s really fucking fabulous news, especially for your candidate because so long as voters are feeling really good they certainly aren’t thinking very hard. And really, when you get down to it, winning elections is so much easier when your supporters allow themselves to be led around by their emotions instead of engaging in all that pesky critical thinking.

Which is why candidates get away with stumping around promising things that they have no right to promise and are legally incapable of delivering anyway. Not that this has ever stopped voters from believing; the most rabid of both candidates’ camps really do seem to think that Barack Obama is Santa Claus and John McCain can shoot rainbows out of his ass.

Side-side note: Wouldn’t it be nice though, if both candidates would simply stand at their respective podiums and shout ”I like puppies and rainbows! And I’ll give out free candy if I become President! Also! I can fly if I flap my arms real fast!” I mean, that would most certainly be less insulting to my intelligence than the typical election year tripe being regurgitated now.

Anyway. That’s why I don’t write about politics.