A Persistent Source of Annoyance

I'm sure I do far more complaining about the (very) conservative republicans who I'm surrounded by than is absolutely necessary. But quite a lot of it is true. And they do annoy me. And since this is my blog, I'm allowed to complain about them all I like, no matter how much this is going to come back to bite me in the rear at some point in the future.

With the election season really getting started now (you know, what with the GOP having finally chosen their death, Romney having officially made a complete fool of himself numerous times, and Obama being hailed as All Things Good by the left), it seems that the beautiful citizens of this great nation are falling all over themselves to proclaim which party hack it is they want to live in the White House for the next four years.

do we want this unprincipled corporatist hack

Everybody from a Walmart checker to the people in our local government get in on this ritual. No joke, I encountered a Walmart checker a couple days ago who, seeing my mom's Ron Paul shirt, asked who she was going to vote for now that Paul wasn't in the running (I give her props for actually knowing who's in the race. That takes work. Sort of). My mom's response, that she was going to vote for Gary Johnson, was greeted with a huffy, disbelieving stare, as if she'd just said that she was going to sacrifice her children on the altar of the liberal media.

I don't know. Maybe this lady thought that was what she said. In any case, she recycled the old lines--about how Romney was the "best choice" we had, how we "couldn't live through another four years of Obama", and how we "only have two choices anyway."

or this one oh gosh choices choices so difficult halp us world

So perhaps the last part's true. Maybe we really do only have two choices that have a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting elected--and these two choices are so alike in all but a few aspects, that they might as well be one. Add to that the fact that only one of those two "choices" will, realistically, have anything close to a shot. Romney lacks the charisma and broad appeal that his opponent has in plenty. So in reality, the entire machine of American media and politics has presented me with one option, wearing two different faces, with only one face that will actually manage to "win".

And I really just don't like that much. Perhaps it's simply the overwhelmingly almost-anarchist part of myself. Perhaps it's simply that I'm a rebellious teenager and can't stand authority. Either way, I don't like being told how to vote.

Besides that, I don't think that our system is supposed to be a sort of one-size-fits-all, let's stick to the status quo kind of thing. Remember that whole freedom and justice and no-taxation-without-representation thing that people once fought a war over? Yeah, that. Perhaps you've read about it. I get this distinct feeling that those guys wouldn't have quite approved of the current idea of what a free election is supposed to be. I think they would vote for the person who most accurately reflected their own ideas, and to the dickens with whatever the rest of the world.

And so, as this gentleman stated, I am voting for Gary Johnson, and not because he will win. I am voting for him because he ought to win, and that's really all that matters.

I have an apology to make

It's an advance apology, really, that will probably come into effect on November 7th.

You see, apparently my one vote for Gary Johnson/not Obama-Romney will be the one thing that manages to tip the balance in favor of All That Is Evil And Horrible In The World And Will Destroy America As We Think We Know It.

So I would like to apologize for my vote in advance, and for all the undeclared wars, out-of-control spending, inflation, and loss of rights that will come about because of it.

Thank you for your time.

Today We're Selling Rotten and Rubbish!

Last night, in an attempt to get back into the swing of politics and bridge an ideological gap in one fell swoop, I attended fifteen minutes of a Tea Party Patriots meeting. It turned out to be only fifteen minutes because, after we'd gotten there late, that's how long my mother managed to sit through it before walking out in disgust. Since she is my primary source of transportation (still), I went with her. I had no desire to walk ten miles back to my house. No thanks.

That being said, it is already clear that our local Tea Party has reduced this year's presidential race down to the media's level--which is why my mother was so disgusted. Basically, they are saying (as ever) that a vote for anyone other than the GOP candidate is a vote for Obama. Because, you know, we all realize and acknowledge the concrete fact that the GOP would never nominate someone who wasn't...well, ideologically sound with their beliefs, and sincere in his own belief in that ideology. Obviously.

In any case, besides the mathematical odds of your vote even doing anything for your candidate, much less against him or her, there is the matter of the choices I, a young voter, am being faced with. I feel a bit like a harried shopper. Let me explain.

Imagine, for a moment, that you walk into a grocery store. Perhaps you are hankering after some good beef, some potatoes on the side. And pie. (Pie is a necessary part of any good meal.) But as you go to select your steak, a wild-eyed employee comes running up, apron flying, hair rumpled as he screams in your face and quickly replaces the steak you'd picked up, practically yanking it from your hand. You protest, as you should, that you quite liked that steak, and had been planning to buy it. No, he screams, that steak is bad for you. That steak would ruin the store if you bought it! No, no--you want one of these steaks. And into your hands he places two old pieces of meat.

They smell as rank as they look, and for a moment you're nonplussed. Surely these two can't be the ones he means! And besides, look at the price tags! But the employee insists, and somehow you've dropped one of the steaks, and the employee has already put an arm around your shoulders and is steering you towards the check out, chatting your ear off about how you've made the right decision, and the choice was inspired, truly inspired, sir, and bravo and cheerio!

Ridiculously lame attempt to be British aside, it seems that sometimes this is precisely the kind of choice that is given voters. Romney or Obama, they say--"Here you are, have the compromising hack or the suave liar. Which do you prefer?" The media has reduced the debate down to which one stinks less, rather than which one will actually help the country and abide by the Constitution while he's at it. And then of course, there's the lovely citizens of this fine country, who insist that if we don't vote for their candidate, we're "wasting our vote"... and God Almighty forbid we vote outside the two party system! Why, that would be tantamount to treason.

Let it be known here and now, then, that I will vote for whoever I please, fearmongering notwithstanding. And I know, quite well, that my vote will not be wasted.

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

John Quincy Adams

This is Not a Joke

This morning, the Obama campaign sent out an email to all their supporters--plus two ardent libertarians who like to laugh at said emails--that was, of course, full of self-congratulatory propaganda. What else do you expect from the beautiful American election cycle? Freedom? Choice? A hassle-free consideration of all the options?

Of course not. That's naive and idealistic. No, what works far better is being beat over the head by how one side's right and the other's wrong...from both sides. But don't worry. It's for your own good. After all:

We also know that candidates who take these extreme positions can, in the right circumstances, win not only a primary but also a general election in just about any state.

It's true. And we just can't expect you to know who to vote for, so we have to kindly inform you that, number one, all the Republicans are corporatist hacks. Even though Barack Obama received more in corporate funds than any other candidate in the 2008 elections. Not to mention the horror of this:

The extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory. No matter who the Republicans nominate, we'll be running against someone who has embraced that agenda in order to win -- vowing to let Wall Street write its own rules, end Medicare as we know it, roll back gay rights, leave the troops in Iraq indefinitely, restrict a woman's right to choose, and gut Social Security to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.

Yes. That evil, extremist Tea Party that's led by...Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney, who has all but said that he wants to do the same things as Obama, just dressed up in a facade of conservative Christian principles. Just like practically every other Republican. Including Santorum and Perry and Gingrich and Bachmann. And especially Huntsman. And other than the obvious that the troops were supposed to be brought out of Iraq in December--Wall Street isn't capitalist, Medicare is already broken, gay rights and abortion don't belong on the federal docket... and Social Security is both already gutted and bankrupt anyway.

In closing, it is interesting to note how, sometimes, the Democrats seem to realize more about the Republican party than the Republicans do.

But it's curious that no one can really explain how, when or why the 70-plus percent of Republicans saying in polls and in Iowa that Mitt Romney's not their candidate will suddenly come around.

Yes, that is a curious thing to try and explain. Which is probably why Mitt Romney shan't win, and Obama will have to contend either with the Flavor of the Day, Santorum, or Ron Paul--I mean, He Who Shall Not Be Named. We'll see how that works out.

O, the Things that I've Missed

And I don't really mind. A quick update - my summer activities are over, which of course means I'll have to start school soon. Sometimes being homeschooled is nice, though. I get to decide when to do my schoolwork. Haha. China was awesome, and I wish I was still there, except for the annoying fact that I couldn't get Facebook there. I love Facebook. But you don't really care about any of that, so I'll get into the interesting here's-what-I-think-about-all-the-junk-that's-still-going-on portion of this post.

Apparently the economy is fixing to crash. Again. In fact, our ole' friends Fannie and Freddie are even in the news again, as credit ratings on those institutions plummet. As if they weren't already in a 5-mile hole it had drilled in the crater made by the last market tank. The cause of the whole commotion seems to be centered around the fact that our Congress has finally realized that you can't expect to both borrow trillions of dollars and pay off trillions of dollars at the same time. (This is especially difficult with trillions of dollars in broken programs hanging onto the trillions of dollars in revenue the government brings in. Just pointing that out.)

In fact, it's apparently gotten so bad that Congress has realized bandaids aren't going to fix their bleeding head wound. They might have to cut more than the $1.5 trillion they'd planned on from the budget deficit. Over the next decade. Of course, we can't get rid of any really important programs like that extra aircraft carrier, Congressional salaries, or the Department on Aging, but we'll see what we can do.

Meanwhile, the 2012 presidential campaign seems to be getting started. Yay. Can't wait for that drama. Something I've observed: adult drama is just as tiresome as teenage drama, they're just older, and political drama is just as tiresome as adult drama, it's just the politicians have more money to spend. (We won't get started on celebrity drama; it's basically just teenage drama with more public scrutiny.)

Rick Perry, Texas' very beloved governor is cementing his run for President, most notably with a day of prayer he hosted recently. Of course, all the conservative Christians are now singing his praises, declaring that they'd love such a righteous president. Blech. Study what he's done to Texas sometime, then come talk to me.

The rest of the GOP field is just as depressing, with the hesitant exceptions of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson: Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Allen West. It reads like a list of who's-who of warmongering Republicans. But I'm being unkind. Can't have that.

I've not really researched the Democratic field, but I'm pretty sure (quite positive, actually) that President Obama will be their candidate. Not only is he in a strong position as an incumbent president, no matter how unpopular, but he still has the hearts of quite a portion of the Democratic voting base. And so, this race will come down to Obama and the candidate who wants to get butchered in the polls.

And 2012 is Upon Us

Only, not really. Of course, you couldn't tell it by the eagerness of the New Generation of Republicans. They've already begun lining up for the senate seats that will be up for grabs in two years.

Now, I will say that I've been guilty of wondering who will run for President in 2012 (I'm probably going to be rooting for Gary Johnson, if anybody cares), but I find it rather ridiculous to be worrying about the same races we just got done with. v.v

Yay

So...the Republicans took the House. Big surprise, whoopiee. In Texas, my home state, Rick Perry got elected to a third term. Awesome. I'm so proud of the voting Texans in this state. They averted....uh....Rick Perry's virtual carbon copy, Bill White, from getting into office. Go ya'll. Thank you so much for saddling us all with that man for another four years.

Mac Thornberry, our representative for the House also got reelected. For the ninth time. This'll be his tenth term in the House. Once again, I'm so proud we voted in a small-government candidate from the Republican party! You go Mac, keep voting for legislation like the PATRIOT act, TARP, and all that stuff, and reduce the size of that government!

Yeah. I'm....very excited about the outcome of this election, in case you can't tell.

Elections...

are almost upon us. The impending big day has been greeted with much speculation about how bad the Democrats will end up- not "will they", notice, no. They're going to do bad. It's just a question of how bad.

You know, it's rather frustrating. We had an election two years ago. Things aren't going to magically change/get better/even get worse in 2 years. We could, oh I don't know, stick with one side for awhile just to see how it'll end up before we automatically switch...and end up getting the same thing as we had before.

Rather closer to home for me, Texas is having the time of it's life. Rick Perry is probably going to win (again), have another term in office (again). Yay! I'm so 'cited. His most prominent opponent, Bill White, wouldn't be any better. But, of course, those are the only two people focus on. And whine about. The mantra is "Oh we don't have choices, so we'll just vote party."

Because, after all, voting with da partay has fixed our problems so effectively in the past. That's why America's in a drawn-out recession. Yeah.

The problem is, my dear fellow Texans, that you do have choices. So they're not great choices. Kathie Glass may have gotten the Libertarian nomination for governor, but that doesn't make her an ideal libertarian. (I'll leave you to go do the research on that one...) And the only other one is some Green Party candidate named...Deb Shafto, I think.

Not amazingly wonderful choices. But anything's better than the Perry/White choice at this moment...

Hmm

Sorry it's been awhile since I last blogged...my life has been pretty boring lately, and hence I've been too bored to actually write a blog post. Although, in my defence, I was out of town from Thursday to Sunday night (actually, Monday morning if you want to be technical), and so I couldn't blog.

So...in the news this week, local police officers are now going to have even more license to make eternal nuisances of themselves, as their job descriptions are now going to be expanded to "watching for precursor activity to terrorist activities" or something like that. (And an hilarious image of Barney Fife trying to apprehend a terrorist just popped into my head...)

From this article: "But this initiative represents the administration’s first thoughtful steps in fulfilling President Obama’s commitment to defining a lasting rule of law for this brave new world. We must make it work."

We "must"? Oh yeah, that's right. So we can be safe, yada yad. Right. I forgot that part. Of course, there are other options. Like, you know, we could, like stop bombing and invading sovereign nations without cause and stuff. You know. Be smart and courteous and all that good stuff. Stop hitting other children on the playground.

But oh wait. That would be the smart thing to do. We're Americans. We aren't smart, so we're not needed to be. That's right.

In that same vein, our government is now trying to control the internet- oh wait. Not control it...just make sure...you don't say something stupid, using the vehicle of fear. There goes half of my Facebook activities. Sarcasm? Out the window. Joking references to terrorism and your plot to blow up the 2011 Comic-Con? Don't even think about it.

You see, apparently the government has decided that Americans don't use phones enough anymore. We've all migrated to the internet, so now, naturally, the government is going to have to start imposing rules upon the internet. Well, to be fair, not quite rules. They just want to team up with social networking sites to get information about their widdle citizen's activities. Because we all need to be babysat, of course.

"Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages."

Mm-hmm. Because it's always good to tie the hands of independent companies that operate on the free world of the internet so that they have to cooperate. At least Google went into willingly.

Once again along that tack, the Obama administration (which is, of course, for terrorists and against anything akin to intel gathering or the wars) wants to have more control over banks, not for the purpose of money, but so that banks have to report money transfers out-of-country.

But always remember- Obama is soft on terror.

In a rather ironic twist, atheists and agnostics score the highest on a poll on American religious knowledge.

Right.

That's sad, Christians.

The midterm elections are approaching, which is rather...well, not exactly exciting, per se, since I am fixing to make a prediction about who's going to take the Congress. Before I do that, I'd just like to say that this prediction kind of stinks.

Because I'd really rather the Democrats lose their majority, but the Republicans not gain one.

I dream of a better world where the true interests of the people are represented by a four, five, six party Congress...

I dream big, in case you couldn't tell.

There's lots more I could talk about. But I don't really want to. I'm already depressed enough.