Just a Boring Political Screed

This isn't that topical, and I really really never wanted to write about political stuff here. Especially now after some of my posts, because some fucking screwhead self-styled conservative is sure to some day happen across the place and have fun at my expense with my posts about my sexual failures (I surely would if that shoe was on the other foot.), and otherwise confirm his suspicions that liberals are a bunch of drug-addled, religion-ridiculing, conscienceless assholes. But what's done is done. And the slow burning of my picqued annoyances has reached the point where I feel like writing about it.

But to get to the point, a little over a month ago the Pennsylvania state assemblies adopted some rules about "ghost voting," which has to do with the tendency of state representatives to vote on issues when they're not anywhere near Harrisburg, much less in the state capitol building and without listening to any of the three days of debate mandated by the Pennsylvania Constitution. And the local media raised a bit of a hub-bub, and this rule was adopted in response, the substance of which isn't all that important. But we were discussing this in one of my classes, and most of the discussion was about the substance of the rule, whether it could have been better, whether it was a reasonable rule and whatnot. None of which could have been less relevant to my way of thinking.

So I raised the point that if these representatives' constituents cared about the issue, it would factor into their decision of who to vote for in the next election. And of course, the good "liberals" in my class (you know the kind that read the New York Times and the Washington Post and adopt that sort of beltway thinking, instead of boycotting all of that crap except for Paul Krugman's columns like any normal person would do.) "retort" with these basically paternalistic responses which I'm not going to repeat, but I'm sure you can imagine. But I stand my ground on the issue, with a sort of annoyance in my voice that I'm sure in hindsight made me look like a bit of a jerk. (C'est la vie.) And the debate devolves into some bullshit about finding like a "good-compromise" between paternalism and whatever the hell they think I was advocating. Which is what, I wonder? Is it some notion of responsibilty? Some kind of anti-self-regulating concept? A permitting a body to turn a blind eye to it's own corruption as long as the voters don't care-ism? Who can give it a name?

But the issue of paternalism isn't even what draws my ire here. What fucking annoys me about this is that the state legislature is basically saying to the voters, "Hey, we know you don't really feel like paying any attention at all to what we're doing. We know you're too lazy for that, and to be frank about it, we'd prefer not to have an informed electorate scrutinizing what we're doing here either. So how about if we wink and you nod, and we'll adopt these rules, and we can all pretend like it's okay for you to have no fucking clue what your elected representatives are up to?" An offer which is apparently quite reasonable and to which we should all readily agree.

And then the next election will roll around and the habitually lazy and indifferent type who's fond of words like "ain't" and poor grammar in general will regale us with the refrain "That they're all corrupt and nothing ever changes. It don't matter who you vote for." And of course they're exactly fucking right, happily oblivious to the fact that they're own mind-numbing ignorance and sloth creates the conditions necessary to turn this lazy excuse for cynicism and apathy into a scientific certainty. We've all heard it a million times: you get the government you deserve (and this rule adopted by the state legislatures doesn't change that maxim). But ya know, personally, I don't recall sodomizing any retarded third-world octagenarians with a fucking toilet scrubber while shooting up elementary school kids with AIDS infected needles. Not without their consent anyway. (I'll confess to having stolen l'esprit of that joke from someone, but I don't know who, and I don't remember their punchline exactly.)

And of course in the meantime, while we watch Terri Schiavo gaze at a motherfucking balloon and somehow pretend we're any less retarded for it, and discuss ridiculous ways to "save" social security; The laws are passed that allow (nay encourage) Credit Card Companies to fuck over consumers (By unilaterally turning unsecured debt into a secured debt arrangement completely different to what was agreed to when that consumer acquired that debt.), and other "reforms" are passed that will allow corporations to put a ceiling on how much it's going to cost them to fucking maim you. And, of course, the worst part is these fuckers are going be babbling on and on, about their precious little "culture of life," when we should, in fact, be having and promoting discussions about how, as a society...

We ought to err on the side of getting laid.

Ha! I did it. I will never doubt myself again.