Cripple Musings 3: The Rampening

Hello everyone! I’m back after an extended bout of apathy. The past few weeks have been spent listening to podcasts and playing NBA 2K10. So time well spent. To get back in the groove of writing I’m going to present my third installment of Cripple Musings. It’s easy to write these because quite frankly it’s just me being a jackass which is my normal state of mind anyway. Plus it’s the most fun for me to write since I don’t fact check or anything like that. These are just my off the cuff observations of the world around me.

• The older I get the less tolerant I become of nonsense movies. I saw Gamer a few weeks ago and felt like I had been mind raped for 90 minutes. Of course I liked Transformers 2 so maybe Gamer just really sucked balls.
• Fuck bipartisanship. If the Republicans can offer no solutions other than just saying no and making wild accusations, then they can suck a fat hairy dick. The Democrats should just ram through a public option and forget about getting any Republican votes. They don’t want compromise. They want Obama crying in a corner begging them for mercy.
• Everyone who thinks Roman Polanski should be left alone are assholes. He is a rapist. It doesn’t matter if it was thirty years ago or last week. He drugged and raped a thirteen year old and he should be in jail. I don’t give a shit if he’s old. I hope he is extradited, put in prison, and dies in there.
• At this point can’t we all just agree that Glenn Beck is insane. He sounds like he should be running a conspiracy theory website in his basement instead of having a TV show. Beck is pretty much the equivalent of a homeless who has pooped his pants ranting on a street corner that the CIA is controlling his brain. What’s amazing (and terrifying) to me is that he averages five million viewers. Five million. Ugh.
• Initially in the gay marriage debate I was in favor of everyone, gay and straight, having civil unions and leaving marriage to the churches. Now I say fuck that. The pure hate directed at gay people from religious conservatives has convinced me that there will never be a compromise. To them gay people can only be second class citizens which is complete bullshit. So I say we don’t quit until gay marriage is legal everywhere. And believe me it’s coming.
• Bill O’Reilly debated Richard Dawkins on his show this week and the travesty was people think Bill won. Maybe to the ignorant who have no understanding of science, but rational people can clearly see that O’Reilly made no sense. Every single thing he said was intellectually dishonest and showed the Bill fundamentally misunderstands even basic scientific concepts. I can see why Dawkins refuses to debate creationists.
• Being in a wheelchair isn’t so bad until you remember you can’t walk. That kinda sucks. On the other hand I get into the movies for free.

Five Things That Need Be Expunged From Modern Politics

In my last post I discussed issues that I felt were dividing Americans into strict political ideologies which in turn has destroyed meaningful discourse. I feel like I didn’t elucidate the things that bothered about 21^st century politics and instead wrote a more emotional piece. While adding emotion to writing is all well and good, it’s one of my issues with politicians and voters. Too much emotion and not enough logic. So I want to write about five things that I think are contributing to the deterioration of legitimate discussions that I feel should be shunned from American (and foreign politics). I hope that my thoughts come out clearly and I don’t end up adding to the craziness, but I guess we’ll see.

1. Single Issue Voters

Everyone know single issue voters. They’re the people whose support of candidate hinges solely on their stance towards an issue the voter is passionate about. Now I don’t want to pigeon hole these people (well, anymore than they do themselves), but more often than not these issues are based around “morality”. Things like abortion, gay marriage, and most recently torture. A candidate’s… um… candidacy can be made or broken by the way in which they support or don’t support these issues. Let’s be honest, almost all voters have a single issue that they are passionate about. If we didn’t, then I think less people would vote than already do. Trouble comes in when a voter examines a candidate only on their opinion on these issues. When you focus on a single topic, often a candidate’s bad qualities get filtered out. The perfect example of this from the most recent election is Sarah Palin. By all reasonable measurements, Palin was wholly unqualified to be a Vice Presidential nominee and possibly even the governorship. However, in the America of the single issue voter, Palin was propped up on two issues which walk hand in hand. Her Christianity and her pro-life stance. If Sarah Palin had not been an Evangelical Christian or had she supported a woman’s right to choose, there is almost no question she whether she would have been McCain’s running mate. In short, single issue voters are lowering the quality of our prospective politicians. Were voters more discerning, politicians would have to actually have substantive stands on policy rather than flashing a smile and promising to overturn Roe v. Wade.

2. Unlimited Terms

Everyone knows that the president is allowed to only serve two four year terms, sequential or otherwise. All the other elected representatives are not bound by term limits. Keep getting the votes, keep your seat. What this unfortunate circumstance has lead to is the career politician. These are the so-called Washington fat cats mostly called for getting fat in Washington. Career politicians are popular with their base, but often do not enact any meaningful reform in government. Instead they focus most of their time re-winning their seats and since they are a career politician, they often do. The real shame is that most voters don’t equate these representatives with the changes they are looking for. Since the president is the most visible face in politics, this is the election voters care about the most when really they should be focusing on Congress and the House of Representatives. Term limits would insure that a politician would have a limited time and would be forced to do their job. Winning elections is not their job. Helping the American people is.

3. Lobbyists

This seems like a no brainer, right? Of course it does. Every politician running for elections promises to kick the lobbyists out of government. That they’re a bane on the American people and that they’re ruining political discourse (they are). However, this is easier said than done. Lobbyists have a tremendous amount of money to throw around and often this money is lining the coffers of those who have sworn to fight them. If anyone thinks that these politicians are going to bite the hand that feeds them, think again. The problem with lobbyists is that their influence runs so deep, that it’s difficult to remove them. What needs to be done is to enact legislation that declares lobbying illegal and that accepting money from lobbyists is grounds for impeachment. Of course we would have to rely on the same legislators who benefit from lobbying to pass the law.

4. The Two Party System

The Two Party system has long been an establishment of the American political system. Whatever the name, the two parties boil down to conservatives and liberals. For a long while, this system worked. We would elect good presidents, we would elect bad presidents. Liberals and conservatives would alternately control the government depending on the mood of the electorate. Objectively, it doesn’t seem to be a bad system, but over time it has morphed into an untenable, all encompassing giant that forces American’s to choose between two groups. Republicans and Democrats have been taken over by the extremes. The loudest voices are those who have the most unchanging of positions and are unwilling to compromise with the other side. Silent majority gets thrown around a lot in conservative circles. It’s the phrase that was used to spur the Evangelical movement into politics and there is indeed a silent majority. The thing is, it’s not the ultra conservatives. It’s the moderates. Those caught in between the far left and far right have allowed our voice to be drowned out by the screams of partisanship. Maybe we decided we were above the pettiness. Maybe we became apathetic. Who knows? Whatever the reason, moderates have been silent too long. The country is headed in a bad direction and unless we can take the debate back from the loonies and create a viable third party, it’s going to be hard to change things.

5. Punditry

Political pundits (cable “news” anchors) are the thing I probably hate the most. They add nothing to the national conversation when it comes to politics. Beck, Limbaugh, Rush, Olbermann. They’re court jesters with bull horns. All they are interested in is ratings and making the opposition seem like a cross between Charlie Manson, Stalin, and a guy that kills puppies for fun. None of them truly inform their listeners. Instead they provide them the information they want. “Information” like Obama is a socialist bent on the destruction of America. “Information” like Bush was a Nazi who hated blacks, gays, and Northeners. These people do more damage than good and should be heaped with scorn rather than being lauded as modern day Thomas Jeffersons, Edward R. Murrows, and Walter Kronkites. And that’s the way it is.

What’s Happening to America?

Hello all. It’s been quite a long time since my last blog post. I’ve been going through a mild existential crisis which I may or may not write about, but that has been the primary reason for my lack of writing. A lot of different topics have been covered in this space and while I enjoy writing about varied subjects, the one I come back to most often is politics. I find political discussions to be fascinating and I relish discussing them with people. The problem is rarely can anyone engage in a civil debate about politics anymore. Seemingly jovial conversations quickly devolve into screaming matches that are almost never resolved. This is what I want to talk about today. Normally my posts have some kind of research put into them, but in this one I’m just going to put forth my thoughts devoid of backing because as I see it there is something fundamentally wrong with America today. Americans.

Most all people have strongly held positions on just about every topic imaginable. Health care, abortion, religion, and other sundry beliefs. This is a good thing, a great thing. It’s what has made America the country that it is today. People with different opinions finding some common ground to advance society as a whole. What frightens me is that it appears this is coming to an end. We are no longer comfortable with a live and let live philosophy. There is only one correct belief and those who disagree fundamentally ignorant. Now don’t get me wrong. A lot of people are fundamentally ignorant on both sides of any given issue, but to dismiss an entire position based on the few is arrogant. No one person has all the answers, but too often we see that a lot of people think they do.

Modern politics has become a rather telling microcosm of this world view. The political fringes have taken over the national voice and moderates in both parties have for whatever reason decided to sit on the side lines. Look at how both sides in any political debate react to each other. Those on the extreme right scream that President Obama is a Marxist-Communist-Socialist (three diametrically opposed ideologies) and that he’s out to destroy America. He’s not. Those on the extreme left counter that the opposition to President Obama is completely due to race. It’s not. Yet sadly these are the only two positions that are broadcast on the airwaves. This is not political discourse. It is petty bickering based out of fear for different ideas. It doesn’t move us forward. It holds us back.

Americans are the fundamental problem with America. We are not willing to listen to each other anymore. We are not willing to work together to help our country progress. The majority are more concerned with scoring a political victory over the “Fascist Righties” or the “Commie Lefties” than finding the middle ground and improving life for all. I am depressed an pessimistic about the future of America. And you should be too.