29 posts tagged “politics”

Have you ever voted outside your own party? Why or why not?
Submitted by Soup.

Well, yes, I suppose I have.  I believe I am registered "Democrat" because I think you have to be registered either D or R.  But the last time I voted for a Democrat for president, it was for Bill Clinton in 1992, and I was 18 (I've voted for Nader every other time, I think.  And I lived in Montana when Gore lost to Bush, and even if every Nader vote had gone to Gore, it still would not have given Gore the state, so bugger off about it). 

I think of myself as a libertarian, but I usually find the libertarian candidates to be Republicans in disguise, so I don't vote for them. 

Basically I dislike voting for either of the major parties because both of them are way too status quo for my taste.  Yes, on various issues, they have differences.  But at a deeper level, on the more fundamental questions of how the government ought to be run and what the Constitution means now and the economy and what America's role in the world ought to be--the big questions, really--they are much the same.  Since I find the American economy and lifestyle to be inherently exploitative and more or less morally bankrupt, it's at this fundamental and theoretical level that I differ in almost every respect from either of the two major parties since I am both a socialist and a libertarian.  There is no contradiction there, provided that you are not a proponent of state socialism, and I am not. 

I have realized lately, though, and this should have occurred to me long ago, that libertarianism is sort of the ultimate idealism.  This came to me when I heard the other day that the city of Idaho Falls has banned the tossing of candy to children from parade floats.  I don't know the actual rationale behind the ban, but it seems to have something to do with the litter issue.  My son doesn't get to eat a lot of candy, but I was still upset by the new law, because I am always upset when something is made illegal just because some (OK, most) jackasses are too irresponsible and lazy to function civilly.  Just pick up your damn litter, assholes.  Really?  Is it so hard?  Are you really such a lot of incompetents that we need a police state just to keep you in line?

Libertarianism as I understand it takes as its basis that humans are capable, when given information, of making reasonable decisions and being responsible and making effort and even originating moral law.  Because we are animals who can make our own decisions, the theory goes, we ought to make our own decisions, because that is much of what it means to be fully human.  The libertarian vision of freedom is not the way most people seem to think of freedom; it is very much a freedom encumbered by responsibility and individual moral culpability.  I think of Kant and his idea that humans generate their own moral law through the exercise of reason and, to a lesser extent, compassion and then we follow that law.  Once we are adults, we shouldn't need to be told what to do by a bossy-parent state.  We should know what to do and do it because it is the law by which we govern ourselves, completely without bureaucratic intervention. 

This is also why, in terms of moral philosophy, I do not fit squarely into either the relativist camp or the universalist camp.  But that's neither here nor there for this discussion, is it?

Anyway, instead, people are stupid fucking lazy incompetents who need the government to tell them when to use the toilet, so that's what we get.  A government of, by, and for 3-year-olds, an insult to human intelligence and potential. 

I need to shutup now, because I'm starting to sound like Ayn Rand. 

To summarize:  I don't really have a party, so I either do or do not vote outside my party, depending on how you look at it.  I usually end up in some kind of bizarre compromise position of voting for whomever is the least likely candidate on the ticket, even if it's Jerry Garcia.  Or John Galt.

Whoa, look at the initials.  Maybe Jerry Garcia was John Galt.  Heavy.  Now if Ben&Jerry would just make a John Galt ice cream...until then I guess we're stuck alternating between hippie jam bands and the Americone Dream.  What a profound metaphor for American politics.

So, I'm sitting there eating some popcorn and enjoying one of life's truly great guilty pleasures, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America, listening to great Gordon tell some aspiring chef that he has tiny balls or something, when this commercial comes on.  It's for an upcoming news program about Zimbabwe and why Mugabe just can't be beat.  I think the answer is clear enough when one fella says something like, "Well, if you're the opposition, you'll be in jail."  But this does not satisfy Mr. Fucking BBC News Guy.

He asks the question:  Why does the US send its military to impose democracy on Iraq but can't be bothered with Zimbabwe?

I have to answer that question with some of my own questions:  Hey, you're British--if you care so much about Zimbabwe, why don't you send your own goddamned military to impose democracy? Or don't you think Zimbabwe is worth British blood?    Are you meaning to imply that it's a good thing America is doing in Iraq?  Because most of us would beg to differ.  Are you seriously meaning to imply that America should send its military to interfere with the politics of YET ANOTHER sovereign state?  How many nations do you think ought to have the American military in them, muddling around in their governance?  Do you seriously, seriously not realize that America has no more military to send fucking anywhere--not anywhere, not for any reason?  Do you not know that America has no more money to spend on this shit, either?  Seriously, there are a lot of nations who count on America for their defense, and right now, even such a soldiering sort of nation as America cannot muster enough troops to cover current commitments adequately, let alone add new ones.

And, last but by no means least, what the fuck? 

It's just so revoltingly stupid.  It's very easy to blame America for everything, but when are people like this guy going to realize that you don't get it both ways?  You cannot buy a Big Mac for lunch and then blame America for the fact that fast food is taking over your country--YOU fucking bought the Big Mac.  Stop buying Big Macs and American fast food companies will close for lack of profits.  Similarly, the world relies too heavily on the American military to protect them (hello, Japan) and to intervene when there is any kind of humanitarian crisis.  Then, of course, they resent our military presence everywhere.

If I was Commander in Chief, knowing this sort of thing, I'd just be all, "Dude, Mugabe?  Isn't Mugabe, like, the capital of Turkey?" because, you know, we're just stupid Americans who don't know anything about any other places and don't care.  Might as well live up the stereotype.

While we're on the subject, I keep hearing that because however many Americans cannot find Iraq on a map, they can't possibly know or understand what's going on over there or have any reasonable opinion about the war.  To me, there appears to be no logical connection between the two things.  Finding something on a map does not inherently imply or require any understanding of that thing or the geopolitical environment of that thing, or anything else.  I know it's also hilarious and gratifying to constantly harp on how stupid Americans are, but please.  You have to come up with something better than that to impress this American that she is stupid. 

I'm struck by a sudden craving for a Big Mac accompanied by tiny-scrotum jokes from Gordon Ramsay.  You know why I love Gordon Ramsay?  The man's a tyrant, yes.  But he fucking cares.  He cares about food, he cares about the chefs he works with, he cares about the restaurants he's there trying to help.  I don't watch Hell's Kitchen, because I did once, and the contestant people (people? is that the right word for that collection of cretins?) were beyond depressing.  I've never seen such a bunch of sad sack cooks in all my life.  But Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is brilliant stuff.  Come insult me, Gordon.  Please.  Because I know that if I take your insults to heart and follow your f-words to the letter, I will totally get a Michelin star. 

Speaking of food, because this will purge Mr. BBC New Man from my system, let me tell you:  Food preservation season started today.  I am not ready for that part of the garden effort yet.  But the greens are telling me it is time.  The greens, you see (and here I include spinach, some lettuces, and an array of the mustards and cabbages), hate this time of year.  They hate the day length; it makes them go to seed quickly.  They hate the sudden dry heat, which makes them turn bitter and tough.  They hate everything about it.  So, we're pulling them up.  Tonight it was mustard greens.  Tomorrow it will be spinach and bok choy and Napa cabbage and probably the red mustard as well.  God have mercy.  Because once food preservation season starts, it won't let up until late September or early October.  After the greens, there will start being peas.  And cilantro and parsley which are also desperately trying to bolt of late.  By the time we get done with that, we will be lucky to have a short time before the early cucumbers start coming in...then the early beets and carrots...and I'm already going to be exhausted before the tomatoes even come in. 

It's a strange cycle, I guess, or it seems strange these days.  You work your ass off half the year and enjoy the fruits of that the other half.  During the winter, when we're relaxed and being merry (and very cold), we are so grateful that we did the work--that we cut the wood and split it and stacked it; that we did the garden and harvested so many things; that we took those things and things we got a great deal on at the farmer's market and preserved them in some manner (canning or freezing or drying, usually) because our freezer and pantry are full of organic vegetables and fruits.  But right about now, in the start of the preservation season, it's hard to remember the times in winter when the work is done and I just have to pull stuff out of the freezer or a jar.  I must keep reminding myself of how good it is then.  That's the only way through this. 

Especially now, with these damned allergies.  I've always had hay fever, I suppose, but never like this.  Last year was bad, our first year in this town; this year is markedly worse.  T's theory is that I'm allergic to the wheat that is growing and blooming all around this town.  He may be right, since eating wheat gives me a lot of trouble.  Whatever it is, I have never suffered allergies like this, and once I find out what it is, we are moving somewhere where that thing does not grow.  I don't care if that means we're moving to Antarctica.

Whew.  We got pretty far afield from the original topic.  Fekkin BBC.

The latest Pew Global Attitudes survey showed a slight uptick in favorable attitudes towards the U.S. from other countries since the first time since the U.S. invaded Iraq. That being said, what is it about the U.S. you think other countries dislike so much? 

Ummmm, let me just say this:  I don't think that people in other countries always dislike the U.S. for precisely the reasons they claim to dislike the U.S.  For one thing, in my vast experience, many of the people who seem to really dislike the U.S. know shockingly little about it.  I understand that it is not the responsibility of the world's citizenry to know everything about the U.S., and certainly the citizenry of America knows reprehensibly little (on average) about the history of the U.S. or any other nation, but if you're going to vehemently criticize something, you ought to know what you're talking about.

I remember a while ago, some French guy traveled around the U.S. for, I don't know, 6 months or something, trying to revisit Tocqueville's great journey through a young nation.  And he comes away, of course--because he's French, yo--with all these great observations that speak directly to the American soul.  Or some such shit.  I couldn't believe The Atlantic published that nonsense.  If I traveled around, say, France...or Japan...or a country that was as racially and geographically heterogenous as the U.S. is for, say, 6 months and then professed to have special insight into that culture, people would call me an asshole and a fool.  Traveling around for 6 months and hitting up all the freak shows you can find doesn't teach you much of anything, except that you're the sort of person who thinks you can learn a lot about a nation from its freak shows.

But it's typical.  Everyone thinks they know everything about the U.S. 

Also, I find it amusing at times that Europe and Japan now try to claim some kind of moral high ground in which they, as nations, have done no wrong.  The Japanese are keen to tell people that they are a peace-loving people who have no nuclear weapons and are constitutionally unable to start wars; they fail to mention that the history of Japan until their defeat in World War II is, as with most nations, fairly well filled with war and was a particularly nasty bloodbath in the run-up to WWII, and that they are only peace-loving and unarmed now because, essentially, MacArthur made them be.  And those fair French and good Germans who dislike the U.S. sometimes seem to have forgotten their own countries' roles in the fucking up of the world; despite the fact that Africa and the Middle East are still reeling from activities that are attributable to those nations (not to mention the bloody Dutch!), it is the U.S. that is responsible, and it is the U.S. that "doesn't care about other countries" because we have so far failed to fix them (and in places, the U.S. has undoubtedly made things worse, even before the Iraq War).

Listen, it certainly isn't that I have some rosy vision of the U.S.  I have a very thorough understanding of what the U.S. did in Indochina (and, ahem, what the French did, although apparently that is no longer noteworthy--it sure made for some beautiful architecture, though) and in Mexico and Central America and even South America.  I know the CIA invaded Australia, and I still find that hilarious ("hand over the Tim Tams, or we shoot!").  I know.  But I also know that the U.S. is not actually responsible for every single problem that exists in the world today, although you would think that every individual American is literally responsible for every single problem in the world today from listening to some of these people ("yes, yes, I actually bombed Hiroshima all by myself, now fuck off or I'll do it to you, too").

In the current election cycle, which will go on forever and ever, I find it especially ridiculous when we're accused of being too racist or sexist to elect whichever one of them.  Uh, right.  I look around the developed world and, oh, yes, I certainly see an impressive racial and gender diversity in the leaders (oh, especially France).  I always manage to forget somehow that the U.S. is the only nation where racism still exists.  Just like I always manage to forget that the U.S. is the only nation in which slavery existed and that this was the last place where it ever existed.  Right? 

I was suddenly reminded of the videos we had to watch in French 101, some telenovela kind of thing that was supposed to give us "cultural insight" while also teaching us how to order aperitifs.  In one of them, a poodle is fucking yapping away, like poodles do, and one of the main characters says to the dog, "Oh, are you talking Arab talk?"  I about shit my pants.  Listen, Frenchie, that kind of thing is not acceptable in America.  Also, you might think about wearing a bra, especially on days like this that are apparently VERY cold.  Because between the racism and the nipples, I'm having difficulty focusing.

*sigh*  I'm just not drinking the right Kool-Aid. 

Sorry, people.  I haven't had much to say lately.  I'm exhausted (new job, garden, super crap weather, son's been sick, etc.)  I used to be able to come online and get myself worked up about something and spout off--you know, back in the good old days of Gin and roses.  But I can't even do that anymore.  If there is indeed nothing new under the sun, then there is also no new illogic, no new stupidity, no new crap.  So it just doesn't bother me anymore.  I guess it does on some level, but not enough to make me want to tear open someone's jugular with my teeth, the way it used to. 

We did go to Texas over Memorial Day weekend, or at least the kid and I did (T stayed home and did manly things).  We went to Sea World and now our house has become a minor shrine to Shamu.  We spent time with the extended family.  For me, actually, the best part of the whole trip was watching my son totally hit it off with his cousins whom he hadn't seen in a couple of years.  He played basketball with Cousin Hunter, who is 14 and way too cool to be playing basketball with overexcited 3-year-olds.  He jumped on the trampoline with Cousin Conner--and that is nearly unbelievable considering Conner has fragile X syndrome and until recently had very limited social skills.  He cuddled with Cousin Lance who is also 14.  He let Uncle Pat take him to the potty, and yes this is a big deal, because he has a very well-defined potty ritual that he doesn't trust just anyone to execute properly (specifically, he is very concerned about the types of toilets, types of flushers, brands of soap, and whether or not the faucet and paper towels are automatic.  He likes Kohler and Crane toilets; he dislikes American Standard toilets because their flushes are too loud.  He likes when the flusher is present, not automatic, and shaped like a whale.  Seriously.  You can't just take him potty.  You have to remark on all these details.  It's odd).  Other than the extraordinary heat (I do so love it when the temperature and the humidity have the same numbers--90 and 90?  100 and 100?  How did I used to stand that shit?), it was a very good trip. 

I have to say, though, that I suffered without my T.  I have come to realize over the years that I need him.  His work schedule, as has probably been mentioned, is difficult, and we go for a couple of weeks with almost no family time, and by the end of that when he gets his 4 days off, I need the family time to bring me back to balance.  I get so out of whack without T around.  Anyway, it happened that we were in Texas and he was home during his 4 days off, so I never got that time with him to sort myself out, and I went off to Texas in a sour mood--a sour mood that existed mostly as a substrate.  That is to say, I had fun and was so glad to see my uncles and cousins, but at some deeper level, the mood never really improved.  Now T and I have made a pact that we're going to make better use of his limited days off so that I don't get so bent to start with.  Most of the married people I know are all about doing their own thing as individuals, getting their "me" time, getting time away from their spouses when they can.  We're not like that.  In our off time, we want to be together, we need to be together for what each of us gives to the other.  We're trying to get to a place, actually, where we'll both be working at home so that we'll be together even more.  It feels so strange to admit this, like we're the complete antimoderns.

Then again, I probably am the complete antimodern.  To hell with modernity.

I've also been thinking about Hegel.  And JS Mill a little.  It has always bugged me that Americans (and possibly people on other continents as well, but I'm not sure) get some kind of filter-down from philosophy (and lit theory to an extent) but don't actually know the source behind it and certainly don't understand it well enough to analyze and critique the ideas.  So, some half-assed version of Derrida-inspired postmodernism has filtered out into society and infected it like drug-resistant TB.  But much more insidious, to my mind, is the unquestioned Hegelian notion of progress.  Americans believe in progress.  It is a notion we have wholeheartedly bought into.  We tend to believe that the history of humanity is a progression toward something, a kind of ultimate, final humanity in which everything is (I guess) perfect.  Hegel posited the thesis-antithesis-synthesis paradigm, and while most people likely don't know what those three words mean, they mostly agree with the sentiment, and that is why anyone could take Francis Fukuyama seriously.  It has come to be--and Mill comes in here a bit--that a large segment of America thinks that any idea that is new and supported by a minority is a good idea and will constitute progress once accepted by everyone.  While I am sure hardly any Americans recognize the link between the American notion of progress and Hegel, I think that even fewer would want to know that one of the most important Hegelians is Karl Marx.  I keep asking people what they think is waiting at the end of history, the end of the rainbow, but the fact is that I reject the very idea of "progress."  I reject the idea that humanity is moving forward or even can move forward.  I was laughing at that QotD about how we can stop violence in the world, and while on some level Soup got it right when he suggested we could stop violence by just ceasing to be violent, on another level, humanity probably always will be violent.  We're animals.  That's what it comes down to.  We're animals, and animals are brutal.  I don't think that we can or should change that very fundamental fact of nature.  We don't make progress.  We go from one bad idea to another, not that anyone notices anymore now that everyone's on psychotropics of one kind or another.  We have no way at all to measure this "progress," except for money, and we take it for granted (despite all contrary evidence) that getting every people in the world on a monetary economy and getting them all into public education will be significant progress.  I guess then we can get them on Prozac, too, and the world will be supersweet.

So, I reject the idea of progress and I see no evidence that we are, as a species, making progress.  What I do see is that in the striving and the fighting to find the end of the rainbow, we're making life measurably worse on a microlevel.  Cultures and languages are dying at such a pace that it's laughable to even argue that they're worth saving.  People refuse to associate with neighbors and even family members because they hold differing political views or practice different religions or non-religions.  People are offended and angry all the damn time, about everything, even sometimes about kids who have the gall to, say, cry in public.  How has the world become better?  What is this progress? 

But of course our historical memory is so short now that we have no real way to measure what progress would be.  My husband and I think we are probably going to homeschool our son.  Most people's instant reaction is to express their concern that he won't receive proper socialization.  OK.  First, as recently as 100 years ago, hardly any kids went to public schools, and they mostly learned social skills anyway.  We seem to have forgotten that public education as the great socializing force is a new invention.  Second, and this is a big issue for me, do kids really need to be socialized to kids their own age?  Isn't the goal of education and child-rearing to teach them how to act like and someday become grown-ups?  Isn't the idea that someday they're supposed to not bicker and hit and throw sand and interrupt conversations but act the way grown-ups once acted?  How do they learn that from being around kids all day?  I'm at a loss as to how this works, even theoretically, because kids are going to mimic the behavior they see the most, and if that is childish behavior, they're going to act more childish and less mature.  I think back to when my grandma was a teenager and had her first kid when she was 15, and she was married then and for all intents and purposes, she was a grown-up.  She learned her social skills primarily from working with various generations together on farms; there were kids around, of course, but they were expected to be learning how to act like adults, and I'd say she did.  How does public school accomplish this?  I can't see, honestly, that it does.  I want my son to get a good education, one that challenges him and keeps him interested and on his toes, and I want him to learn how to be an adult.  And, really?  I'm supposed to think that somehow being around kids all day in a group where the focus is on the average is going to accomplish either of those goals?  Christ. 

I wonder if humans will ever get past the idea that we can do better than nature can and has for these millions of years.  We keep thinking that, whatever our knowledge of human and animal evolution teaches us, we can ignore that and do it the opposite way and it will be so much better.  If you're on the right, then you probably think big business can figure out better ways to subvert and control nature; if you're on the left, you think some combination of science and the government can.  This hubris is a kind of sickness, but that's alright because I'm sure Pfizer is working on a drug for it. 

Also, I want to say a few words about Libertarians because Colbert had Bob Barr on tonight.  I'm a libertarian (small 'l'--I'm not a party joiner), and we get a lot of flack for wanting to do away with the FDA or whatever and people are all, "But that's to protect our safety!"  To me, this is looking at the issue from the wrong starting point.  Why do we need the FDA to protect us?  Because we've allowed our lives to become ruled by centralized, unknowable corporations.  If we begin from a place where such centralization and lack of local control is a given, then the argument that we need bureaucracies like the FDA is persuasive.  But if we begin from a point where we get back to local control over education, land use, food sources and so forth, then we don't need big federal bureaucracies.  If you know the farmer who raised your food and slaughtered your chickens, do you really need a government inspector coming in to tell you it's safe?  Just go check out the operation, talk to people who eat the food from that farm, and figure it out for yourself. 

I'm always trying to teach my son that for every decision you make, whether it was the right one or the wrong one, you have to take responsibility for it.  You have to gather the information to make a decision, and then you make it, and you take what consequences come.  At his age, his decisions are mostly simple:  We can play for 10 more minutes, but then we won't have time to go to the library.  If you want to go to the library, we have to go now.  What do you want to do?  But he considers the information, and he has to live with the consequences, and that's what we want to teach him.  What we do not want to teach him is to just leave everything up to some faceless committee in Iowa and surely everything will be alright. 

Feh.  I hereby withdraw from society.  Does that mean I have to give back the economic stimulus check?

OK, I've been puzzling over the health care plans put forth by Clinton and Obama (and Edwards, not that it matters anymore).  I've read them.  I've read commentaries on them.  And there are still some things I don't get.

How are these requirements that insurance suddenly become universal (in that no one can be denied on the basis of preexisting conditions and so forth) and also affordable supposed to work?  I mean, as far as I can tell, both plans are still working through mostly private insurers--that is, insurance companies that exist to make profit.  I think that a) the insurance companies are going to put up one hell of a fight about that and b) Congress and the courts won't go for it anyway, because requiring companies to do this sort of thing seems like a government intrusion into business that no one will actually approve.

Also, how exactly are we going to mandate (Clinton does; Obama not, apparently) that everyone buy insurance of some kind without also having pretty far-reaching solutions for the growing lower classes?  I understand Clinton wants to mandate that everyone buy insurance but at the same time index the premiums to income--but we're talking mostly about families who are already stretched to the breaking point.  Real wages haven't gone up in my lifetime; we're losing jobs; we're in a bloody recession!  There are already plenty of us who can technically afford health insurance but still cannot actually afford to go to the doctor for simple things like strep throat*.  I don't see this helping that situation, although they claim that they are going to reduce health-care costs at the same time.  But it is not at all clear to me how exactly this is supposed to happen. 

I understand this has been compared to requiring car insurance, which we already do.  Except that there are actually a lot of people out there who flout that mandate because they either cannot afford or cannot get car insurance.  You can require people to do things that they still do not do--I know this well, as I have a 2-year-old in my house.  Paul Krugman is arguing that Clinton's plan, by mandating that all the poor schleps out there further stretch their budget by buying some kind of health insurance, will get us universal health care.  Mmmm, I doubt it.  It will likely get nearly everyone to be insured, yes, but if they still can't afford to go to the doctor when they need to, I don't think it's much of a victory.

I thought--silly me--that the idea behind universal health care was that all people would be covered and be able to afford to actually use the services of health care providers.  Unless Clinton and/or Obama suddenly comes up with radical plans to greatly reduce the already plentiful economic burdens on those of us who exist between the median income and the poverty line, I really don't see this helping very much. 

Am I too pessimistic, or am I missing some key part of their plans?  O wise readers, please tell me it's one or the other (or both) because otherwise, this poo just stinks.

*Last year, we (my family) were in this position.  This year we're a little better off.  The main difference is not that we have more money but that T's employer offers flexible spending accounts (which Hillary does not approve of, or so I hear) that allow us to deposit a portion of each of his paychecks into a special account we can use for medical expenses.  You get a tax break by doing this, but the tax break doesn't actually save us any money because our tax bracket is already a negative percent.  All it does for us is ensures that there is money for medical expenses.  We don't miss the $34 or whatever per paycheck, and then the money is there when we need it.  However, we don't miss that money mostly because we are excessively, obsessively frugal, and I believe a lot of families in our income bracket would miss it.

Oh, man, so I mentioned recently that when I took that quiz, the candidate I came up most matching with was Mike Gravel, right?  Then today I read this, and OH YEH, GRAVEL FTW!

Not that that will happen of course.  But imagine a world in which the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the COMMANDER IN CHIEF of our big freakin armed forces thinks that war is never the answer!  Can you imagine?  It makes me all giddy just thinking about it.

I mean, seriously.  America is all about war.  And here he thinks that maybe we could find better things to do with ourselves than kill people?  It's...it's unimaginable.  It's also a strategy that will not get you put on any ballots anywhere in the country.  Super.

And another thing.  Since it looks like McCain is the likely Republican nominee, I've been thinking about the matchup, and I don't think Hillary can beat him.  Certainly she knows more about domestic policy, but the American people don't vote for someone based on what that person knows.  There is the war thing, of course, where Hillary claims to want to end it and McCain apparently doesn't care if it just sort of goes on forever. 

But.  McCain tends to attract right-ish Democrats and independents, whereas Clinton tends not to.  It is my humble opinion that McCain generally appeals to rural and Southern voters more, too.  And finally, and I think this may be a biggie--she's been running all this time as the "experienced" candidate, right?  I realize she doesn't have to keep a consistent message from the primaries to the general election, but a) she can't win the "experience" thing against McCain, no way, b) she can't become a "change" candidate because HELLO OLIGARCHY and anyway she represents politics as usual, and c) she will get hammered by the voters who already are inclined to dislike her for changing her message--wishy-washy liberals and the politician in her saying whatever it takes to get elected instead of what she really believes, etc.; we've heard this all before about many a Democrat candidate, no?  She could win on domestic policy because, again, she certainly knows a lot about the economy and health care that McCain does not.  But she can't win on foreign policy against him (she could have won on domestic and foreign policy against Romney, I think, and handily).

Now, Obama, I think, could beat McCain.  In Barack and John, I think there are two such completely different people--in temperament, in experience, in beliefs--that it wouldn't be a fight over who knows more or who has more experience.  Instead it would be more of a debate about what we believe and what kind of person we want up there, and I think Barack could win that.  Change!  Youth!  Handsomeness!  Diplomacy!  Heckuva wife!  Unity!  Hope!  Did I mention the handsome thing?

So, does that mean I'm voting Obama?  No way.  GO GO GADGET GRAVEL!  GRAVEL/EDWARDS '08!  With Richardson as Secretary of State.  There's your change.  Suddenly we're a nation of leftish libertarians who decides to use the money freed up by ending the war on drugs to implement real sex education and make sure all people can get their hands on (and know how to use) contraception.  Suddenly we're taking real steps to fight poverty.  Suddenly we have an experienced diplomat--someone who fundamentally believes in diplomacy and knows how to do it--as Sec. of State.  What a different world it would be.

And what about Barack, whom I have grown to like?  Make him Secretary of Unity and Hope and Smooth Talking.  Make him Secretary of Positive Thinking.  Make him Secretary of How to Keep Your Integrity by Not Voting for Senseless Wars (of course, we won't have senseless wars if we have Gravel--wooooo, Gravel!).  Make him Secretary of Handsomeness. 

I guess Hillary could be Secretary of Pantsuits and Overanalyzed Crying.  She could also be Secretary of Takin' Care of Business (workin' overtime!).

I've completely lost my head.  I need this election to be over.

P.S.  How the fuck has it come to be that someone can win the popular vote but not win the majority of delegates?  The results from some states are showing Barack with a popular win but Hillary with more delegates?  Did we not learn anything at all from the Gore v. Bush debacle, people?  THIS IS ALLEGEDLY A REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY, RIGHT?  COME ON, PEOPLE.  I believe we are supposed to be nominating the person the most people actually voted for. 

So, I just took this quiz to see which presidential candidate I am most closely aligned with, and it proclaimed me to have an 86% similarity with Mike Gravel.

And I'm thinking, Mike Gravel?  That dude from Alaska?  Is he running for President? 

I know who he is, but I had no idea he was running for President.  Or, I think I had a vague notion that he was running for President but I guess I didn't realize he still is running.  You know, it's possible I would have realized he was running for President if he was ever mentioned as a presidential candidate in any of the media I read.  I get most of my coverage online, of course, like any modern girl, and I had no idea dude was running.  Everything is Hillary this and Obama that, which both Richardson and Edwards noted and had noted on their behalf.  But who has any love for Gravel?

Anyway, I was also 84% similar to Edwards.  I knew it!

My similarities to the two pet candidates of the liberal mass media (hee hee!) were very close to each other but a full 10 points below my similarities to Gravel and Edwards.  And let's face it, the health care plans of both Clinton and Obama have a lot to do with the plan Edwards came up with (although all of them are very meh and uninspiring and even kind of not good, but, hey, this is America, and we're not a bunch of damned socialists!). 

So, media:  Why no love for the white boys this year?  Me, I don't care about the gender or color of the person who will put an end to this senseless and wasteful war or who will wangle a way to make health care affordable or who will fix the No Child Left Behind mess.  I don't see color or gender as particularly germane to those issues.

Obama is very cute, though.  Maybe we could talk more about that and just forget about that pesky war.  Gee, you think he wears boxers or briefs?

I almost linked the "boxers or briefs" bit to this, referring to Bill Clinton being asked that, but when I noticed that the blogmeister refers to the life of Hunter S. Thompson as a "67-year-long episode of Jackass" I'm afraid I just couldn't deal.  Because, yeah, Thompson was so totally all about stuffing foreign objects up his ass for the comedic value.   Curse you, MTV, for soiling the universe.

Yeah, so, I've been writing these things about why I think the Democratic party is losing votes in rural areas, particularly in the South and West, and it just seems to me like maybe it's a lost cause.  The Democrats are increasingly the party of urban people, and it seems more and more unlikely to me that it will ever be anything but.  Eh, well, whatever. 

I'm in a funk because Democrats are leaving me with few options.  Edwards, the only candidate who reliably demonstrated an interest in those of us who live outside of the cities, is not going to win.  Fabulous.  Edwards I would have voted for.  He has flaws, sure, but they all do, and his seem to be more due to overzealous adherence to his principles than anything else.

I won't vote for Hillary.  That much is for sure.  I won't vote for her even if she wins the nomination, I think.  She sucks.  I don't like her using Bill in South Carolina, and I don't like the tone Bill has taken on lately.  "Here I am, the first serious woman candidate for president, but I need my ex-president husband to win this for me."  Yeah, OK, Hillary.  Way to go.  Also, your health care plan is incredibly stupid.  I can't vote for you.  I don't want you and Bill back in the White House.  Also, you need to back the hell off and remember that *you* don't have experience in the White House except as First Lady, and being President as opposed to married to the President is a slightly different ballgame.  So, just step back with your "experience" kick.  Bleh. 

The idea that Hillary could get the Democratic nomination alarms me.  The Democrats seriously need to win this election, and I think there are too many people who really don't want to vote for her. 

So, Obama.  I need to find out more about him--I don't know enough about his actual policy ideas (beyond "hope" and "unity" which are, mmm, vague and alarmingly reminiscent of the shining city on a hill crap.  Also, they tell me he's black).   However, at this point, he seems to be the only thing standing between me and whoever is running on the Libertarian ticket.  Maybe Green Party if they're on the ballot in Idaho.

In a year in which the Democrats should be a total shoe-in due to extreme dislike of Bush, the Iraq War, the downturn in the economy, and all of that, please don't tell me that we're going to make the divide between urban and rural even worse.  This could be a time for uniting...but I don't know if it's going to turn out that way.

I read an interesting thing the other day (I think it was on Slate, and I think it was by Richard Thompson Ford, but I'm not going to look it up right now) about how the blue states should give more consideration to federalism and "states' rights" and take their more liberal, progressive measures on at the state level.  That way blue states could have their gay marriage, and red states could have their hog-tying contests, and we could live essentially as two countries.  But this isn't really about red states and blue states, or it doesn't have to be.  That's why I posted that Purple America thing.  The Democrats are losing most of rural America, even in some of the "blue states."  And I wonder...I'm sure they would get enough votes out of the city people to pass their desired legislation, but--ah, back to imposing your beliefs and all that.  Because urbanites know best for everyone and apparently believe the entire world is their world, and we out here are novelties and hillbillies.

But more than that, I just wonder how this animus started.  Democrats were the populist party, the party of the South, of farmers and union workers.  And now they are the party of academics and urbanites.  I'm sure some erudite historian has an explanation, but I don't think your average Democrat any longer even really thinks it's a problem.  The odds would be in their favor, presumably, as urbanization increases.  On the other hand, Republicans overall tend to breed more (like I said, no Republican calls mothers "breeders"--and then turns around and says "homosexuality is a dehumanizing and offensive term."  Oh, and calling a woman a "breeder" isn't?  Right, got it.), so their luck might not hold.  I know I'm having an increasingly difficult time giving a rip about Democrats.

And I'm getting really, really sick of hearing urban Democrats talk about rural people as if they were stupid throwbacks--and as if we're all Christian Republicans out here.  Feh.  Feh.  That's all I've got to say about this election. 

Here is the second exciting installment in my beef with the aforementioned devil groups.  The way this one plays out is quite different from the gun control episode though, so you'll want to hang around for the amazing conclusion.

I am not a person of faith.  I believe in no god or set of gods or religion.  I am not even a secular humanist, as my faith in humans is somewhat less than my faith in most of the gods I've heard of.  I would even go so far as to say that science, while it often brings us almost miraculous salvations, is not a basket I would stick all my eggs in.  And, as Marvin Gaye cautioned, I believe roughly half of what I see and none of what I hear. 

In other words, my feelings about Christianity and about the salvation offered by science (to take two examples only) are similar.  Atheists who devoutly believe that the scientific method can do no wrong (and, what's more, that incredibly fallible human scientists can do no wrong) are only somewhat less frightening to me than Christians who energetically believe that Christ will come again, and that is probably only because science continues to find new and ever-more-interesting means of birth control.

So, I am not a person of great faith, though I'm sure some of you will find things that I have faith in.  I believe, for example, in the basic and essential wisdom and beauty of nature and its cycles.  I believe that Wallace Stevens could save the lost soul of man if we let him.  I believe that the Beatles were better than the Rolling Stones.

All that being said, if I hear one more lefty say, "Well, Huckabee wants to impose his beliefs on the rest of the country," I'm going to scream.  Why do I keep picking on the Huckmeister, anyway?  I have no idea.  He unnerves me more than the other candidates, and many of my fellow lefties seem to feel similarly. 

Anyway, the reason this statement bothers me so much is not that it is untrue.  It is almost certainly true.  I am 99% certain that Huckabee wishes to impose his beliefs on the nation.  The reason it bothers me is because that is pretty much what all of us want to do, all the time.

Huckabee believes, for example, that choosing to live a homosexual lifestyle is immoral; that belief is based on the version of Christianity to which he subscribes, yes--not the only version of Christianity there is, mind you.  Believing it is immoral, he at the very least wishes not to sanction it by making gay marriage legal, and probably he wishes to actually recriminalize homosexual activities (not, like, dressing nice or something--I mean other kinds of activities). 

I, and probably all of you and most of America and the world, disagree with him that it is immoral to be homosexual.  I think homosexuality is of no particular moral import, and it is very difficult for me to understand the thinking of a person like Huckabee.  Yet there are people who believe the same things he does and have their reasons, I suppose.  And so we have a disagreement about morality, but we are similarly trying to impose our beliefs on our country.  If given an opportunity, we would happily run to Capitol Hill, declare that it is not immoral and that gay marriage (or any type of discrimination against gays) is a question of equal civil rights, and sign it right into law.  If we did that right now, most Americans would disagree with us, probably; I believe it is still the case that the majority of Americans still oppose gay marriage, although I believe that majority is slowly declining, too.  I could be wrong.  The point is that some significant portion of Americans would disagree with it, yet we would impose our beliefs on them.   Liberals are no less self-righteous and fascist in their desire to make everyone think the same way they do*.  I do not necessarily think we would be wrong to do so--that is what humans tend to do when we strongly feel that something is immoral, after all.  A significant number of Americans also opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it was signed into law, yet progressives managed to impose their belief that it was the right thing to do and did it, and now we've gradually come around so that I expect there is hardly anyone who would undo it (I know there are always fringe groups, neo-Nazis and the like, who would, but they are a very small minority, let's face it).

Now, Huckster Mike is no Lincoln or FDR (both presidents who imposed their vision and beliefs on the country), but what I want to say is that, though he's Christian and I'm not, I could be accused of the same thing--yes, I would impose my beliefs on everyone.  And so would most of us.  When you believe something, anything, strongly enough--and particularly if it is a question of morality to you--you will quite happily make people do that thing, however you have to go about it.  If I were President suddenly, would I force Congress to accept a single-payer health system?  Yes, you bet.  I can be very persuasive when I'm of a mind to be.  Would I force the sick bastards who make their dogs and cats become vegetarians start feeding their pets the chunky cans of dubious meat chunks in gravy?  Oh, yes.  I believe in whole foods (not the store--the actual foods), so would I find ways to make veggies cheaper than soda?  Yes, despite the fact that people really like soda better. 

See?  I'm just as willing to force you all to succumb to my evil will as a Republican is.  I used to tell a coworker that deep down inside we all have a little tiny Hitler trying to get out.  Maybe we should say "dictator" instead of Hitler, but the point remains.  Most people have strong beliefs about what is moral and what is not, and most people would gleefully force/coerce others to act the way they want them to act.

So, then, what (to me) is the acceptable reason we don't vote for the Huck?  The main thing, of course, is he wants to anally violate the Constitution.  The job of the President is to uphold the Constitution, and here he wants to just go and do it in.  It's like nominating John Bolton to the UN, man.  You're kind of disqualified by virtue of the fact that you cannot fulfill your most essential function.  Dubya has, of course, done some damage to the Constitution, too, by way of the Patriot Act and the Gitmo torture sessions and all of it, but he hasn't actually done anything to the Constitution itself, whereas Huckabee just wants to go in there and fuck around and make it so that the Supreme Court, say, has no choice but to declare sodomy laws constitutional.  The other things are that I obviously disagree with most of his views on the divisive moral issues, I find his economic policies suspect, and I don't like his eyes.

Now, liberals--don't get all self-righteous here saying that you don't want to fuck around with the Constitution yourself.  If you all could do something about the Second Amendment, I'm confident most of you would. 

*Incidentally, there is a book out about how liberals are the inheritors of the fascist tradition, not conservatives.  I haven't read the book, but I have read a couple of reviews and interviews with the author, and he makes some good points.  I have suggested that there is a possiblity that if the Democrats continue to irk me, I might vote Republican.  That actually is not a possibility.  What is a very real possibility, as I have done it in the past, is that I would vote Libertarian.  I don't dig the fascist thing, whether it's from right or left.

*And, please.  I'm not anti-science.  It's just that scientists, like Nostradamus, are frequently wrong, and they often contradict each other.  Besides, they also often proffer new medicines and such that they don't really understand, either.  So people who want to make policies based on newish findings of scientific research scare me a little.  Like, if back in the 1970s there was a law passed banning butter, thus forcing everyone to use margarine instead, that would have turned out to be incredibly bad public health policy, yet the science devotees would have touted the latest findings and research.  Mmm.  So, I just like to remain skeptical until, as Buck Turgidson would say, "all the facts are in."

I was just talking to my mom a bit ago about the Democrats and gun control, and she indicated to me that the Dems have started saying that gun control is an issue better left up to lower levels of government.  If this is true, this is the most politically savvy thing I've seen the Democrats do in a long time.  I had just been telling Mom that gun control is one place where Democrats and "liberals" usually lose me and make me want to give a spite vote to Huckabee (of course, deep down I really just like Huckabee because what a fun name!  How jolly it would be to refer to President Huckabee for 4 years of Bible camp!  It lends itself so nicely to Copy-Guy-style nicknaming--the Huckmeister, Huckarama, Huckabeetle, etc.  ahem.) because I believe most gun control policy at the federal level is an attempt to solve an urban problem with a universal measure. 

Let me explain.  Out here in Jesusland, guns are tools.  We use them to procure food for our families--not by holding up a Safeway but by hunting and/or killing our livestock.  We use them to ward off predators from our poultry and livestock.  We use them to put down suffering animals.  We also shoot for sport--targets, skeet, beer cans, whatever--but we grow up with them around as tools.  They have nothing to do with machismo or penis size, as some liberals will assert--I wish I thought they were only saying those things in jest, because it makes them sound simple-minded and bitter.  They have nothing to do with being tough or cool.  They just are.  They are akin to cars, only they often last longer, getting handed down from generation to generation.  My first rifle was my stepdad's first rifle, and it will be my son's first rifle.  If only our Toyota would last that long.

In cities, or so I am given to understand, gun crime is a gigantic problem.  Out here in Jesusland, there are virtually no murders--seriously, dudes, the most exciting stories on the news are usually about the weather.  (oooh, blizzard warning!  The lead story in spring/fall is often about whether we are anticipating frost.)  Gun crime is a problem for our nation, America as a whole, yes.  But out here we think, reasonably, that it might do to put more severe limitations on guns in circumstances where it will actually help prevent crime than impose it on someone who just wants to get the coyotes out of the chicken coop. 

And, essentially, every election cycle for years now, the Democrats have been losing votes on this issue (not only this one--there are others, but this has been a big one in the West).  It is never a Republican who dismisses sport/target shooting as stupid and frivolous.  It is never a Republican who dismisses hunters as barbarians (ah, because it's so much more civilized to eat meat that has been subject to the industrial feedlot system, killed for you with manure still on him, semi-cleaned, and wrapped in plastic).  It is never a Republican who wants to tell a farmer who has used a gun as a tool all of his life that he is irresponsible, likely to become a "nut" and a criminal at any minute, and go on a shooting spree down at the local bar.  Those kinds of statements always come from the left, and they alienate those of us who are Democratically inclined but rural. 

Also, why do you blame the gun for gun crime?  Do you blame the car for traffic fatalities?  Oh, and incidentally, last I checked, there were more traffic fatalities in America than there were gun-related murders.  Why aren't we more anti-car?  But I think this dude put it really well when he said,

Why do you cover high murder rates and seldom mention how unsafe our cities are for those driving, walking, or bicycling? I know the answer – it’s the same concept as when I get scared when my plane takes off and I don’t think twice about driving in a car – the fear of the spectacular. A plane crash and the murder of an innocent person are spectacular events. Unfortunately, the death of over 40,000 Americans each year in cars and the numerous deaths of pedestrians and bicyclists rarely make the news.

There are other issues where "liberals" alienate wide swaths of the population, myself included, and I've decided to go ahead and go over some of these in the next few days.  I am quite certain most of you will dislike it, but my point, it should be remembered, is that I am in essential agreement with nearly all liberal goals (as, incidentally, are most of the people of this country).  It's the fucking rhetoric that gets tossed off on the liberal side that threatens to totally alienate me, and I should think liberal types and Democrats would want to win over every Western/rural vote they can get.  Only winning the reliably blue urban/coastal areas isn't enough. 

I am not going to pick on the Republican/conservative rhetoric in the same way.  Why?  Yes, it is a mess as well, but a) it has been a more politically effective mess in recent years, and b) it is widely known that I already disagree with most of it anyway. 

And also, and keep this in mind, I am going to employ a shorthand in which I refer to several types of person under the very rough banner "liberal."  All of these people--academic types, "feminists" who publish "feminist" blogs, registered Democrats, Green Party geeks, gay rights activists, Nation columnists, and so forth--are prone to voting Democrat-ish and often identify themselves as "liberal" or "left," so I'm going to conveniently group them together and let them know exactly where they lose me and others like me.  I'm not doing this to be assy and vindictive--I'm going this because I want the Democrats to stop losing votes for senseless reasons and win.  I want them to understand why they have trouble out here in the Rocky Mountain West and, increasingly, in the South (when the South was traditionally Democrat) so they can come to some kind of solution and win the hell out of the next election.

On a brighter note, let us all stop for a moment and give thanks that we now have less than one year remaining of the Bush-whackery.  Perhaps we will survive.