Some Things Don’t Get Better With Age

Like politics. When I was 18, I was idealistic and relished the right to vote. I considered myself a supporter of one of the major parties at that time, although I’ve never been a member of any party.

After the first couple of presidential elections, I began to cast my vote more on the basis of the candidate I thought was the lesser of two evils. That was the end of any semblance of party allegiance, although I still tend to identify with one over the other. And I’ve always been opposed to straight party ticket. The vote all one party lever/box/chad/radio button simply panders to laziness and facilitates thoughtless lack of reasoning on the issues of the day so people can say they voted. A straight ticket vote is like a plebiscite in a dictatorship; there’s no real choice there.

Candidate Obama was not my choice for president in 2008. In fact, most of the candidates raised my ire by dissing Michigan. Nonetheless, I never expected the divisiveness and extreme partisanship that followed Mr. Obama’s inauguration. It seems politicians, and those who consider themselves political pundits, have lost all sense of civility. They refuse to compromise, or even discuss matters, with the other side, simply because.

Before the elections in 2010, it was Democrats Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who were arrogant as hell and did whatever they please. Now it’s Republicans stonewalling everything based on the “will of the people.” Wake up! We voted for change (except in Michigan) because we were tired of politics as usual and failure to deliver. What did we get? A pig with lipstick. We’re halfway through the fiscal year and there is no sign of an honest-to-goodness effort to sponsor and pass any appropriations bills, one of Congress’ key Constitutional obligations.

Lest you all consider this is a strictly US phenomenon consider, and all of my rant just to introduce, I Wish by Uncommon Sense:

I find it really hard to care about Canadian politics these days.

The same old parties are ranting along the same old lines about the same old things. Not a one of them offers or even wants any change to the system. Sure they gripe and moan about how “they” would do it differently, about how “they” are the only ones offering any new this or that, but the fact remains that if you look at it really hard you can see that all you need to do is change the faces, and the rants spewing forth across the house could come from any party at any time.

We don’t have political parties we have pragmatic collectives who feed, vampire like off the votes of those who they dupe into their ideological lairs. Conservatives sell their souls in the hope that their particular status-quo will be maintained, Liberal voters pant and repent at the altar of progressive reform while the Dippers don the revolutionary garb and wave the red flag of socialism. All, in the end, get exactly nothing.

Our politicians word is written in water and nailing down any ideal (other than their prime directive of “thou shall get re-elected”) is like nailing jello to the side of a battleship in a North Atlantic gale.

The best-worst thing is I can see an end to it, but it relies on the end of the entire system, which is to say a political or social or economic apocalypse the like of which has never been seen.

I imagine an Atlas Shrugged type collapse, a greatest depression, widespread social chaos spread across the entire planet. I see an unstoppable absolute and irretrievable end to the world as we know it and it think…

I wish.