When Scott , Kale, and I started this blog site, our intention was to blog about things we were passionate about and do so in our own unique styles. Mine tends towards the pedantic, obsessive researcher style, with lots of supporting documents and pretentious quoting.
This post, however, is going to be 99% opinion. Maybe more. I have a lot of opinions. So hang onto your bustles, kiddies….
Worrying for Fun and Profit
“The status is not quo. The world is a mess, and I just need to… rule it.”[Dr. Horrible]
It feels like everything has gone insane these days. Politicians engage in antics more often seen in middle school lunch rooms than in political debates and rallies; movements and counter-movements vie for attention amidst media coverage that misleads, misinforms, or just f’ing misses the damned point; and the drums of war beat over the chanting of disgruntled Americans so desperately hoping to find someone who cares about them that they raise their arms and pledge fealty to a skeezy, sexist, billionaire (ish?) playboy with a penchant for bankruptcy, unpaid bills, and alleged sexual assault.
I am old enough (no, I’m not going to tell you how old, you cheeky monkey) to have fond, if inaccurate, memories of things in America being a little less dystopian and a little more civil. I remember learning about government in high school. If my imperfect memory serves me right, the Republicans were the party of the working man, the strivers and the scholars and the scientists, the astronauts and the captains of industry. The Democrats were the party of equality and care, of fairness and nurture, nuts and neophytes.
Here’s the thing… if you want to live here, there is something you have to accept. It is, in my not-so-humble opinion, one of the most important things about the United States of America. It says it in the Declaration of Independence: “…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.” We are in this together. We don’t have to agree all of the time, or even most of the time, but the oft-revered founding fathers (pardon the sexism, it’s historical in context) were clear that while they didn’t necessarily like one another, they were prepared to stand united. This is the thing that we all have to remember. Today my party may be ascendant. My views may be the majority rule, and my needs may be the ones that are met with the most regularity. Not all of my views, not all of my needs, but most. Tomorrow it may be your needs and your views and your party that are making the majority of the decisions for the nation.
When this election is over, I may not like the next president. In that case, I will bitch and whine and mutter under my breath (or at the top of my lungs on occasion), but I won’t throw a fit over the results, I won’t talk insurrection, and I won’t whinge and moan about it being rigged or a cheat. Because sometimes my party will LOSE. That’s the way it works. We vote up and down the ticket, choosing the person we each think will best represent our needs and beliefs in the government. We hope that the person we choose will be chosen by the majority of our neighbors, and that when that person gets to D.C. to represent us that they will do so with our best interests and opinions in mind. We hope that they will vote in such a way that they benefit all of us, even the ones who didn’t vote for them. Because that’s the way it works. If the person we chose doesn’t get in, we hope the same thing, that the person who did will work to represent all of us as best they can. If they don’t, then next time they’re up for reelection, we go back to the voting booth and vote for someone else. Or we gird ourselves for the muck pit that is politics and run for office opposing them ourselves. Either way, we work within the system. Period.
You and me. One of us is going to be less than thrilled with the outcome of this election. But at the end of the day, we need to pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to one another, and damn the torpedoes of shady politics. This is our ship. Let’s not sink it.
Politically Skewed 