To Vote or Not To
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Here is my September 11 reflection.
I am fed up with politics. It is all show and no go. A recent article on SFGate.com, linked from Google News, reports that Kerry is blasting Bush for not asking Congress to extend the ban on certain automatic firearms. The deal is this: the President says disingenuously that he would sign the ban if Congress passed it, which he knows they won’t do, and then he keeps the issue quiet until the ban dies at midnight on Monday, 13 September 2004. Very nice for Mr. Bush, he gets to appease people who are squeamish with firearms by saying, “I would have voted for it if it came across my desk,” while also appearing supportive of the Constitution’s Second Amendment by not having such a law on his record. How very spineless of you, Mr. President.
However, the president is not the only one being disingenuous here. Senator Kerry also wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He appears in photos in hunting gear (which I suppose means he thinks “a well regulated militia” is “necessary to the security of a free state”), then excoriates the president for this sweet deal. Yet, Mr. Kerry also gets the exact same benefit from the deal, while appearing to have a position slightly to the left of the president’s. How very spineless of you, Mr. Kerry.
What really gets me, though, is this quote toward the end of the article:
“For John Kerry to infer that the president is helping terrorists is a clear example of a desperate candidate that prefers the politics of personal destruction over a substantive debate on the issues,” [Bush] campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said.
“Substantive debate on the issues”? Sister, please! Neither candidate really wants “substantive debate.” Given the short attention span of the common American, both candidates would appear excessively boring and intellectual. The commercial and the sound-bite is what both candidates really want; manipulating mass popular opinion using advertising is so much easier than actually arguing on real issues.
It makes me realize how little I want to vote for anyone this year. I have been so brainwashed by the Republican Party that they will actually do something about legal murder that I feel guilty voting for Libertarian candidates, especially considering that some people are estimating that four Supreme Court Justices will be selected in the next four years. Yet, I must say that I am deeply suspicious: Will anything ever be done? At this point it feels like a grand charade.
The situation in the Middle East also makes me think twice about voting my heart. The policies of the last four years have us so completely enmeshed in the policies of that region’s sovereign states that I fear a withdrawal at this point would create a nightmare backlash that would make the tragedy of four three years ago today merely a preface.
In short, I have no confidence that my vote is really worth a damn. Both of the major political parties are slighty different variations on the same shade of Orwellian power. I am supposed to swallow their lies and vote with my emotions like a sheep.
Maybe that’s why I still haven’t asked the Commonwealth of Kentucky to send my absentee ballot stuff.