When Our Shit Stinks

(Forgive me in advance for the profanity)

   Our shit stinks.  The U.S. government, not the Constitution, but the people who have the responsibility of governing are embarrassingly hypocritical.  They all profess their love and belief in democracy.  They all invoke democracy and open government every chance they get.  They all use it as an issue to judge other countries.  And almost everyone is obviously full of shit.

   A great example of the utter disregard for the idea of democracy is what happened at the Democrat's convention.  When delegates were voting on and amendment for the party platform,  the event went past the boundaries of absurdity.  What the amendment itself contained isn't the issue here.  What is the issue was how the vote actually happened.  A voice vote of yeas and nays was held and a two thirds majority was needed for passage of the amendment.  When the vote was made, apparently the desired result wasn't clearly the winner.  So the vote was held again.  For a second time, their was no clear two thirds winner.  Incredibly, the vote was done for a third time.  Both the yeas and nays grew louder with each vote, but not even on the third vote was there a clear majority.  I suppose that the mayor of Los Angeles decided that continuing to vote would just increase the embarrassment of the situation, so he declared the yeas the winner, just as the teleprompter prompted him to, and the amendment was adopted.  What a slap in the face for democracy!  Their shit stinks.

   Why is it that we have another party which through state legislatures attempt to make it more difficult for people to vote?  How can these people keep a straight face when they talk of the importance and strength of democracy, yet actually pass laws which are based on a disdain for voter participation?  These "gentleman" are hypocrites.  They don't give a damn about democratic process.  They are interested in manipulating the election system in ways that help their own party.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Their shit stinks.

   Both parties file law suits in state courts against some candidates from other parties trying to prevent them from earning a spot on the ballots.  Whether or not the legal arguments have merritt, the two ruling parties have deep enough pockets to drag the court process on long enough to make it financially impossible to continue for the other candidates to continue.  The two parties do what they can to restrict the context of whatever democracy we might have.  Their shit stinks.

   In the election of 2000, Ralph Nader was called a spoiler as the Democrats tried to rationalize Al Gore's loss to George W. Bush.  Well, many people who preferred Nader's ideas, voted for Gore because the idea of voting for a better candidate from a third party seemed like an impossible choice since everyone knows that there are only two parties that can win a presidential election.  The way I see it, the spoiler for the American people was Al Gore and the Democrat party.  Had they stepped out of the way, maybe Ralph Nader could have become our president.  And why not?  Is the Green Party not allowed to beat the Republican Party?  While Al Gore was busy trying to appear like an "alpha-male" for the news media, the party itself was making sure that Ralph Nader wouldn't be able to embarrass the "legitimate" participants in the debates.  So Ralph Nader was kept outside of the debates, marginalized by the "free press" as somewhat of a joke, and we ended up having the Supreme an interesting thing about our "independent" judiciary in that Bush vs. Gore decision is the fact that all of the judges who supported state's rights actually voted against the state court's decision and those judges supposedly in favor of more federal power over the states voted in support of the state's decision.  Even our Supreme Court's shit stinks.

   So everyone make sure you're registered to vote.  It's an important election.  Most people will go and exercise their one moment of democracy and cast their ballot for the lesser of two evils once again.  We'll try and protect the little we have and hope for the best.  Probably President Obama will win reelection and Mitt Romney will fade away soon after.  Maybe one day we will get a chance to vote for a candidate who is able to rise to a level above our shitty political games and our potential will not continue to be squandered.  Good luck.  (And remember to flush...our shit stinks too.)