Casting the net in a pool full of scum
Amid all this incessant and grating chatter about Hillary Clinton and Al Gore tussling for the title of favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, it's nice to take a step back and realize things could be (slightly) worse.
An appropriately small group of Dutch pedophiles are apparently launching their own political party–the "Charity, Freedom and Diversity" party–in the Netherlands to push for such crucial reforms as lowering the age of consent to 12, legalizing kiddie porn (and broadcasting it on daytime TV) and decriminalizing sex with animals, while of course keeping animal "abuse" prohibited.
Yes, nations of the Middle East, this is democracy at its finest–come on, you know you want to be a part of this.
Though I adamantly contend it's just too early to engage in any educated speculation as to the next presidential candidates, if the Democratic compass keeps pointing due loser as it has been, 2008 just might be the year I throw away a vote on someone even more un-electable than the Democratic chosen one: If the Democrats run Hillary in 2008, I'm voting third party, GOP-favoring vote siphoning be damned.
I don't care if it's Ross Perot. I don't care if it's Ralph Nader. I don't care if it's fricking Ben Affleck. I'll write in a Muppet if I have to–my vote is not going to Hillary.
And according to an ABC "Now Vargas Free!" News/Washington Post poll, I'm not alone: 42 percent of respondents said they would "never" vote for Hillary. (Sadly, adding a "not even versus a pedophile" option would probably have garnered a less dramatic figure, unless of course they culled their sample from sex offender registries or MySpace profiles.)
According to that same poll, at this point Hillary has a notable edge among women, even Republican women. I swear, feminists, don't make us all regret giving women the right to vote.
Hillary Clinton is showing herself to be a politician in the most pejorative sense, and her party is acting as though it really is spineless and clueless enough to think she can win on name recognition alone, even when that name cues visceral revulsion.
And we've seen what an "electable" candidate got us in 2004. Karl Rove and his smarmy strategist kin managed to make a war hero look like an unpatriotic liar next to a draft-dodging war monger–tossing them Hillary would be like laying out an all-you-can-exsanguinate buffet.
Besides, I think many of us apathetic American youth and not-so-youth are simply tired of political "dynasties" and all their electoral inbreeding. Seriously, folks–the Clintons and the Bushes (yes, there's talk of running Jeb Bush for president in 2012 or 2016, scope out your Canadian real estate now) aren't the Kennedys.
Is there no left-leaning soul in this entire country who can inject some variation and–god forbid–enthusiasm and new ideas into the leadership? Because once again, we've all seen what rule by entitlement and settling grudges gets us.
Perhaps the pedophiles are onto something–or at least the parliamentary legislative system that theoretically indulges them is.
Just think–instead of having two parties dominating every facet of the institutionalized electoral and governing processes in this country, we'd have a legislative body made up of some Democrats, some Republicans, plus a few NRA militiamen, dirty hippies, religious kooks and representatives of every interest that currently spends billions lobbying or hogs precious media attention that can mobilze passable support.
It would be like some kind of philosophical extremist symposium (or at least a parasitic death match), with all these passionate and often conflicting interests shouting out in the open instead of trying to lure impossibly mainstream candidates into their corners with money and influence, then whining in the national spotlight to the rest of us when they inevitably don't get their way.
Who knows if anything more worthwhile would get accomplished, but whatever did would probably not be much less worthwhile.
And I could finally inspire and unite some similarly disaffected citizens by starting up a party whose main objectives are banning babies from public places, making men get annual permits to walk around shirtless (hey, anti-obesity legislation is hot right now) and replacing conventional military forces with special ops squirrel battalions to finally win the war on terrorism.
Hell, when a conservative columnist like the New York Times' John Tierney uses his Memorial Day inches to write about how one of the benefits of cheap immigrant labor is that it lets him afford more frequent manicures, the established idea well is either tapped or fatally contaminated.
An appropriately small group of Dutch pedophiles are apparently launching their own political party–the "Charity, Freedom and Diversity" party–in the Netherlands to push for such crucial reforms as lowering the age of consent to 12, legalizing kiddie porn (and broadcasting it on daytime TV) and decriminalizing sex with animals, while of course keeping animal "abuse" prohibited.
Yes, nations of the Middle East, this is democracy at its finest–come on, you know you want to be a part of this.
Though I adamantly contend it's just too early to engage in any educated speculation as to the next presidential candidates, if the Democratic compass keeps pointing due loser as it has been, 2008 just might be the year I throw away a vote on someone even more un-electable than the Democratic chosen one: If the Democrats run Hillary in 2008, I'm voting third party, GOP-favoring vote siphoning be damned.
I don't care if it's Ross Perot. I don't care if it's Ralph Nader. I don't care if it's fricking Ben Affleck. I'll write in a Muppet if I have to–my vote is not going to Hillary.
And according to an ABC "Now Vargas Free!" News/Washington Post poll, I'm not alone: 42 percent of respondents said they would "never" vote for Hillary. (Sadly, adding a "not even versus a pedophile" option would probably have garnered a less dramatic figure, unless of course they culled their sample from sex offender registries or MySpace profiles.)
According to that same poll, at this point Hillary has a notable edge among women, even Republican women. I swear, feminists, don't make us all regret giving women the right to vote.
Hillary Clinton is showing herself to be a politician in the most pejorative sense, and her party is acting as though it really is spineless and clueless enough to think she can win on name recognition alone, even when that name cues visceral revulsion.
And we've seen what an "electable" candidate got us in 2004. Karl Rove and his smarmy strategist kin managed to make a war hero look like an unpatriotic liar next to a draft-dodging war monger–tossing them Hillary would be like laying out an all-you-can-exsanguinate buffet.
Besides, I think many of us apathetic American youth and not-so-youth are simply tired of political "dynasties" and all their electoral inbreeding. Seriously, folks–the Clintons and the Bushes (yes, there's talk of running Jeb Bush for president in 2012 or 2016, scope out your Canadian real estate now) aren't the Kennedys.
Is there no left-leaning soul in this entire country who can inject some variation and–god forbid–enthusiasm and new ideas into the leadership? Because once again, we've all seen what rule by entitlement and settling grudges gets us.
Perhaps the pedophiles are onto something–or at least the parliamentary legislative system that theoretically indulges them is.
Just think–instead of having two parties dominating every facet of the institutionalized electoral and governing processes in this country, we'd have a legislative body made up of some Democrats, some Republicans, plus a few NRA militiamen, dirty hippies, religious kooks and representatives of every interest that currently spends billions lobbying or hogs precious media attention that can mobilze passable support.
It would be like some kind of philosophical extremist symposium (or at least a parasitic death match), with all these passionate and often conflicting interests shouting out in the open instead of trying to lure impossibly mainstream candidates into their corners with money and influence, then whining in the national spotlight to the rest of us when they inevitably don't get their way.
Who knows if anything more worthwhile would get accomplished, but whatever did would probably not be much less worthwhile.
And I could finally inspire and unite some similarly disaffected citizens by starting up a party whose main objectives are banning babies from public places, making men get annual permits to walk around shirtless (hey, anti-obesity legislation is hot right now) and replacing conventional military forces with special ops squirrel battalions to finally win the war on terrorism.
Hell, when a conservative columnist like the New York Times' John Tierney uses his Memorial Day inches to write about how one of the benefits of cheap immigrant labor is that it lets him afford more frequent manicures, the established idea well is either tapped or fatally contaminated.
posted by Holly at 3:42 AM
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