Day: 10 January 2006

Okay, so I managed to come up with a couple more coherent thoughts along the same lines as my earlier blog and figured I should write them down before they sink back into the morass of pudding that poses for my brain.

Around here there are a ton of signs starting to go up for elected officials, most prominently judges. From the sheer number of them one can assume that there is some sort of civic election pending. I honestly don’t know and don’t care because it’s “American politics” and I can’t vote anyways.

There are a couple of things that really bother me about these signs. On the surface they appear to be any other political poster/sign you’d find anywhere in North America (I’m making an assumption on what they look like in Mexico here, but for all intents and purposes they’re the same in Canada and the US).

One thing that struck me as an outsider is who/what jobs gets voted on. I grew up in Canada and things are slightly different there. Jobs like judges and police chief/commissioners are appointed rather than being an office which is run for. In my eyes this is a better way to do things. It makes things much more of a meritocracy than a popularity contest and allows those in the aforementioned positions to focus on what’s really important (for example: THE LAW) rather than personal political goals like staying in office or pleasing the idiots whining in public.

With this perception in mind, I have trouble looking at the signage up around town with anything but a cynical and negatively biased eye. It’s always something along the lines of:

<First & Last Name>
<Political Affliation> For <Position>

Now the problem I have with these signs is the whole political affliation part. Let’s use a Judge for example. I want someone in the position who is going to look at the facts of a case that comes before them and base their final ruling on the laws and precedents mandated by the district/state/country that they are in rather than have that ruling influenced by the political affliation of the official. Advertising that you’re Democrat or Republican (the aforementioned evil of two lessers in this idiotic bi-partisan government that exists down here) to me is a mark against you. I want you to do the JOB not do the job as your party sees fit. I want you voting on abortion rights based on your OWN opinions and the facts of the case before you rather than because some monolithic group collective says you need to rule on the case the way they want you too.

Now I’m enough of a human realist to know that this is an extreme example and will only happen occasionally but enough of a cynic to know that it does happen. It sucks absolute monkey balls but that’s the idiocy of modern politics for you.

And I now return you to the pablum that is your regular lives.

As the regular two or three readers of this blog are probably well aware, my distaste for all things political is epic in proportion and as such the extent of my entries regarding that aspect of modern existence tends to be limited solely to mockery and snide comments from the peanut gallery about the idiocy of those involved.

I rarely vote, but not because I am apathetic about the process. In fact I believe strongly in it, but I believe in saving my vote for something that I truly believe in. In my mind doing anything less is a waste of my vote. I will cast my vote only for some one/thing that I believe in and can get behind 110%. When and if that happens, then I’ll vote for it. I can’t and won’t cast my vote for anything on the premise that I don’t like what (A) has to say and (B) just opposes (A) in principle and while (C) is better than both of the other two it’s still not a perfect match so I’ll just vote for them because it’ll stop the others from winning. That’s not politics to me, that’s infantile, schoolyard favouritism. The lesser of two (or three, four or whatever) evils or as I think of it, the evil of the lessers, is not how I feel you should vote.

Vote with your heart and head when you believe in something, not because you just don’t want the other guy to win.

I guess the upcoming Canadian Federal Election got me thinking about all of this and perhaps my distance from the situation gives me the impetus to comment on it and share something of my beliefs here. Who knows.

I do know that while I may not always agree with my friend Shane’s political beliefs, I admire him for having them. He found his niche and believes in it strongly and that’s really all that matters to me. Hopefully he’ll vote with his beliefs in the upcoming election.

Now, I’ve rambled a bit and missed the original mark I had when I started this blog by a longshot but the words just spilled out and morphed while I was writing. I guess I haven’t managed to kill off the writer in me just yet. Going to have to try harder next time I guess. On that note, the sun is over the yardarm somewhere and that means it’s time for more whiskey! BARKEEP!!!

Anyways… originally I had planned on commenting on the stupidity of the US administration after stumbling across this link that highlights just how idiotic things can get when you don’t vote with your head and heart and only vote for things that are politically “convenient” but I realized that I didn’t need to comment at all as the article stands for itself as a testament to stupidity.

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Bah, I seem to have run out of steam and ideas on the topic. I can’t think of a proper way to close things off. I still have ideas but they’re rattling around in my head randomly now and won’t sit still long enough for me to harness them to the page. Rather than worry about it though I’m going to concoct a lamely witty excuse involving the virtual bartender I screamed for a few minutes ago and his virtual whiskey and use that as my smokescreen to exit stage left. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide.