Epiphany 1
So yeah, this is gonna be a fun ride.
Epiphanies are always fun. Omar may have had a bit of a mindset change after his burn, n’est-ce pas?
Fuck Politicians. On that note, it’s already starting – and the playing field is fucked. Throughout the last two decades, I followed politics like some of you watched the Superb Owl. No more. I have told the DNC to fuck off, and the GOP has nothing for me ideologically. I’m not a Libertarian, I’m certainly not a Green Party fucking hippie. I’m a true moderate Liberal, bordering (but not actually entering the property of) Libertarian. I have no political party to choose that actually represents me. Polls show that I’m not alone.
Strap in, folks, shit’s gonna get HORRIBLE in the next two years. Hillary is a bad choice outright for the Dems. She carries too much baggage, and she pushes way too far left – why wouldn’t she? It’s how she stays in the spotlight. The GOP, on the other hand, have been doing their damnedest to push away anyone but the ignorant or privileged. I’ve been going through the rosters for days, and… I got nuthin’. Not a damn thing.
Some would say that 2016 COULD be the year a third party really steps up and wipes the floor with the GOP/DNC. But… I still don’t see that happening. The system is fucked. We’re all fucked. Panem et Circes for all.
It’s been building to a head for years. But yeah, I think this is gonna the cycle that shit gets real.
The only party I’ve found that even slightly resembles me (after my realization that Big-L libertarianism is just as poisonous as every other -ism) is the Justice Party, but their 2012 candidate, Rocky Anderson, turned out to be a member of MAIG. So fuck him.
That’s ‘circENCes’. ‘Circes’ are Greek witches. 😉
No arguements. Democracy is played the fuck out, and we need to evolve some new fucking ideas and get the fuck off this planet.
If the Seahawks can win the Super Bowl, then a third party can win the presidency.
Not saying which third party, but just something besides the dems and pubs.
Elections are a massive culling of candidates that can’t fake sincerity to a mass media audience. We need a truly sincere candidate or another truly delusional sociopath.
Vote for me:
I promise to leave your guns alone, to do my best to remove the word “marriage” from the legal lexicon and to do my best to do nothing other than keep congress from doing stupid shit.
I noticed two familiar faces in the ad next to today’s strip. Both came from Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (about 1950-1954), and I can identify them as Roger Manning (bg), and T.J. Thistle. LOL!!
I voted for Johnson in 2012. If he doesn’t get the Lib nomination in ’16, I’ll write his ass in.
Also, Omar reminds me of me. Some go to Burns, think “WTF??!! Ain’t doing this again.” Some start as ravers and festies, and become Burners. Some go to Burns, and discover that they ARE Burners. That was me.
seconded. we’ll get called immature for doing so, but he’s the best option we had last time.
Still wish there was a “None of the above” option. Enough people choose that we start over with new candidates.
Terrible option. We’d be paralyzed with inaction. A far better solution is that nobody is allowed to actually run, and we elect someone and once elected ,they have no choice but to serve. 🙂
“We’d be paralyzed with inaction.” First, you make that sound like a bad thing; second- how long did it take the existing bunch of talking heads to put agree to a budget?
Personally, I like NOTA. For most elected offices, I vote Not the Incumbent…
That would never be allowed. People would notice that the world didn’t end.
there is plenty of room in the Libertarian party for change and movement. I think it’s currently the only even semi-viable option. But there’s too much money in the media machine and too much at stake for the Dempublicans to allow anyone else a voice or exposure.
whatever you do, DO NOT VOTE IN O’Malley. he plans to run. he’s caused problems both in Baltimore City and in Maryland. he’s bad. real bad.
Third party? Can’t be done. For all kinds of structural reasons, a bit too complex to get into here in a blog post.
A far better option is to work within either of the major parties. And that takes involvement and work at the primary, and below, level. Ground level, honest to god grass roots politics. It still works.
Well, it CAN be done, but only when a third party supplants one of the Big Two and the former major party becomes a minor one. Three or more viable major parties in the parliamentary sense cannot happen with the system we have.
The presidential races are now designed for only the GOP and DEms. Through no fault of his own, Ross Pierrot was the last third party candidate with the means to win.
But because the GOP catered to the Tea Party, the candidates that will win the primary will never be moderate enough to win the general election
Huntsman is theonly one I can get behind. He’s a grownup, and is willing to answer the country’s call, no matter who is running it.
Which means he stands exactly zero chance.
Sounds like your going libertarian. No, I didn’t accidentally leave the ‘L’ un-capitalized. While the Libertarian party may be an improvement over the GOP and DNC, they’re still a party.
I look at the candidates and vote for who I believe is the best fit. What they say and do is worth a lot more than what letter is by their name.
I’m a registered Republican, only because I would like the opportunity to vote in the primaries. And until the Democrats stop trying to go for guns, or unless the Republicans start, I cannot vote Democrat. I have to admit though, I HATE some of the philosophies of the Republican Party. I mean COME THE EFF ON! Why do we care if gays get married? I’m not gay, and I actually find the idea of being gay…. icky… but that is not a good reason to keep people from being able to share their lives together. Oh BOO EFFING HOO They might be able to adopt one of the THOUSANDS OF KIDS who have not been adopted. Is it better for that child to stay unadopted than to live with a family that loves them?
I kinda agree with the need for medical care for all those that cannot afford it(though I think the ACA was the WORST EFFING WAY to do it). Hey look there are military bases all over the US. The VAST majority of the poor live fairly close to those bases. How about allowing the poor to go to those bases for medical care. It’s good enough for our soldiers, and it falls under federal control. The doctors in those hospitals are a FIXED cost. They get the same pay regardless of the number of patients. They also had their school at least partially paid for by the military, so it’s not like they have the same high med school bills to pay for. Take medicare and restrict it ONLY to those who do not live within 20 miles of a military base. This would result in a net LOWER cost of healthcare than even before the ACA, and now.
I don’t think we should be just giving money to people who are able to work. Welfare should not pay you without requiring some form of work in return. There are a number of things the US needs people to help out with. How about cleaning up the trash in our national parks. For the most part the rangers keep it clean, but sadly there are more idiot litter bugs than rangers, and while I make it a goal to leave my camp site CLEANER than I found it, not all campers feel this way. Make it mandatory 4 hours per day community service to remain on TANF.
GAAAAH I went on a rant again…
There’s barely enough room to take care of the military, retirees, and family members that are in the system now. There is no room to add others.
But see, Wouldn’t it make MORE sense to use the bases, and upstaff those as the costs are fixed salaries. Plus, not all bases are like that. And you can actually provide health care to people rather than forcing people to pay into a system they didn’t want to be a part of in the first place. We’re already paying for them. If we need more military run hospitals, is that a bad thing? I’m pretty sure People could get behind the military budget spending less on new stealth bombers and more on new hospitals. Just saying.
The government is already screaming about how much military medical care costs. I don’t see them being happy about the idea of increasing that budget, since they’re desperately trying to reduce it. The costs for infrastructure are astounding. There is the cost of environmental reviews for any new building, construction costs, equipment, personnel, a decently working phone system, and the big daddy of all concerns: security. You can’t have just anyone wandering around the base willy nilly. The gate guard manning will have to be beefed up massively, and the gates themselves will need to be expanded, because you can’t have the line to get on base in the morning take an hour. Heads will roll. Also, more security around the other parts of the base, because someone WILL go wandering and try to get in areas they are not allowed.
I can’t even wrap my head around the logistics involved in such an endeavor, not to mention the costs. That’s just one base I’m thinking of. The mind boggles when all of them are considered. I truly don’t think it’s a feasible idea at all.
One other thing:what priority do civilian patients have? Do you keep bumping them down the line as active duty, retirees, and family members need care? Do you bump the retirees? The family members? There are a lot of questions that need some really good answers. Yes, it is personal to me.
Not that I’m intending to be too argumentative on this, because it’ll never get through congress because there is so much less capability for kickbacks, but I am unaware of any military hospitals over capacity. In fact most of the hospitals I am familiar with were far under capacity. Not to mention, the military has the ability to MAKE a hospital out of a sufficiently large patch of dirt. From my way of thinking the military doctors are already paid for. If we spend a bit more on them ensuring our people here are taken care of, I think I can get behind that. It would take a bit of a refocus by our armed forces, but the logistics needed are already in place. Think about it. If we can become a makeshift hospital to whole countries, we should be able to provide care to those who need it HERE!
I care about gay marriage because of economics. Get government out of marriage altogether and I’ll be all for it. But as long as it comes with an enormous bundle of state-conferred or -protected goodies, like tax and status benefits, which are unavailable to other citizens, I cannot support extending them to another small special class. That’s discriminatory, and someone has to pay for the advantages the special classes enjoy. It reminds me of the line from ‘Blazing Saddles’—you know, we’ll take everyone, but we don’t want the Irish. This is sort of ‘OK, we’ll let gays in, but we don’t want the polygamists. ( Or the single people, for that matter. )
Re military bases, you’d have to add a lot of doctors, hospitals and other infrastructure for that to work. None of these are nonrivalrous goods. Plus you know we’d still get tantrums from the left about how the poor can’t afford to travel to a military base, etc.
I don’t care if the poly-amorous want to get married. I don’t think that matters. As long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, I don’t care. Let them all get married. You can still only have one head of household. If you have a poly-amorous group that has 20 people, all working, the combined income will be HUGE, and only one person can claim head of household, and each person can only claim HOH once. So they will pretty much have to be married filing separately. This means more taxes than if that poly group all married separately. Why do we care that poly groups want to get married?
Actually, the military can churn out more hospitals faster than anyone. They could open up MASH units at first, until the hospital is built. Again, it’s good enough for the men and women serving overseas, why not for the people who need it here?
We care because the way government works every dollar foregone because it favors a particular form of personal bonding will have to be replaced by taking it from someone else.
In my opinion government should not be favoring any choice of bonding arrangement over any other, or over none. The state has no stake in it and ought not be handing out benefits and breaks and special status advantages to any class of citizens. Privileges should either be granted to all citizens or none.
Get the state’s hand out of people’s private lives and then I wouldn’t care, either. Polygamous marriages, incestuous marriages, they all become strictly the business of the consenting adults involved, and perhaps of the various religious faiths. Until then there’s an angle of unfairness to adding just a few more people to the ranks of the favored.
This must be narcissism – because I very much reflect your opinion and agree. Now if there was ONLY a viable political candidate who espoused these opinions, I wouldn’t have to hold my nose when I voted.
Maybe I should run 😛
It’s not the run it’s the catching that will kill ya.
” I have no political party to choose that actually represents me.”
There may be one, but I think it’s probably in Norway. Or Switzerland.
I cannot vote Republican because they are coming for my underwear drawer. The Dems can mostly be reasoned with about guns, but good luck convincing the GOP that government should not invade an individual’s bedroom. I would get kicked out of office so fast because, my philosophy is real simple. Don’t like it well then avoid doing it. Don’t like guns then refrain from owning one. Applies to abortions, drugs, you name it.
Since I mentioned the A word birth control prevents abortions, but the stupid people think birth control leads to abortions. Tell me again why its acceptable for old gizzers to get an artificial stiffy and we have to subsidize that, or wait that’s right because politicians are old gizzers that need a pill for their stiffy so they can cheat on their wives.
Anytime a doctor saves a person from dying medical science has interfered humans have always been interfering with the natural course of events.
Gridlock is bad did anyone miss the government shut down? The National Parks closed because they were not essential.
Compromise is a lost art in the United States, it means that individuals do not get everything they want.
That’s a good one about Dems being susceptible to reason on guns! Thanks, I needed the laugh. 😀
By the way, you realize that there was a time when there were no national parks, right? The nation survived. Ergo, yes, nonessential.
Although I would rather they had shut down the White House and the Capitol.
Name a place that has a majority of Democrats that has not enacted strict gun control.
Vermont.
Exception that proves the rule…
Washington state.
They’re trying. Seattle (the festering boil that means the state is “blue” even though most counties vote red or purple) is pushing hard. (Current bills in the legislature.)
I felt a lot like you, that no party represented me, until I discovered the Modern Whig party. They are about as moderate Liberal as anything I’ve found. What got me was that their slogan is “The Party For The Rest Of Us.” Check out their website, it explains their philosophy and history much better than I could.
http://www.modernwhig.org
I just created a login, and schooled the hell out of one of those “Founders couldn’t have anticipated AKs when they wrote the Second Amendment” morons. Looks like my comment is awaiting moderation. I hit him with flintlock pepperboxes, medieval pepperbox hand-cannons, Girandoni air rifles, Cookson repeating rifles, and Lorenzoni pistols. If he opens his yap again, I’ll club him over the head with ribauldequins.
The Stupid Evil Party and the Evil Stupid party have been doing their best to rig the game against anyone else playing successfully for most of the last century, if not longer. That’s the entire point of “campaign finance reform” and ballot access laws.
I don’t think it’s possible for a sane person to get nominated for national office, let alone get elected. And have no doubt, Romney was chosen by Stupid Evil leaders within minutes of McCain’s concession speech. I don’t think there’s anyone with enough following in the Stupid Evil party to actually challenge the party bosses. Nobody that I can see in the Evil Stupid party can challenge Hillary, but their party bosses have probably been scrambling to find somebody ever since she signed on as Secretary of State.
@Kinnison: If you ask the Tea Party themselves, they’ll tell you they are the marginalized, red-headed stepchild of the Stupid Evil Party, and the establishment is generally hostile to them and really wishes that they would all just Go Away.
@Gay Marriage Advocates: Children are necessary and good for society. Natural marriages create and are good for children. I’m absolutely a minarchist and small-l libertarian, but I can see a case for state support of natural marriage as a public good, but no similar case for gay marriage, because it doesn’t naturally result in children.
WRT children, with the preface that I’m discussing the demographics of the US here: that seems a rather silly position. Children are good for a society circumstantially; supply of labor currently outweighs demand, and I see no reason for that to change in the next couple of decades (in fact I suspect it will only intensify under further automation pressure). Children (and population in general) are no longer useful in the way they were back in the days of high infant mortality, labor-intensive farming, and pre-nuclear total warfare. Finally, even if population growth were a sensible aim, a consequentialist policy aimed at increasing the production of children should perhaps, for maximum effectiveness in its stated ends, apply its incentives to the production of children, rather than some other condition associated with but not at all equivalent to the production of children.
“Natural marriages create and are good for children.” Four problems with that.
First, marriages don’t create children. Male/female vaginal sexual intercourse creates children, whether the participants are married to each other or not.
Second, a child is better being raised by two devoted, loving, unmarried parents than by a married but dysfunctional couple. Marriage, in and of itself, is not good for children.
Third, what’s a “natural marriage”? That sounds like a euphemism for “my kind of societally-created partnership, but not yours”. Marriage is a human construct, not an element of nature; only humans get married. (Several other animals have lifelong monogamous partnerships without it being called “marriage”, but then, many gay couples do, too.)
Finally, you’re assuming that what is good for children is good for everyone. John covered this nicely; it’s clear that too many children does not benefit the public good, so it stands to reason that producing children, in and of itself, also does not benefit the public good.
If you find gay marriage squicky, that’s how you see the world and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. The logic that you outlined for opposing gay marriage, however, is invalid. Laws should be based on logic, not squick.
> Natural marriages create and are good for children.
What about those of us who can’t have kids?
Gary Johnson. ‘Nuff said.
Donated to his campaign, and voted for him.
The way our system works there cannot be a third party with any power. Thus to me voting for such is in essence a vote for the current incumbent. In this case a vote for anyone except Romney was practically speaking a vote to retain Obama.
“Hillary is a bad choice outright for the Dems. She carries too much baggage, and she pushes way too far left”
Who cares? The same dumb f*s who decided that the Important Thing was to elect the First Black President will show up again to elect the First Woman President. The next few administrations will be won by whichever party nominates a gay, a vegan, an illegal alien, and a Venusian. In that order.
I for one welcome our gay vegan Venusian overlords.