Flippin’ the Word

Unless you’re in lockstep with 100% of the policies of one political party, or unless you’re simplistic enough to “choose the lesser of two evils” or “the party which most closely expresses” your views, the U.S. political lanscape is profoundly disorienting. Americans are quite easily put into a box - in fact, they put themselves in one every time they characterize themselves as Democrat or Republican. This explains why democracy is a fantasy. Most Americans simply aren’t capable of doing anything more than dutifully assigning themselves to one of two voting blocs. There are of course those who assert that they’re “registered Independents,” but that is just a sophisticated way of saying that they are rich Democrats.

Republicans mean it about limited government. They just forget to say that the word limited applies only to topics of which they approve. “Right to life” and “international democracy” springs to mind. The celebrated “right to life” evidently doesn’t extend to prisoners, against whom “justice” is delivered via 5000 volts. Democrats, for their part, are serious about “social progression” and “equality.” To Democrats, equality is achieved by filling coveted college slots with bottom-barrel minorities while rejecting qualified applicants. (This explains why the Subway sandwich maker often appears more capable than your accountant: Colleges turn down qualified students in herds, and the Subway “sandwich artist” title provides a bit of validation to these stunned valedictorians.)

This past week has been illustrative of precisely why I can’t robotically submit to either party. If life was a multiple choice exam, the Republican party would be the “best” answer. But what’s best is always a question of relativity, an assessment of one thing only within the context of some other thing. So, then, the outcome of the comparison is dependent upon both choices, and the Republican party only looks good when it’s compared to the Democratic party. 

A few days ago, Republicans got their knickers in a twist over a couple of teachers performing “provocotive” cheers in the classroom. Nevermind that the cheerleaders themselves regularly perform much more sexualized routines - that’s an argument for another day, and one I’m wholly uninterested in anyway. Republicans predictably did their spiel about “school standards” and “role models.” This is a tired bit, and one that makes not a scintilla of sense when you consider that it takes no less than a barn animal and a fivesome to arouse kids’ interests these days. Kids haven’t thought cheerleading teachers were sexy since like kindergarten. Nevertheless, Republicans are blabbering about increased scrutiny for public schoolteachers and tighter contractual morals clauses - or, in other words, restricting the very freedoms which they claim to protect. Of course most Republicans disagree with the teacher outrage, but come voting day they’ll dutifully vote in the same people with the same policies.

The Democrats outdid themselves this week with their socialist pandering and condescension. Hillary has come up with a gaggle of new ways to spend money: $5,000 for every person born in the U.S., in-state tuition for Mexican illegals, and fully-funded retirement accounts. Her rationale for all this big spending is the tired refrain that “we’re already spending a lot on the war; let’s find other ways to spend instead.” Again, most Democrats oppose the left’s socialist agenda, but they’ll vote for it anyway.

Republicanism is not the same as conservatism. Because I’m truly conservative, I won’t say I’m a Republican just because the party pays lip service to what I care about. There are a dozen Republicans who want to be President, but Ron Paul is the only Conservative among them.