Today in the store I walked past the row of frozen piazzas right after turning the corner from a display of huge bags of M&M's and ice cream scoops and began to wonder how the hell anyone was supposed to be thin in our society. I mean, I understand it if you want to get thin because you want to compete in sports and need to be in shape, or if you are trying to attract more mates to you, but what if you just want to lead a somewhat more healthy lifestyle and to not have to feel like crap about yourself? That isn't to say that I wouldn't want the ability to attract a girlfriend, it simply means that it isn't high enough on my motivational scale to actually work my ass off five days a week and eat next to nothing just so that I can achieve that end.
Recently I was hearing that something like half of, or more than half of, Americans are overweight now. I think a large part of the reason for me to suddenly want to lose weight is so that I am not in the majority. I've never had any interest in being in the majority. I suppose it has something to do with my desire to think for myself. Most people want to think for themselves, and do, and still fall into the majority, which is fine. But if you want to keep yourself thinking for yourself you have to make sure you are on the outside of what the majority opinion is. Not because it is always wrong, but because once you let yourself fall into being constantly around people who share your exact opinions on social/political/religious ideals it becomes irrelevant to think of those ideals critically. There is no longer that need to think about why you believe what you believe, and you fall into the trap of just going along with the crowd. It's a dangerous thing that. "But Matt," you may be asking, "if everyone thought that way, then it would be a majority opinion and then what would you do?" But if everyone thought that way then there would simply cease to be a majority opinion. If everyone thought the way I do then there would be about 18 different political parties with an equal chance in every election, if everyone thought that way we wouldn't have to believe in one thing just because we believe in another.
For example, I was told to take a test that would tell me if I was a conservative or a liberal. I refused to take the test, the main reason being that they had a scale of 1-4 and the option to neither agree nor disagree wasn't there. Secondly, the test was set up in such a stupid way that you couldn't possibly get a "liberal" or "conservative" score, because the questions were set up in a way as in order for you to get those scores you would have to both hate change and love change, and a few other stupid ass things that would but you in direct conflict with yourself. Also, since the first 6 questions were clearly the "conservative" questions and the second 6 clearly the "liberal" questions, it was very easy to make your score whatever you wanted it to be. You have to throw people off otherwise you are just asking them to tell you what they think they are rather then to test what they are. Okay, I got way off topic in this paragraph, so I will bring it back to what I was talking about. Being a nation as we are, we are forced to think of ourselves in two categories, liberal or conservative. There was no 'moderate' score to that test, there was no 'green party' it was all just one or the other (I know green party is liberal, I was making a point). Since the 2004 elections I've felt like shit because I voted for John Kerry even though I really, really, really hated that guy. And honestly my vote could have gone towards a much more worthy cause of voting for a third party that just was trying to get enough votes to get on the ballot in the same way as the democrats and the republicans are. I hate the two party system so much, a three party system wouldn't be that much better, but at least you could get a lesser of three evils instead of a lesser of two evils.
Also, I really hate politicians. I mean, with a passion. And I don't mean just corrupt politicians or politicians that aren't in line with my beliefs, but I just can't believe that the people we are forced to vote for are the very people we should all hate the most. I'm sure everyones had experience with a moron that sucked up to everyone and got further than they should of just because they were so good at "playing the game" while dozens of more qualified, and much more dignified, people sat by because they refused to compromise themselves just to get ahead. These are the people that should be in office, not the idiots who know how to wear just the right color tie and when to fly their private jets to disaster zones to get some good PR. The people that should be in office are the people who probably are repelled at the very thought of being in office. We should make elections like jury duty. You register to vote and you go on a list, then you get picked out of a hat, they take a look at you and if there is no reason why you couldn't be mayor/senator/president you are thrown into it and serve for a couple of weeks or a month before we grab someone else off the street and force them to do it. Hey, it worked in Rome (Or ancient Greece, or somewhere. I didn't just come up with the idea is all I'm saying).
And if that isn't going to happen then we need a new election system. It came to me in a dream (actually a daydream, but close enough). Instead of voting for a person or even a party, the voters would go down to vote and get a ballot with about 30-40 different issues that are likely going to need to be dealt with by the government within the next term. We take a look at these issues, pick the ones we think are the most important, the ones that are least important, and the ones that could go either way. Then we get to our personal politics, with another series of questions that ask things like "abortions = good or bad (circle one)." We have the people who want to get elected do these same tests, maybe slightly different in that they would be looking for what they thought people cared the most about and what they would work the hardest for for the people instead of just personal politics. Once all the "ballots" are filled out they get tallied and the politician most in line with what people think and feel strongly about goes into office. Of course this system still needs some tweaking, but its just the starting idea here. And that way even if a total tool gets into office at least we know that he knows what people really care about and has at least claimed to do it. It would also be an effective way to stop the non-stop campaigning that goes on, and all the negative adds, which would be replaced with adds that were talking solely about issues and not about politicians. No more "Dwight Dortch is a man of the people, he's from Nevada, he's a really nice guy," no it would be "This nation is addicted to oil and we need to vote on the issue of electric cars and solar power" and things of that nature, because you wouldn't be selling a person you'd be selling an idea. Which one of those two quotes seems like it has more relevance to what really should be being talked about in a democracy? And who the fuck cares about Dwight Dortch!?
This proposal seems to work well in my mind because it takes the focus off politicians and turns it into real democracy in action(!) and allows people a more active rule in what they are voting for. I was thinking about a person, we'll call him Peter, who is a voter, and votes in every election, but not always for the same party. You see, Peter is an independent, but this doesn't mean that he doesn't have strong values. He has six prime values that are more often than not the deciding factors in elections. Peter is Pro-Gun Control, Pro-Environment, and Pro-Social Welfare. He is Anti-Big Government, Anti-Abortion, and Anti-Sexual Education (I realize that I am showing my colors a little bit here by giving all of his liberal parts the "pro" tag and the conservative ones the "anti" tag, but its not really meant to be mean, just to clarify the difference). Because of this Peter can't vote for one party over the other because although he is for half of their politics, he is against half of their politics as well. So who is he supposed to vote for? He has to vote for the person that represents the three parts of their party the best in his mind. But how does he know this? All he has to go on is this stupid little pissing contest of who can make themselves look the best in the spotlight. So more often than not he's really just voting for the politician that comes off the best in their ads and not the one that is 'most qualified' or really holds their beliefs better. Have you guessed who Peter is? He's middle America (shocking!). Middle America generally doesn't agree exactly with the two parties on everything, but they pick a side and go with it despite the fact that some of them may actually feel that abortions might be murder and don't really want them to be continued despite the fact that they also want to help the environment. Wait, no, despite? That can't be right, because those are totally different ideas. Shit, how did I make that mistake... oh yeah, those two issues are one in the same because all liberals and conservatives think the same way on every issue.
That's really all I've got to say on the subject for now. And I hope that this has been informative to anyone who wanted to know why I just don't give a shit about politics anymore. Its not that I don't care about society, but that I just fucking hate politicians.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Register to Vote …but Pick a Side!
Corinna Cohn
As we approach the general election, several campus organizations are making a big push to sign up new voters. Obviously, we would prefer that new voters check the Republican box
as they register to become responsible citizens, but whatever ideology you prefer, it's important to pick a side. Over the past several months, I have spoken with many college students who identify as being fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Due to their perceived m i x e d
loyalties, many of these students end up registering as independents.
By Nevada election law, only voters
who choose a party affiliation are
allowed to vote in that party’s primary elections. As it happens, the primary elections are where voters can make the most impact when influencing their own party's policies. If you feel like you'd be a Republican if only Republicans were more liberal about
subjects such as gay marriage, government funded stem cell
research, or decriminalization of
the marijuana laws, then it's
important to actually register as a
Republican so that those types of
views can be represented more in
your party.
Sometimes, it's tempting to
succumb to apathy and say that no
politician represents your views. In fact, there are so many
controversial political issues that
no matter what party you belong
to, you will always disagree with
your representatives to some degree. The important things are to
pay just enough attention to
politics to know who represents
you, to know how they stand on
the issues that are important to
you, and to be willing to pick a
side when the chips fall.
i thought you'd like that... heh, i was thinking about that a while ago though, about corruption in politics and about how the two party system sucks. it seems like about the only way to get rid of corruption in politics is through very tight regulation and oversight. i don't really know how it would work out, but you'd have to take the money and the things that draw greedy corrupt people to office. political office should be a sort of sacrifice so that only those who truly care about such things would do it. sort of like how the people who do the peace corps do it because they care about helping people. they don't do it for the money or whatnot.
now i have no idea how you would go about putting such a system in place, but it seems like ideally that would be the way to go.
elections should certainly be done much differently. i think runoff voting is a good solution - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
i don't like the idea of making political office like jury duty though. for one thing if office is changing that often, nothing will ever get accomplished and for another thing, you would most often be getting people that were not well-informed on the issues and probably don't want to do it anyways. therefore, they would probably do a terrible job, or just nothing at all.
I think if you want to get rid of political corruption then my proposed way is the perfect way. What makes a politician corrupt? People who paid for the politician to get to where they are. If anyone is going to be in power and various different times than that just magically goes away. Its really campaigning that brings our political system to its knees, and with everything we can learn about a politician via the web they are forced to play the campaign game all the time. People would say this is a good thing because it keeps them honest, but really now, we know it doesn't keep them honest. if anything it keeps them more dishonest because it forces them to do almost everything that they are going to do behind closed doors and then lie about it. They can't afford to take a stand on something, they can't afford to say something that might offend a certain demographic. So they just play with their words and make themselves look good and worry about PR and we all buy into it because they are sending out so much information that its almost impossible to keep up with what they say is going on, much less what is really going on.
Post a Comment