I shudder at the depth of lunacy and depravity a person has reached when they start to believe a politician is “on their side”. Look, I’m not saying we all have to be fast learners. I’m not one myself in many subjects, especially math. But even in my case after seeing 2 + 2 = 4 on the chalkboard, say, forty or fifty times it ultimately sunk in that, in fact, two and two do actually equal four. From there I started to master more advanced disciplines like division, multiplication and algebra. Well, I never did get the whole algebra thing but I’m pretty solid with the other two (thanks to the calculator on my phone).
So how many times do we have to be taught the following truth before it finally sets in: Politician = Deceptive Narcissistic Tyrant Who Doesn’t Give a Damn About You. How many lessons do we need on this very basic equation before we can graduate to slightly more complicated concepts? Humanity has been schooled on this everyday for thousands of years yet we still fill in the wrong bubble every time it comes up on the Scantron. It’s remarkable especially considering the scientific and technological advancements we’ve achieved. Here we are unlocking the freakin’ secrets of the universe but we still can’t figure out what motivates a snake oil salesman to run for office. This only underscores my long held belief that modern society is the strangest mix of incredibly informed and incredibly stupid.
This all comes up because of the ongoing “fiscal cliff negotiations”. Over the last few days I’ve seen and heard from citizens from both parties who have said, verbatim, “well OUR SIDE is trying to compromise but the OTHER SIDE won’t budge!” Your side? YOUR side?! I believe we have to define our terms here. First of all, let’s talk about who you are. At least who you are in the eyes of the people “on your side”. To them you are a serf, a servant, a blank check, another branch of the magical money tree, a peon, a statistic, a demographic, a faceless schmuck, just like me. And that brings us to your “side”. I can’t tell you what side you’re on but I can tell what side they’re on: they’re own. Well, they’re own side and the side of they’re donors and favorite lobbyists. And right now they’re all sitting around trying to figure out how much more of YOUR money to take and how much more of YOUR money to spend. This isn’t a “negotiation” because none of the people involved in it have any skin in the game. They’re like two vultures competing for the last bit of roadkill. But even the roadkill probably wouldn’t be insane enough to root for one vulture over another.
Oh but as long as they can reach a “bipartisan” agreement everything will be OK, right? Yes all we need is for the two cancerous lumps to work together to eat away at our bank account and our future. Won’t that be inspirational? Well don’t worry they have come to one important consensus: No matter what happens, the government will TAKE more and SPEND more. It’s just a matter of working out the percentages. But either way there’s a bipartisan understanding that DC simply isn’t sucking in enough wealth from the American people and 16 trillion dollars of debt just isn’t quite high enough. At the moment the Democrats want to raise taxes by 1.2 trillion dollars and cut nothing, meanwhile the Republicans are defiantly insisting taxes only be raised by 1 trillion and we cut nothing. Wait, what happened to that “fundamental disagreement” I’ve been hearing so much about? Hearing about philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats is like hearing about “creative differences” between members of a boy band. Problem is, you kind of have to be creative to have creative differences. Likewise, you really have to possess a philosophy in order for it to differ with anyone else’s. I don’t think “ME LIKE MORE POWER AND MONEY” qualifies as a philosophy. And if it does, they both seem to share it.
Here’s the cheerful reality: we’ve already gone over several fiscal cliffs, hence the debt previously unknown to mankind and the fact that my children’s future was already bought and sold before I was even conceived. And now we will go over the next one, regardless of whatever “deal” they work out. The problem IS the crackhead-esque nature with which politicians spend our money, and that won’t change because nobody is even proposing it be changed.
So we’re screwed, basically. Merry Christmas.
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