I once tried my hand at getting into the whole political process. My parents were staunch democrats and actually went to a whole bunch of campaign things and made signs and posters and stumped for their favorite candidates (who invariably lost). They defended that whole Jimmy Carter bad mojo tenure saying the gas crisis and recession was the fault of the republicans and he was just trying to dig us out of that mess.
They almost disowned me when I admitted that I was a republican. Hey, I was in the military and the republicans are always good to the military, so you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, especially on our meager military “salary”. Even when I got out I became one of the bloated government contractor types, and once again, the republicans love contractors who help the military.
My experience in politics made me bitter and jaded though, and I actually switched parties out of vengeance when a consumer protection bill I had been trying to get passed in the Maryland General Assembly was labeled as “one of the top 10 silliest bills”. I didn’t think it was silly that people were getting ripped off by greedy and unscrupulous pet cemetery owners, but hey, that’s why I’m a democrat now.
I was going to “be” a Libertarian, but then realized that most Libertarians don’t have anyone to vote for in the primaries. Typically failed politicians not voted into their party’s elite switch to Libertarian so they can run for the big brass ring. They aren’t Libertarians, they don’t think like Libertarians, they just run under that because its better than running under the green party or the Pat Paulsen party.
I’ve read a bit about our current gaggle of presidential runners and frankly, none of them strike me as presidential material. Wait, let me step back a moment: none of them meet my criteria as presidential material. I want a strong, decisive person that has the best interest of the country in their heart and in their decisions. What I’ve seen so far is the usual speeches that tell the attending crowd what they want to hear, depending on what state and what crowd they’re speaking to.
So, here’s what I want from our next leader:
1.) I can’t figure out how to do my taxes and live in constant fear that I’ve misread the 5 zillion pages of convoluted instructions and didn’t pay enough. Just take a freakin percentage out of my paycheck and leave me alone.
2.) Get all of our troops out of foreign countries and bring them all back here and have them guard our borders and secure our nation. If we don’t have gazillions of armed soldiers all over the world looking like they are threatening other countries, then maybe those other countries won’t be building nuclear weapons.
3.) Build factories to make stuff instead of importing it from other countries. Not only would that solve the unemployment in this country, but we could actually eat and play with toys without fear of being poisoned. Plus, if we aren’t forking over zillions of dollars to foreign countries then they won’t be able to afford to make nuclear weapons.
4.) Syria hates Palestine, Pakistan isn’t holding elections, Afghanistan is growing poppies for illegal drugs... who freakin cares, let them do what they want. Sure it sucks in Darfur, but they caused it, let them figure it out, we aren’t the global Dr. Phil. Think we should help them? Well how about helping out your neighbor or the zillions of homeless here in the U.S. or helping people who can’t afford health care, or helping those that can’t make ends meet because their job got outsourced to China or India.
Now while all of this seems a tad bit naive and easy to fix, it doesn’t seem to be working out the way every other President has run it, so why not give simplicity a shot.
They almost disowned me when I admitted that I was a republican. Hey, I was in the military and the republicans are always good to the military, so you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, especially on our meager military “salary”. Even when I got out I became one of the bloated government contractor types, and once again, the republicans love contractors who help the military.
My experience in politics made me bitter and jaded though, and I actually switched parties out of vengeance when a consumer protection bill I had been trying to get passed in the Maryland General Assembly was labeled as “one of the top 10 silliest bills”. I didn’t think it was silly that people were getting ripped off by greedy and unscrupulous pet cemetery owners, but hey, that’s why I’m a democrat now.
I was going to “be” a Libertarian, but then realized that most Libertarians don’t have anyone to vote for in the primaries. Typically failed politicians not voted into their party’s elite switch to Libertarian so they can run for the big brass ring. They aren’t Libertarians, they don’t think like Libertarians, they just run under that because its better than running under the green party or the Pat Paulsen party.
I’ve read a bit about our current gaggle of presidential runners and frankly, none of them strike me as presidential material. Wait, let me step back a moment: none of them meet my criteria as presidential material. I want a strong, decisive person that has the best interest of the country in their heart and in their decisions. What I’ve seen so far is the usual speeches that tell the attending crowd what they want to hear, depending on what state and what crowd they’re speaking to.
So, here’s what I want from our next leader:
1.) I can’t figure out how to do my taxes and live in constant fear that I’ve misread the 5 zillion pages of convoluted instructions and didn’t pay enough. Just take a freakin percentage out of my paycheck and leave me alone.
2.) Get all of our troops out of foreign countries and bring them all back here and have them guard our borders and secure our nation. If we don’t have gazillions of armed soldiers all over the world looking like they are threatening other countries, then maybe those other countries won’t be building nuclear weapons.
3.) Build factories to make stuff instead of importing it from other countries. Not only would that solve the unemployment in this country, but we could actually eat and play with toys without fear of being poisoned. Plus, if we aren’t forking over zillions of dollars to foreign countries then they won’t be able to afford to make nuclear weapons.
4.) Syria hates Palestine, Pakistan isn’t holding elections, Afghanistan is growing poppies for illegal drugs... who freakin cares, let them do what they want. Sure it sucks in Darfur, but they caused it, let them figure it out, we aren’t the global Dr. Phil. Think we should help them? Well how about helping out your neighbor or the zillions of homeless here in the U.S. or helping people who can’t afford health care, or helping those that can’t make ends meet because their job got outsourced to China or India.
Now while all of this seems a tad bit naive and easy to fix, it doesn’t seem to be working out the way every other President has run it, so why not give simplicity a shot.
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