oh shit, she's been watching the news again.
i'll save my rant on the spendulus package for the other blog. it'll be long, but full of sexual innuendo to be entertaining to those who don't care. (i've been working on it all week, and it's so mean i may never post it.) so no worries for tonight's reading.
i'm here because i have a ... theological question. a problem with a paradigm that is no longer ideal and with outdated rhetoric. or is it?
politics. what does "politics" mean, exactly? the way in which groups of people make decisions? the way people care for each other? webster: a: the art or science of government b: the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy c: the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government.
a government that... governs people? so is that... control over people?
well, yes. of course.
interesting.
and we're okay with that, for the most part, because it keeps the crazies and the knives and the drugs and those 'illegals' and their track suits (or armani, that crazy foreigner) away from us up here in minnesota. though now you're starting to see some track suits up here, and on white folks too! shame, that.
we're all okay with most government control. and we all have a couple of things we're concerned about that keep us at least peripherally involved in our government, even if some of us only vote every four years, that's okay, man. that's enough. we all have to choose our corners.
anthony bourdain attacks alice waters because that's his corner, man. gastronomic environmentalism is a battleground that i know little about, except what spending a lot of time in a specific rural community has taught. (which, i suppose, is more than most.)
laura ingraham attacks nanci pelosi because she knows business, and pelosi doesn't. i don't pretend to know a quarter of what either of them are talking about, but again, sadly, that's still more than most.
but the first amendment, there we can talk. or rather, i can talk. i like the first amendment. i'm rather attached to it, being a cranky outspoken libertarian, and so i taught myself a lot about it. and there are a lot of countries in which i would have been shot/hanged/stoned by now.
so it really gets to me when people want to mess with it. and it gets to me even more when they want to mess with it but call it something else, like "equal time." when they want to write a bill restricting ANY freedom of speech. (it's in the works, folks.) when they want to mess with privately owned political radio because they feel like some political radio programs make fun of them and call them names. (ooo, ouch, what are we, five?)
i have a lot to say to these people, but it won't matter. what i really get upset about is what i want to say to the people that voted them into office and had no idea what they were voting for.
voter ignorance has been a pet problem of mine for a decade now. nothing has changed.
so, my question is this: what do we do about it? we live in a republic, people. not a democracy. we elect people to make decisions for us. we have a congress with an approval rating of approximately zero, and it's our fault. but... if we know nothing about the people we elect, or if they lie to us and can get away with it...
what do we do?
because they have the power, now. all of it. we gave it to them. what can we do if they screw it up?
what do we do?
i'm here because i have a ... theological question. a problem with a paradigm that is no longer ideal and with outdated rhetoric. or is it?
politics. what does "politics" mean, exactly? the way in which groups of people make decisions? the way people care for each other? webster: a: the art or science of government b: the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy c: the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government.
a government that... governs people? so is that... control over people?
well, yes. of course.
interesting.
and we're okay with that, for the most part, because it keeps the crazies and the knives and the drugs and those 'illegals' and their track suits (or armani, that crazy foreigner) away from us up here in minnesota. though now you're starting to see some track suits up here, and on white folks too! shame, that.
we're all okay with most government control. and we all have a couple of things we're concerned about that keep us at least peripherally involved in our government, even if some of us only vote every four years, that's okay, man. that's enough. we all have to choose our corners.
anthony bourdain attacks alice waters because that's his corner, man. gastronomic environmentalism is a battleground that i know little about, except what spending a lot of time in a specific rural community has taught. (which, i suppose, is more than most.)
laura ingraham attacks nanci pelosi because she knows business, and pelosi doesn't. i don't pretend to know a quarter of what either of them are talking about, but again, sadly, that's still more than most.
but the first amendment, there we can talk. or rather, i can talk. i like the first amendment. i'm rather attached to it, being a cranky outspoken libertarian, and so i taught myself a lot about it. and there are a lot of countries in which i would have been shot/hanged/stoned by now.
so it really gets to me when people want to mess with it. and it gets to me even more when they want to mess with it but call it something else, like "equal time." when they want to write a bill restricting ANY freedom of speech. (it's in the works, folks.) when they want to mess with privately owned political radio because they feel like some political radio programs make fun of them and call them names. (ooo, ouch, what are we, five?)
i have a lot to say to these people, but it won't matter. what i really get upset about is what i want to say to the people that voted them into office and had no idea what they were voting for.
voter ignorance has been a pet problem of mine for a decade now. nothing has changed.
so, my question is this: what do we do about it? we live in a republic, people. not a democracy. we elect people to make decisions for us. we have a congress with an approval rating of approximately zero, and it's our fault. but... if we know nothing about the people we elect, or if they lie to us and can get away with it...
what do we do?
because they have the power, now. all of it. we gave it to them. what can we do if they screw it up?
what do we do?