Sex, Booze, Rock and Roll – and Voting
Occasionally, through my years in the Army, a leader would step on a sensitive part of his anatomy. If it were especially bad, he’d dance around on it a bit. Generally at the root of the problem was sex with someone other than a spouse, a random act of stupidity while boozed up or any of a number of other brainless rock and roll acts. The Army is unforgiving of leaders that don’t live up to expectations. They’re relegated to jobs where they won’t jeopardize the led or they’re given their marching papers so they can seek other employment – maybe as politicians. Good leaders are what make the Army, all of our Armed Services for that matter, successful. That’s why it’s important that only the best, those with impeccable character, be allowed to lead. Even with that emphasis, an occasional bum slips through.
Bums slip through our election process too. Slip probably isn’t definitive enough, pour through is probably more accurate. The problem is, when discovered, they don’t usually do the honorable thing and leave. Their cohorts won’t generally do the honorable thing either by drop kicking their butts through the goal posts of life. And, too often, foolish voters just send the crack heads back to office.It’s about this time during an election year that you need hit the mute button on politics. Because if you don’t know who to vote for by now, there’s nothing in the news or campaign ads that’ll help you make a good choice. You’ll hear about the latest scandals or you’ll hear a litany of unsupported statements about the opposition in campaign ads, but you’ll hear doggone little that is helpful.You can listen to the conservative pundits and they’ll tell you to vote for Republicans. The liberals will tell you to vote for Democrats. Occasionally someone, holier than thou, will beg you to forget about supporting a political party and just vote for the right person.
“There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” – Mark Twain
As all of them tell you for whom you should vote, they’ll bring up stories of prostitution rings, recent sex scandals, past sex scandals, recent bribery, recent corruption, past corruption, shady lobbyists, Senators making themselves wealthy, making the family wealthy, Representatives making themselves and friends wealthy, and typical drunks. Sadly, if you or I invested the time we could add link after link of sexed up and boozed up crooks who we charge to lead our country. By the time we finished reading all the dirt we could find and considering that most of it is only half-accurate, we’d probably opt out of voting altogether. But, we can’t do that. We have to vote, although half of us probably won’t on Election Day. Instead of spending time on sex, booze and rock and roll scandals, take a few minutes and study the candidates from which you have to choose. How tough can it be to look up the voting records of one House member and one Senator? Here, you can review roll call votes of the House. Here, you can view roll call votes of the Senate. When all of the hype is set aside, what’s important is whether the person you put in office the last time is voting as you think he or she should. That doesn’t mean you should vote to retain a sexually perverted, drunk crook, but a least you’ll be armed with some information that you know is true.There is another important consideration when you vote.
“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.” … – George Washington, Farewell Address
Like it or not, politcal parties make up our government and they’re performing much as predicted by President Washington. Without them, our elections would resemble those of a bannana republic with 50 candidates for every job and a winner that gets 15 percent of the vote. When you pull the lever, punch the card or poke at the computer screen to pick the best person to send to Washington, you need to also have in mind which party you believe will best serve our nation. No matter who you send, the party leaderhip and party focus will not change. That’s the tough choice you need to make and it isn’t always as simple as picking the best person. The party I want in charge will take this George Washington quote, which is applicable to today, to heart.
“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therfore, to resolve to conquer or die.” - Address to the Continental Army before the battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776)
Unfortunately:
“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.” - John Kenneth Galbraith
Get registered. Vote. Our survival depends on it.Copyright © 2006 J.D. Pendry