I’ve reached bellyful; force-fed on hype, hate, cant, posturing and more knee-jerk, unthinking [idiocy than I ever dreamt existed in daily life.
The basics of the election are fairly clear cut. But the polarized hate and irrationality among people has cut deep. Talk about a valuable reality check! Suddenly cornfed, complacent, superpower America looks like the Balkans. Okay, the systems are better–I hope!–but neighbors and friends have morphed into spewing, hate-spitting strangers.
If this election is a true reflection of “us”, then we’re in deep shit. But maybe I’m just sick to nausea of the heated, adreneline-fuelled idiocy from all sides. Even here, where informed discussion is the informal rule.
Sorry, but I’ve reached overload on the rhetoric, hate and idiocy. It’s been a disillusioning process. Valuable and needed, but damn, I’ve lost respect for so many people.
And wouldn’t you think just ONE broadcaster would finally say what so many are saying in the private sector??
YOU ALL MAKE US SICK!!
We are supposed to be a government ‘of the people, by the people, FOR the people…’ and if it is, if this is what our reality has become and we can only look “forward” to much of the same, then God help us all.
This dispute is nothing. This dispute is, in fact, a perfect example of a democracy that actually works; despite a general election being too close to decide, there’s no violence in the streets, the country’s still working, and Republic still stands.
Comparing the Democrat-Republican dispute to the Balkans is insulting. The level of hatred in Yugoslavia (or Ireland, or Cyprus, or wherever) is completely beyond the comprehension of an American grousing over this election.
Uh…guys, I use to be involved in politics, and I can tell you right now that this kind of 'them v. us" stuff has alwaysgone on. You ordinarily see it more at lower levels–Woodrow Wilson originally identified it in college faculty politics, and can be paraphased as stating the rule that the less the power at stake, the more vicious the contest for it. But it goes on in national politics too–the Ds and Rs do their level best to paint the other party as extremist nuts who have to be stopped at all cost. Is it any wonder they are partly successful, and that a lot of people see what’s going on in Florida as an attempt by the extremist nuts to steal the election? Or that they wink at whatever is perpetrated by their side, since their side is the “good guys?”
But let me point something out. There are a lot of other places in the world where partisans would have started shooting at each other on November 8. There are a lot of places where the tanks would have rolled into Florida, soldiers would have seized the ballots, and the administration candidate been declared the winner. There are a lot of places where the sitting president would have declared martial law by now, and remained in office another 10 years. None of that is happening here, and I don’t expect it to. Despite the rhetoric we can all go to sleep at night confident that tomorrow won’t be the start of Civil War II. The Republic will survive just fine; albeit with a lot of pissed-off people.
It may be aggravating, but it could be a hell of a lot worse. RickJay is quite right.
Aw, hell, I just remind myself that People Are Stupid (the more people, the stupider they be), and get on with my life. Well, I would get on if I had a life, but that’s a different thread altogether…
“This dispute is nothing. This dispute is, in fact, a perfect example of a democracy that actually works; despite a general election being too close to decide, there’s no violence in the streets, the country’s still working, and Republic still stands.”
Except for the ancient and inaccurate voting machines and a lack of voter turnout, the system has never worked better. Everything everyone has done thus far has been within the law (or at least nobody’s been caught at anything. Yet).
Me, I’m just loving it! On the political forums where I mostly lurk (under an assumed name), the conservitives are flaming the liberals, who ain’t about to take THAT shit lying down, and few of either seem to have the faintest idea of whaddahell they’re ranting about. But those few that do are worth reading.
One thing that will, I hope, come of this will be a standardized, national ballot that only the comatose could fail to understand and a stone accurate machine to count them. In elections like this one, any margin of error at all is too much.
I’m also kinda hoping that this shrill lawyer-fest will bring forth a bigger, voter turnout next time. Yeah, I know. Unlikely at best.
Almost forgot; what became of that turkey that stole a vote machine and tried to peddle it on Ebay? You gotta admire the gall, if nothing else.