I got the pulsatin' rhythmical remedy (busychild424) wrote,
I got the pulsatin' rhythmical remedy

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one more rant about politics

My friend worldcomrade said the following:
If that age group [people who shop at Urban Outfitters who are selling a shirt that says "Voting is for Old People"] had voted in the last presidential election, they would have been a force to be reckoned with.

Furthermore, I'd like for more folks in that age range to vote because I want to be courted as a voter. Any impact on Medicare, Medicaid, or retirement benefits doesn't go unnoticed. The NRA has lots of swing. The Labor Unions are powerful. Reductions in college aid and rising tuition costs are something parents cluck about, but it doesn't seem to hurt them as much. The kids are paying the bills.

White collar jobs are going over seas, we're in a "jobless recovery", and the deficit is huge. Our generation is really going to pay for that. We're supposed to run out of oil in the next 20 years. Hydrogen will be a fully viable resource for everyone in 2040 (more than 20 years from now). We could always burn coal for energy, but that would be horrible for air quality. That's not even including all the synthetic things that come from petroleum products: medicine, shoes, polyester.

I'd like to have a politician who says, "Wow, we're really screwing things up for your generation and here's my plan to fix it." The closest they've come so far is to give tax cuts to families with children. I can't deduct my cats, so I don't feel like I'm getting any special attention.

However, if we showed up at the polls, maybe our generation would get some attention.
My response was as follows:


I hate that you're right about all that.

I'm one of the downtrodden ones. I was totally into politics for a while, but now I hate HATE HATE it. It's nothing but white trash drama for rich people. Arguing and bickering and bitching over every little damn thing, sometimes not even because of the issue, but because it's the party line. Only two sides to each issue ever even see the light of day. Worst of all, it's just the SAME DAMN THING over and over again.

I realize that I'm contributing to the problem by holding this position, but until someone starts appealing to me as a voter, until someone really gets out there and gets my attention (and it will have to be via some other medium than the news and C-SPAN since I avoid that sh*t like f*cking bubonic plague ("I'm not quite dead yet!")), I'm not going to vote for ANYONE. At this point in my life, I can't in good conscience even go and vote at all, and it's tragic. I live in a country where I have that right, but the system and the process have been so polluted that my vote gets funneled into one of two categories, and then some individual person gets to look at the result of my vote and decide whether or not it actually counts. It's bullsh*t.

And that's not even to mention the fact that I won't vote because none of the candidates are worth the gas it would take me to drive to the voting booth. I was with G Dub for a while but he's recently proven himself to be just another party-line non-thinking ape, not to mention a stupid, closed-minded prick, so he's out. And I will probably never vote Democrat in my life, so that's out... I might as well not waste my time.

What effect does it have on my life, anyway? Sure, I got a $300-something check from the IRS a couple years ago. Great, I probably paid one bill with that or something. Yeah, my taxes went down. Not enough to make a difference to me, but certainly enough to further f*ck the national budget (which is a laughable term for it anyway, they ought to call it the Big Pit where Taxpayer Money Goes). And G Dub spins it to sound like whatever it is he's trying to make it sound like, but the bottom line is that you can't pay off debts by decreasing your income. I of all people know that.

For what it's worth though, I think Harvard's political science group or whoever it is that's chastising Urban Outfitters for selling that shirt, they need to pull the corncob out of their ass. "Voting is for Old People" is not only a reasonable reflection on how I truly feel about politics, it's also a damn funny shirt whether the wearer or anyone else actually believes what the shirt says or not. That's like scolding South Park for making fun of Jesus or something. Those people obviously just don't get it.
Tags: politics
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