Not Another Flag-Burning Hippie Gun-Toting Warmonger Who Hates Freedom But Loves Voting

“Oh no,” everyone says collectively, “you moved out of Pennsylvania just when your vote counted most.” This statement–ranking above sighs, gasps, and the loud shrill scream of a damsel in distress–is the most common thing I hear about my political life these days.

Funny story about that, actually.  Illinois or Pennsylvania, my vote don’t count shit ’cause I’m an independent.  Despite the pundit platitudes placing my, and like-minded thinkers, vote on a proverbial pedestal, you don’t see any candidates concerned with my opinion… yet.

Call me old fashioned (do it!), but I’m going to stick with the founding fathers on this one. This is also an instance where I’m going to rely on their words and not their deeds, as their failure to follow their own advice set the course for this political circus, but for the court of public opinion I would like to resubmit Federalist no. 10.

Frankly, the idea of political parties terrifies me. It keeps me up at night. More than any threat from communists and terrorists and whatever “ists” are lying in wait, I’m scared of people who vigorously cheer their party, ride their ridiculous animal, and pretend that they’re making a difference in the lives of everyone by supporting the prescribed views of just some.

“It is in vain to say,” writes Madison, over 200 years ago, “that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm [my note: a GROSS understatement]. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.”

So how about that primary back ‘home’?  Doesn’t the press champion Obama for his apparent unifying abilities? Who is he unifying? The ridiculously disparate and unequal branches of the democratic party? Well, that’s great, but after the departure of Grand Moff Divider, I’m more interested in seeing Americans unified than democrats or republicans. What does a primary do, other than highlight our differences, and ask Americans in the middle–apparently the key ’swing’ votes, we’re told–to sit back, watch, and, you know, if you’re not too busy on the second Tuesday in November, come on out and let us know what you think about the parties’ choices.

Madison was afraid that factions would form to support cut-and-dry stances, that is, similar religions, similar economic positions, ethnicities, etc. He was right to fear that. How much scarier, then, would he find today’s political parties, abstract entities that manages to wed opposite interests, economics, religions, and races into a monster of verbiage and bureaucratic impedimenta that would have no substance outside of civilians’ idolatrous worship of its name?

What a sweeping mandate citizens could deliver if only we would vote for individuals and not their letters; what kind of accountability would a politician be forced to humble to when their vote rested on their laurels and concrete accomplishments instead of reputations and well-placed photographs; what great authority, responsibility, and leadership could civil government display if its citizens displayed the same.