Suffice to say, I'm back from Baltimore and my grandmother. Lots to post about that, but I'm afraid that tonight I've hit my limit of ridiculous voting crap. Advance warning--I'm so put off that I can't spell right or even come up with the proper words...I'm sputtering.
Each election year, the public is berated with negative ads, endless debates, guilt inducing lectures from celebrities-that you wonder when they figured out how to find a poll-about how important it is to vote, and headlines that are nothing but promises made that will never be held. Let's start at the beginning of my complaints, shall we?
Negative ads are a serious waste of campaign dollars. What happened to the days when a person stood for something, the days when a person held a belief so passionately that no matter what happened, the belief remained true? Anybody can take a part of another's life and spin it negatively and call someone a scum bucket or whatever...how many of us have a part of our lives or something we've said any number of years ago that won't come back and bite us in the arse? I only know one man that was perfect, and He walked on water. Tried that lately? Further, it's asinine that the Democrats are so nasty to each other--they're in a prime spot, it's been predicted that they will win the Presidency, so wouldn't you think that while they're grumping about how this nation needs a leader that will bring the country together they could try to get along? Actions are way, way louder than words, and I want you to put your actions where your mouth is.
Endless debates are pointless. Only questions that are preplanned and that everyone's heard the answers to repeatedly are asked. I think the last debate that intrigued me was not really a debate but when MTV asked Former President Clinton (this would be Bill, not the other Former President Clinton that's running again) about smoking pot and his underwear. Who knew then that his answers would continue to resonate for years to come (I smoked but didn't inhale:I had oral intimacy with that woman but didn't have sexual relations--he had a way "around" everything).
Guilt inducing pleas from celebrities (by the way, if an actor can change my beliefs and my concerns then I really don't believe that I should have the right to vote--I firmly believe that every voter should have to prove that they are capable of their own thoughts...that's why I'm so against straight ticket ballot options) are ridiculous because you see them "stumping" for
someone and then on an ad for the candidate, but hardly any of them are photographed outside the polls.
Enter tangent here--what's the point of voting for a primary anyway? If you have the privilege of living in New Mexico as a Republican, it's all decided for you before you have the chance to vote (Republican primaries are in June). Not to mention that I've barely gotten home from a poll when the news stations are already declaring a winner...sometimes they're declaring a winner before I've gone to the polls. You want to induce confidence in the voting process? Have a nationwide primary election, not a million individual primaries. Don't declare a winner until all the polls are reporting and you have every vote in. Heck, let's get crazy and actually let the public chose the candidate for the office instead of having the "popular" vote and then the vote that really counts.
Headlines that are filled with promises that will never be kept used to amuse me. It's a different world when you're at the top. Suddenly you realize that "Read my lips" becomes "holy cow" when you're faced with reality. Why can't we all just be honest about certain issues? Congress will continue to raise taxes. Illegal immigrants will continue to find a way to enter this country. Those that don't work will continue receive more benefits that I ever will garner. Social Security wasn't built to handle the population we have now but I'm still going to have to pay into it knowing I'll never receive it.* Health care will be a joke as long as there are HMOs sucking up my paycheck and denying every claim I make--but God help me if I try to get health care assistance without an HMO or similar plan. I will never know what those I elect into office do unless it's something like declaring the official food of my state chips and salsa because that's the only headline that comes out of a session in Congress while they're too busy to hear things like the fact that emergency personnel need to have a shorter retirement period because literally years of our lives are taken due to the stress we handle.**
I vote because it's my right to vote. I vote because I'm afraid they will take it away from me when enough of us don't vote. I vote because I believe in the fundamentals that this country was founded on, and I pray that some day somebody that remembers what it was like to passionately love other people and to want others to have the same undeniable rights that we as Americans have will make it past all the bull hockey. And I know that this will only happen when we return this nation to God.
And yet every time it's time to vote, I have a little voice in me saying "ha ha ha--you know this doesn't count for anything." When does the punchline change?
*In the interest of full disclosure, I don't participate in Social Security anymore. My employer has an alternate plan, and by working through this employer, I have forfeited my "credits" into Social Security.
**There are actually studies that show this, like studies by Universities and Colleges. I have access to many if anyone else out there cares. And Police Officers, Fire Fighters and Detention Officers all have shorter retirement periods...it's just us dispatchers left in the cold in this state.
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