I’m not especially versed in politics. I know the basics: things like which amendment grants us the constitutional right to punch dolphins, or who that president was that bit the head off of a bat and got banned from the Alamo. But I’ve been doing a little reading on the internet of late, and I’m a little surprised. Now, I don’t know how many of you will have heard this, but there’s an election coming up.
Apparently, tensions are running incredibly high because, for the first time in history, a tiny alien in a white guy robot suit is facing off against… *gasp* a black guy. There are many calling this the most momentous election in recent history, and for good reasons.
Of course, I’m something of a newcomer to the world of political discourse, so I might not throw around words like “paradigm,” or “rock the vote,” or “flag.” But I’m bringing something of my own to the table: impartiality. I base this claim on the simple fact that I don’t like either of the major parties. I never really have.
In terms of campaigning, the issues don’t matter. Rather, it’s whoever can enforce their perception of whose fault those issues are that will win the day.
Politics is a matter of seizing the moral high ground. If you could replace Obama and McCain with the pure, unfiltered spirit of liberalism and conservatism respectively, then this is what I believe the debates would sound like: nothing but sniping, infighting, and the conspicuous lack of any sort of logic. Logic doesn’t win elections, after all. So everybody get ready for Joseph’s Political Jamboree (and Lobster Boil)!
Abortion!
The Republican standpoint: There is nothing that the liberals like more than killing little unborn angels wholesale. What these hatchet-wielding, sweater vest-donning neo-commies fail to understand is that every child is a blessing. And when the good Lord decides to cram a blessing into your uterus, you don’t just go around flouting his will with your injections, morning-after pills, and superstitious mumbo jumbo about a woman’s body being her own.
The Democratic standpoint: If the Republicans weren’t so busy beating women over the head with clubs and dragging them into caves, they would realize that women should have the right to choose. A woman’s body is completely her own, and anyway, the Republicans believe in the Bible, which means that they aren’t open-minded enough to realize that their entire belief structure is stupid. Listen, we’re done talking. IF Bible THEN stifling individual freedoms. That’s it. I’m just going to scoff and roll my eyes until I win this conversation. If the American public really cared, it would stop investing in the clubbing of women, and start investing in alternative energy sources!
The Middle East!
The Republican standpoint: The incontrovertible fact is that backing down is for pussies. America has never backed down. If we had backed down from Britain, we’d have nothing but absurdly violent soccer crowds, and The Streets (1). If we had backed down in the Cuban Missile Crisis, then everything south of the Mason-Dixon line would be slagged, charred glass covered with churros and Cuban paninis. If we had backed down in the Cold War, Ivan Drago would have pissed all over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Apollo Creed would have gone unavenged. Can you even imagine what would happen if we pulled out of the Middle East at this juncture? Two words: Reverse. Crusades. The terrorists would ride roughshod over our soil, raping, pillaging, and turning every last Starbucks into a mosque. Who wants that? Anybody? Raise your hands.
The Democratic standpoint: There is a vast conspiracy controlling the U.S. government, and it is comprised of vampires, Templars, and rich people. Of all of these, rich people are the worst, because – without exception – every single rich person either inherited their wealth (and doesn’t deserve it) or stepped on the faces of lower- and middle-class orphans with beautiful singing voices before selling out to Big Business. These are the people that want to stay in the Middle East, just so they can keep buying Rolls Royce lawnmowers and Armani toilet paper. You see, the financial elite feel that for some reason oil is worth a lot of money. What President Bush and his dollar bill-humping cronies don’t realize, is that the most precious things produced in the Middle East are the children’s smiles and the moving stories of brave Muslim women that can be turned into books and, eventually, Oscar-bid movies. If the American public really cared, they would stop spending money on comic book movies, and start investing in alternative energy sources!
Global Warming!
The Republican standpoint: This “global heating” is nothing but a myth constructed by the same people that want to take the death penalty away from prisoners and give it to unborn babies instead. It seems just a little too convenient that the solutions to this “problem” seem to involve doing away with everything that’s awesome. Things like kicking ass, blowing shit up, and Ford Motor Company. Well, no offense, but science seems to indicate that there’s more energy to be had from burning oil than from the burning passion that two men can discover on the beaches of Fire Island. All this “alternative energy” hooey is just a passing fad, like rap music.
The Democratic Standpoint: Everyone knows that the Republicans are much too blind to understand that our world is literally coming to an end. Adorable baby polar bear carcasses are going to litter our beaches – and those beaches will be on the newly made coasts of states like Montana or Kentucky. Why, you ask? Because our entire country is going to be completely submerged – maybe even tomorrow! And none of the other countries will lend us any of their unique, culturally significant canoes because everyone hates the U.S. (which hurts just as much now as it did in the third grade). When this massive submersion happens, we’ll all have to live on bits of floating glacier, which will take away the homes of every last harbor seal. If the American public really cared, it would stop investing in the tears of newly-homeless harbor seal pups, and start investing in alternative energy sources!
The Economy!
The Republican Standpoint: More of this global warming crap? Didn’t we just – oh. Well, the economy isn’t that different from the earth, really. Only instead of “pollution,” you have liberals urging us all to abandon God, and instead of “polar bears,” you have the ungrateful lower classes that refuse to take personal responsibility for their poorness and leprosy. Of course, Reaganomics is a proven cure for both of those things. So is child labor. But nobody ever wants to talk about character building in this day and age.
The Democratic Standpoint: The problems with the economy that we see today are entirely the fault of rich white people. Their plan was to keep making money and then make some more money, and finally make the rest of the money, so that they had all the money in the U.S. If it weren’t for Barack Obama changing all sorts of stuff, then everyone that wasn’t rich in this country would probably be eating boot leather, drinking acid rain water, and working in Wal-Mart’s coal mines for 25 cents on the hour. …Rich non-whites? Pfft, those don’t exist. It’s like you’re talking about unicorns. Being rich is evil. It’s like you’re not getting this! If the American public really cared, it would stop investing in mythical winged ponies that may or may not poop gold, and start investing in alternative energy sources!
Healthcare!
The Republican Standpoint: Firstly, you should be ashamed of admitting to being sick in the first place. If our boys in WWII had come crying home every time they had “cardiovascular disease” or “stroke,” we’d never have set off a firecracker so big that God Himself high-fived America by giving us a baby boom. But, in the event that the Good Lord does decide to strike you down with rheumatism or the stumbling sickness, He would certainly expect you to have the decency to put in enough overtime to pay for your own healthcare, rather that hanging off the public teat. America is a streamlined, star-spangled capitalism locomotive, powered by fossilized freedom. And it is a scientific fact that trains do not have breasts.
The Democratic Standpoint: If our evil robot president wasn’t fueled by the pain and suffering of the poor, we would have adopted a healthcare system exactly like Canada’s or England’s or France’s or Japan’s (2). What the American public fails to realize is that every other country is morally better than us. This is because their rich white people don’t sacrifice baby rabbits on an altar shaped like a dollar sign or drive SUV’s. We need to provide free healthcare to every wide-eyed child with a heart full of dreams, and to every single mother that wants to move out west and share her singing voice with the world. You know, like you see on CNN. In fact, we need to make health chare more than free; adorable children and sassy women with big hearts should have their illnesses financed by the too-rich vampire-doctors in this country . If the American public really cared, it would stop investing in physicians that stalk the night in search of human blood, and start investing in alternative energy sources!
Obama’s Race!
The Republican Standpoint: McCain’s OK, I guess. We mainly want Obama to lose because the Democrats like him so much. That’s it. All there is to it. Yeah. Totally.
The Democratic Standpoint: Who you vote for is your choice… but if you don’t vote for Barack, I might chop your racist head off and turn it into an alternative energy source.
1) The laziest rapper of all time. Hip hop has historically been accused of being nothing more than an MC talking over a beat. Well, in The Streets’ case, this is completely true – all he does is mumble and slur. My point being that if The Streets had been alive in the 70’s, then all the critics would have been right, hip hop would have been destroyed, and teenagers all over the world today would be getting drunk and grinding to accordion music or whale sounds.
2) None of which are really the same, or necessarily that good if you have the gross indecency to need follow-up care. But they aren’t America’s, and that’s the point.
If our evil robot president wasn’t fueled by the pain and suffering of the poor, we would have adopted a healthcare system exactly like Canada’s or England’s or France’s or Japan’s.
This is great/awesome.