As jaded as I am with the current political process in this country, with its reward of duplicitous speech and exaggerated differences between facetious candidates impotently pandering to some vague middle ground which nobody at all seems to actually espouse, ‘Republican’ Ron Paul has recently piqued my interest in the 2008 Presidential Race. A ten year veteran of
Sure his name sounds like an adult film star, but in a Republican race where John McCain is begging lunch money off the sound guy and Rudy Giuliani is scalping Yankees tickets to the debate moderator, something about the pugnacious Mr. Paul has caught my fancy. I know he’s not the prefect candidate. I don’t mesh well with several planks in his platform, he's at times ludicrously unrealistic and he would be a wildly impractical President, likely making Jimmy Carter look as efficacious as Josef Stalin moving legislation through Congress. Regardless, here’s hoping for the greatest American tradition: The Long Shot. Viva Ron!
19 comments:
I am all about the idealistic underdog, but not when they are spouting ideals that are entirely unrealistic and impractical. He has some great ideas and a lot of spunk, but none of it works within our current system. Not that Ron Paul will every be elected, but if he was, he would be politically inept at accomplishing anything which would make his ideals worth nothing. Do you have a second nomination for underdog of this campaign cycle?
I'm just waiting until somebody makes a YouTube tying his name to RuPaul. :)
Shouldn't take too long...
-M.
Well aren't you Queen Pessimism, Mrs. Qualle. You won't like my other under dog canidate any more than this one, dollars to donuts, so I'll just say no, I don't have another. ; )
I think seeing Ron in drag would be . . . a definitive momment for American politics.
I don't know. I'm not up for giving someone a job unless they deserve it, and I'm not up for pulling my support of that person to someone who I don't believe in just because it's pragmatic.
Ooo, let the political fight begin!
Yeah, but James . . . when was the last time you voted?
The last time I voted was when I knew something from the minutes of the last city or school counsel meeting. Otherwise I think politics is a way to feel involved and stay afar.
You're so high-minded sometimes, James . . . : P
Here's a quote for you, James:
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Kind of like my break dancing phase, lol.
But only, it's not. It's someone's opportunity to get my support, and more than half the country feels that way too...that's why they don't show up to the polls. It's like shopping online, but worse.
I got these bindings for my guitar last fall for $5.25 and had to pay $20 shipping from San Fransisco. It's like 3 hours away. What are the odds that they're going to get my business again? Not good.
Repeat business happens when you surprise us for the better, not when you establish a pattern of ripping us off. Why? Because we don't have to shop with you, and this country keeps working the way it has.
Michelle's descriptions of working in DC, with the whole process just being their version of getting us in bed for the one night stand doesn't exactly help, either. It's like being in the back room of the club, and the ones that vote aren't the ones in it for the romance. That's my beef.
Remember when we were discussing neighborhood ministry and you were irritated because nobody actually does it in their own neighborhood? I haven't talked about the Iraq war, pro or con, since sitting with my cousin at the seminary last December just after his roommate was blown up by a roadside bomb. People use politics in conversation as a tool to sound cheeky, intelligent, up to date, and involved---it's so hypocritical. And they amaze me with what their minds can to do. They do so much due dilligence in finding and watching and reading all this news . . . why waste all that intelligence and potentional on conversation fodder? Get involved. Don't go off on some mission trip to China when you can do so much more in the apartment complex across the street.
It comes off to me like people watching So You Think You Can Dance without having the fortitude to actually get up to try it themselves when we can talk all about Carl Rove without, even for a split-second, voicing some sort of opinion (the easiest possible thing someone can do) on Alan Autry taking paid-for homes away from one of Fresno's lower economic areas just so Donald Trump can make himself another golf course. Or about the money Fresno Unified is spending to give more and more pro-turf to high school football and taking art from the elementry schools.
Anyway . . . hopefully someday I'll come close to owning up to myself. Thanks for letting me rant.
Evidently I was feeling very serious last night, lol. I like my arguments though . . . they're pretty close to how I feel about it all. If you all talk about global politics and stuff, it's not like I'm going to be virulent towards you (in my head I may think you're posers though) ;)
What do you suppose I'm posing as, James?
Same thing as all the men who love figure skating once every four years?
btw, this is also why I dispise small talk. Wasting so much potentional.
What are some of the things that interest you about politics? Do you ever find yourself discussing local things?
Definitely. I stay abreast local issues equitably with federal and global ones.
Politics interests me because we all live out the ramifications of the decisions made in politics. The disappointing thing often is the forced choice between the unpalatable and disastrous, but it's the choice we are presented with none the less. Deciding that politics are distasteful to me doesn't mean I will be any less effected by them.
I think that I understand your points about your distaste for politics, James, but I don't agree with your solution to them. You seem to be urging involvement to fix things, while at the same time proudly burying your head in the sand.
I understand that we have differing views about how to get things done, and that you likely advocate church-initiated solutions instead of political ones, and that can hardly be considered burying your head. Since you were so forthright about your views on posers, however, I thought I would at least return the favour by saying I see your repulsion of all things political as philosophical myopia. You don't need to scrap the political to advocate the ecclesiatic.
Local politics are federal politics are global politics are church politics are family politics. They each effect each other, some more than others, but each just as indelibly.
Well, if we want to talk about removing ourselves from the game and burying heads in the sand, I can tell you things my family's done in the last two years by acting. Can you tell me what you guys have done in the last two years by discussing and voting?
Actually, I'm not comfortable with that. It's a bit like standing in synagogues and street corners where everyone can see. Maybe that's just philosophical myopia though and not nearly as pragmatic as a nice sit down conversation about someone's political chances.
I hope that you're hearing what I'm saying, James. I am very glad that your family has done things to help the practical needs of the people that touch your lives. I wouldn't ask you to forsake that practice for politics or try to denigrate it in the least. Nor was my 'head in the sand' line meant to imply that you or your family sit idle.
What I am trying to communicate is that I think shunning politics is at best dangerous and at worst ruinous, no matter your reasons for doing so. Myopic, to coin a phrase.
It's quite apparent that you disagree, but I'm not posing or putting up façades here. I really don't enjoy figure skating (though I do respect the athleticism involved), and I really do think that politics can be helpful to all sorts of people in all sorts of contexts. But it's quite possible that I'm just presbyopic.
>> What I am trying to communicate is that I think shunning politics is at best dangerous and at worst ruinous, no matter your reasons for doing so.
I understand that, I just don't understand why you think that. Would you mind explaining why? I explained why I don't, and you didn't really respond directly to any of it. Michelle has regularly said that our vote is basically of no consequence in what actions politicians will or won't take. Obviously that's on the national and global scale. I vote locally every time. If a candidate does something that makes him or her worth supporting, I'll vote for them nationally when the time comes.
Post a Comment