Sunday Morning Political Rant

William Grosso @ October 5, 2008

Note: I posted this in a comment on scripting news this morning. And then thought– it’s a nice summary of how I’m thinking this election season. Why not put it on my own blog?

As part of that, I also corrected capitalization and spellings.

So, I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat.  I’m kind of a ‘tweener in that I’m “liberal” on most social issues, a a classic free-market capitalist on most economic issues, and as close to being an isolationist in foreign policy as you can be in a flat world.

I’m also torn this election because I think McCain is more likely to lead the Iraq effort to a successful end. And I’m a little scared by the tax implications of Obama’s policies (I already pay enough, and government is already big enough). On the other hand, Palin. Well, she ain’t me and she ain’t even close. And that tips me into Obama supporter land.

But I have to say, speaking as an outsider, that the distortions, lies, nastiness, and outright deceptions are pretty much ubiquitous across the political landscape. From my perspective, both sides do a lot of less-than-honorable things, and fling a lot known-to-be-false accusations. And both sides also frequently rear up in righteous indignation.

Even worse, though, is the way their legions of fans do it. In a facebook comment, someone stated that “Palin is a robot programmed to say the same thing over and over” and didn’t get it when I said that seemed dehumanizing.

This morning, a friend’s blog linked to another blog article that led with “Sarah Palin is a stupid, self important, ignorant bitch who I wouldn’t put in charge of wiping her own ass.”

Removing the false (”stupid”, “ignorant” — she’s the governor of a state, even if it’s a relatively unimportant one, and has done a credible job there. That pretty much rules out “stupid” and “ignorant”) and the redundant (”self important”– all politicians are) and the personal judgements that the author is unqualified to make (”bitch”), we get “I don’t want to vote for her.”

Which I agree with.

Rather than blogs helping us recapture the conversation, and bring it back to things that matter, all too often the great majority of posts and utterances are sheer partisan hackery. And that makes me think that we, the great masses, are a significant part of the problem.

If’ we’re willing to sling all this shit around, then how can we begin to correct our leaders?

Anyway, that’s my sundaymorningrant

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