Voting for Perks

The ability to vote in [mostly] free and fair elections is something we Americans have been [mostly] blessed since the day we declared independence and sent King George III’s men packing back to England.  (Skipping over the details of women’s sufferage and the whole 3/5 thing, don’t get bent out of shape, it’s just not the point of this blog.)

 

For the last couple of hundred years the perks of voting have remained the same.  Now they are good perks, don’t get me wrong.  We get to promote our best and brightest individuals to the highest office in the Free World.  They then work tirelessly for the betterment of every citizen and sometimes even manage to make lives better in far off countries that most of us cannot find on a map.  Places we’ve never heard of like Iraq or Tripoli or Viet Nam or somewhere.  That’s a pretty nice perk to voting.  Make our lives better and help the third-world children to boot, that’s a good deal.

 

Some perks are not quite as altruistic, but still nice.  Take for instance the entertainment value of Presidential Elections.  This must be a perk because it keeps expanding.  Ever since the Lincoln/Douglass debate sold out train stations across the US, Americans have been clamoring for Presidential Election theater.  Newspapers used the Adams/Jefferson election to hock fish wrap all the way back in 1796.  Every year the perk of election entertainment gets a little more expanded.  Modern times have seen televised debates and lavish conventions/pep-rallies.  This year a few examples of the theater perk include a 24-hour election radio channel (P.O.T.U.S. ’08 on XM radio), more televised debates than I can count, a primetime Pres-o-mercial, and daily fodder for 24-hour talk shows and news broadcasts.  We like Presidential theater so much we can’t even wait four years for it to start.  This year a few states helped out and moved the caucuses up a few months so we could extend the entertainment season to over a year of presidential intrigue. 

 

Another perk comes in the form of cold hard cash.  This must be a perk, I’m just not sure how it works.  I mean when you spend this much money on something someone, somewhere has to be cashing in.  This year the candidates spent over a BILLION bucks on the race.  This perk is a little trickier to understand then the last one, but someone, somewhere is making out like gangbusters every four years.  Maybe there’s something for me in here…I think I’ll spend the next four years figuring out the proper way to print signs and buttons and bumper–stickers and stuff.  That’s where the money is getting spent right…?

 

The last perk is entirely new.  How’s this grab ya, vote for someone and get free stuff.  You heard me right they’re giving away free stuff to voters.  “Oh, you voted today?  Good job, don’t worry about feeling good having exercized your civic duty and all that ethereal stuff, here have a taco.”  Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea, and I like encouraging people to vote.  It’s just that this seems awfully close to bribery.  Here are a few of the voting giveaways:

Starbucks – get a free coffee for voting.

Krispy Kreme – get a free doughnut for voting.

Ben & Jerry’s – get a free scoop of ice cream for voting.

California Taco – get a free taco for voting (and tacos aren’t even American Food!)

Various Bars – get a free beer for voting (you’ll have to find your own bar, I don’t want all of you crowding my haunts).

There are more, but I got tired of looking for them.  I think you get the picture.

 

Has anyone noticed the regression of perks?  They go from the original idea of making the world a better place to focusing on frivolous entertainment to virtual bribery.  I’ll think more about that as I stumble into the third Starbucks within a square mile of my house, licking sugar off of fingers trying to figure out how to work a cage-match into the primaries and worrying about how our next president will help the poor deprived people of Country-Not-Yet-Determined.

 

 

The Election

My limited research on blogs tells me that every single one of them is required to comment routinely on the political landscape.  I believe there is a memo somewhere that is sent to blog owners informing them of the rule.  I’m not sure what happens to those who disobey but I think it has something to do with an uncomfortable chair, a damp noodle, Chinese finger-cuffs, and a midget.  In my case The Misses has gotten involved.  She thinks I need to make my feelings on the election known to the world in order to do my part in adverting a tragic mistake on the part of the voting public.  Well, if the news is to be believed the election has already been decided and this blog can only be used as an, “I told you so” in four years time.

 

So what do I think about these two candidates?  They are both bad.  We have a “Republican” who will spend more money than Imelda Marcos at Payless, and a “Democrat” who thinks Lennin was a fiscal conservative.  Our choices are leftist or super-leftist. 

 

Obama scares me, and here are a few reasons why:

Healthcare.  He wants to nationalize it.  There are some interim steps in there but the end result is nationalization.  I think healthcare in this country is a mess, and I don’t have a good idea of how to fix it.  But I cannot think of one thing the government runs well.  If you can think of an example please forward it to me.  Government agencies are usually the butt of jokes, and the bigger they are the more useless they become.  When was the last time you thought the DMV was helpful?  When was the last time you looked forward to dealing with the Social Security office?  When was the last time you said to yourself, “Everything will be OK now, FEMA is here”?  Bigger government and more regulations are not the answer.  Specifically I don’t understand why any small business would offer healthcare under Obama’s plan.  Why should a small business owner incur the cost when employees can get their own coverage in the government plan?  When pressed about this in one of the debates Obama said small business owners would be give tax credits to help them “do the right thing”.  Do the right thing?  We should also hold hands and sing peace songs while we’re at it.

 

Taxes.  Obama has engaged in class warfare plain and simple.  Now I’m an opponent of the whole Income Tax idea in the first place.  It will be the subject of a blog one day I’m sure.  The idea of taxing the penalizing the rich to help the poor just doesn’t work.  Redistribution of wealth is a bad idea.  I say again, redistribution of wealth is a bad, bad idea.  It stifles growth, kills incentive, and demoralizes individuals.  There is a word for this taxation system, socialism, and it doesn’t work.  Originally the income tax was passed because Congress promised it would only be used to tax the rich.  Now just about everyone pays income tax.  Governments are greedy, it constantly takes more and more the feed the beast of bureaucracy.  The $250 thousand number hasn’t even lasted 12 months.  Already it’s slipping down to $200 (as stated in Obama’s primetime infomercial) or $150 as stated by Biden.  Just like the income tax it will continue to drop until everyone is affected.

 

Iraq.  I don’t know if I agree Obama here, it depends on which version he’s supporting this week.  If Obama settles on his promise to pull everyone out within a few months, I do not concur.  If he settles on the promise to listen to generals on the ground and follow their advice, then I agree.  I just don’t know which policy he will follow.  Obama claims that he’s gonna save a ton of money ($10 billion a month) by pulling troops out and this will help pay for some of his programs.  But he also says he needs to deploy those same troops to Afghanistan.  Did I miss something; did we get a discount from Afghanistan and deploying troops there?

 

Education.  I actually like most of Obama’s ideas here.  I don’t know how he will pay for it, but I like the ideas.  The only thing I disagree with him on is the vouchers.  Vouchers work, and I support them. But you can’t agree on everything, so overall I think this is the one area where Obama has a pretty good plan.

 

Personal associations.  Obama is a mess.  You know the names Rezko, Ayers, Jones Jr., Khalidi, and Rev. Wright.  One or two you could overlook as a bad idea, but put them together and it starts to make you wonder.  If this guy knew he was gonna run for president one day he should have distanced himself from them a long time ago.  I’m not running for any public office but I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt none of the people in my extended circle of friends are unrepentant terrorists, white supremacists, or embezzlers.  I can’t remember a politician who had this many questionable friends since Gary Heart took a ride on the “Love Boat”.

 

Voting record.  Present?  Present?  Seriously?  There’s a term for that it’s called chickensh*t.  If you have problems with legislation vote it down. 

 

After re-reading this blog I realized I could have probably save myself some time and cut and pasted it from Limbaugh or Hannity or one of those guys.  Those fellas are entertainers, not real people.  Here’s my opinion in a nutshell (and it took 940 words to get there) I’m worried Obama’s policies will send us into a deep recession.  Obama’s policies mirror those of President Hoover and that didn’t work out too well for the country.