(05/16/05)
For the last 2 years, I've been pissed about the political machine in this country. Call me crazy, but I just don't understand why evangelical Christian poor black people will vote with millionaire trust-fund secular Jews, hemp-wearing militant environmentalists, and unionized teachers. I don't understand why most white evangelical Christians will vote for the party which treats the poor like garbage and is so eager to end lives. None of this makes sense to me. Supporting gun rights doesn't seem to logically entail loving school prayer, but apparently these two issues are intertwined. But none of these people are not my political enemies. A lot of them fight for specific things I believe in.
Then I discovered my political enemy as a young college student - middle class soccer moms. They stand opposed to me on nearly every issue. Here's why:
- Gun control
- The only people I can respect in the gun control debate are lawyers and economists. Yet the most vocal activists seem to be soccer moms who can't seem to get their statistics straight and can only parade around pictures of little girls killed by gun violence. I cannot stand anyone who relies on anecdotes to make an argument, and the anti-gun lobby seems to be dominated by such people.
- Smoking
- It's no secret that one of the first issues with female activists was abolition. I'd say it was a worthy cause. Then they moved on to prohibition. As any casual student of American history will tell you, the main beneficiaries of prohibition were bootleggers and organized criminals. The main losers were the working class families. Prohibition was repealed, but many of the same forces are trying to keep us from smoking cigarettes. Soccer moms are behind the stupid smoking bans being passed all around the country. They claim to want the best for their children and to avoid the unhealthy effects of second-hand smoke, but what they don't realize is that their kids are smoking marijuana anyway.
- Drugs
- The war on drugs is a colossal failure. We could solve all sorts of budget crises on the federal, state, and local level by legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana usage. The reason why any politician even has to be tough on drugs is because suburbia demands it.
- Alcohol
- The drinking age is 21 in this country. That in itself is retarded enough. Your 4th and 5th amendment rights don't apply when it comes to sobriety testing. Refusing a "search" of your blood alcohol is punished like a crime in many states. Another thing - explain to me why I can't open a liquor store withing 1000 ft of an elementary school, but I can open an Ice cream parlor. Trust me, it's just as bad, with all the fatass kids I see all the time.
- Decency in entertainment
- I will be up in arms if the FCC starts regulating decency on cable transmissions. I personally enjoy watching The Sopranos, Chappelle's Show, and The Daily Show with profanity. If an adult wants to see tits on his home screen, let him. Parents just need to do their jobs and control the shows their kids watch, the games they play, and the websites they visit so that the rest of us can enjoy the content that we want.
- Self esteem revolution
- How can we afford children self-esteem when they haven't done anything estimable? I had a science teacher in biology who called out a dumbass for being in the honors class, who cried to his mommy and brought down disciplinary action against the teacher. Trust me, the teacher was absolutely correct in his actions. The guy was a dumbass. This whole "don't hurt my kids' feelings" sentiment is responsible for the sheer number of untalented people who just think they're too unlucky to make it in acting or singing. People on American Idol are clear examples of this. They just don't know that they suck because their parents wouldn't tell them that they did. "Oh boo hoo I hate Simon he doesn't know, my family and friends all say that I'm awesome I don't need American Idol I love you Ryan Seacrest <sob>." These parents demand equal playing time for their clumsy-ass kid in youth sports and get upset when their kids don't make it on the high school varsity team. Well of course, it's because your kid never had to improve to get playing time. Teach your kids to accept it when they suck at something and to do something else. Like chop onions in a Mexican restaurant.
- Education
- Seriously, I used to think it was the teachers' unions fault. Now I know that it's parents who don't let their kids fail at anything. Classes are designed so that everyone can pass, so anyone who's at the top of the class is being cheated out of their education. Of course this can be blamed on the mothers who come in screaming and emotional because their kid got a C on a test that he didn't study for. Instead of telling the kid to work harder, the parents will actually buy the excuse that "the teacher just didn't prepare us very well" instead of "actually I was just playing Xbox all day and didn't get around to doing my work."
- School zones
- It simply doesn't make sense that I have to drive less than 20 mph in a school zone, when the stupid kids on bikes are going faster than I am, on the sidewalk where they actually endanger the walking kids. And if a kid is stupid enough to jump out in front of a car for no reason, then the driver does the world a favor by killing the kid.
Even abortion is a problem. Anyone who has talked to me knows that I don't care either way about the abortion issue. However, soccer moms continue to be the vocal activists both for and against abortion. Actually, emotional vocal activists on any issue piss me off.
My other political enemies are old people. You know, they people who are making $80k/year in retirement income yet still receive Social Security benefits from my measly paycheck. The same people who vote for all sorts of old people entitlement, as if they have a greater right to prescription drugs than I have to gasoline to get to work. Just die already. You're parasites on our economy.
I guess I just really enjoy digging my own political grave. Public office slips further and further out of my grasp.
