Social Review: Politics

The advent of the partisan system was undoubtedly the biggest step forward in a fair and socially equitable governmental system. The advent of Americans was also undoubtedly the biggest setback to this.

I mean, lets take a look at the American bi-partisan system. You have the Republicans, a right-wing political party who believes that America should be the only kid in the schoolyard making decisions. You also have the Democrats, a right-wing political party who believes that America should be the only kid in the schoolyard making decicions, but they usually do it a bit nicer. It's standard psychology.

If you tell someone "Choose either Option A or Option B", less than one percent will say "What about Option C?" This is because the need for choice has been eliminated from this aspect of life. What do you do if you're a left-wing pro-choice American? You have no major party to vote for. What do you do if you-re a Marxist Communist? Well, after the shit-kickings, you still have no party to vote for.

American culture has been bred to pick either side of the same coin as the people to be in charge of their government, and the politicos continue to get away with it because they simply say "Well, if they dont like us, they can vote for the other party". But there IS No other party! It's the same basic party, one of them just happens to be a bit crankier than the other.

Other countries aren't exempt. In Canada there is between three and six major parties, merging, collapsing, re-merging, choosing unfavorable acronyms (Yay, Conservative Reform Alliance Party!) and so forth. Britains parties keep eachother in check, but the foreign policy hasn't really changed much since the European carpet-bombings. Now they just bludgeon us to death with culture, and act shocked when we rip it off. Whoa, different rant...

Of course the military despots of certain other countries aren't really moving forward, either. Sure, having one guy in charge really gets rid of a lot of red tape, it does tend to lead to black vans cruising around in the night and wives waking up in husband-less beds the next day, simply because said husband was heard to utter "Damn King Whoever". The old Argentinian treatment really cuts down on dissention. As the old saying goes, Power Corrupts, and Absolute Power is Kinda Cool.

Humans feel the need to gather and socialize, and I am all for that, I really am. Cities, even states allow for economic freedom and personal safety. But at what point does the empire get too big for it's speedo? Many of the Pacific Rim countries that have less than a million people also have no military, few police, no guns, and probably the happiest citizens on the friggin planet. This is mainly because they have nothing of "true value", like oil, gold, or cheap labor. There sure isn't much in Afghanistan, but it does produce 75% of the worlds heroin, and it has been getting invaded for over a thousand years almost without interruption. There isn't much in Iraq, but it does have a buttload of oil. (Oh, man, I'm not looking forward to the Americans finding out there's a trillion barrels of oil under the Canadian Shield, once we get the extraction processes working at a more effective rate, more than triple whats left in Iraq.)

In summation, I believe that people are basically good. Cities are a good idea. Interacting with the world around you is the only way to live. Electing people you don't like to do it for you is just fucking retarded.