Political Palaver

Political Palaver

The coming election of 2008 is probably the most important election of our lives. The war in Iraq continues to drain billions of dollars of borrowed money every month leaving a gigantic debt for future generations to pay. American soldiers are still pursuing the impossible task of taming the violence among people of the Muslim world, and trying to quell their murderous intentions toward the Christian world. Stock markets worldwide are teetering on an uncertain fiscal dike that is protected by the upward or downward position of thumbs of men who decide when to raise or lower the basic interest rates.

Yet, in spite of the fact that all these disasters were brought to a head under the watch of George W Bush, probably the most ill-advised president in the history of the United States, the remaining developed countries still seem to be looking to us for leadership. It behooves us, the voting citizenry of this country, to provide the best leader we can find.

The system by which we choose our presidents seems very flawed to me. The candidates emerge without input from the average citizen. They are not required to be tested for intelligence, education, or sanity, but they must have charisma and a lot of money, preferably their own, to pay for the exhausting campaigns to persuade people to vote them into office.

This year the campaigning is due to go on for longer than ever before. The primaries, each with differing state rules, are so far in front of the general election, that we may be so tired of the candidate's shrill attacks on one another that we may wish they would go jump in the ocean by the time we have to chose whom we like best, or dislike least. And when all that is over, our votes, which may already have been rigged by pre-programmed electronic voting machines, don't mean a thing. A group of mysterious strangers comes forth to do the voting that makes the final decision. They call themselves the Electoral College.

What's with that? As I understand it our founding fathers thought the average citizen was too illiterate and uninformed to be trusted with direct voting – one man one vote. In fact you had to be a white, male, landowner over 21 (or was it 18?) to be permitted to vote at all, and the candidates were chosen by the elite landowners already in power. The big issue then was state's rights. That isn't surprising because there were substantial differences among the states that were settled by greatly differing peoples and cultures.

In this day of compulsory education, instant digital communication, monopolistic media dispersion, and mass advertising, Americans are being homogenized. Only our God-given, or genetically imposed qualities, make for differences in us. Nowadays, the general public is as capable of making its own political choices as any mysterious group of strangers called an Electoral College picked by unknown powers that be.

The way electoral votes are allocated is another opportunity for political skullduggery by means of what is called gerrymandering. Someone has been given the power to draw an invisible tortuous line around demographic areas called districts that will favor one side or another. There are people who have educated themselves to be experts in this field, and other kinds of dirty tricks used in political campaigns.

I'm a firm believer in voting, but I wonder if my diligence makes an iota of difference in who gets to be president. Maybe those people who pay no attention to politics and concentrate on their personal problems are right in not to bothering to vote. Maybe we should all just trust in the Lord and let the greedy people rule the world. But if we don't bother to stay informed, and make our voices heard, we deserve the unfair world dictatorship that will come to us.

Oh well, we are all going to die someday no matter what.