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I am no great student of political science. I can't recite from memory all the senators and house members who pretend so unconvincingly to play the role of statesmen on a higher moral and intellectual plane. The older I get, the more politics bores me. Politics used to merely disgust me, but my disgust had evolved, maybe transcended, or perhaps--depending upon who you ask--degenerated to excruciating boredom. Nothing a politician can say or do surprises me. Partisan responses to each other's deliberately calculated ambiguous positions is somewhat hilarious at times, and the only thing funnier than the blathering, bickering, and back-stabbing is the serious posture these bait-and-switch tacticians assume while selling their brand-name product to the electorate.
From bar rooms to board rooms I have snoozed through thousands of heated arguments between impassioned people attempting to intelligently differentiate between these two goofy gangs we call political parties. People, often with the most noble intentions, armed with copious statistics, facts, and figures about who said what on which day, attempt to coherently explain precisely why one political party is better than another, and why it is in my personal best interest to vote for a Democrat or a Republican. When another scandal comes skipping down the yellow brick road, I am told that it proves some point while still others, armed with exactly the same data, tell me how it disproves the same point.
As I see it, the differences between Democrats and Republicans are about as varied as the differences between McDonalds and Burger King, and they appeal to the same cross-section of the population. Both fast food chains get their meat from the same cows, their potatoes from the same farms, and the oil to fry those potatoes from the same vats and vendors. The rest is marketing. Period.
And so it is with the American brand of fast politics. Americans drive up, get their sound bite, and drive off with a burst of informationless reinforcement which always confirms the same position held before getting dressed in the morning. Behind the transaction counter your representatives scurry around figuring out unique and diabolical ways to liberate all of us from our money while increasing the size of their staffs toward furtherance of their control over us. They are exactly the same. Their money comes from the same places. They groom themselves using the same barbers, they wear the same uniforms, and they shamelessly use the same language and manipulation tactics.
But we are chumps without memory, and so we are treated. We Americans have exactly the government we deserve. Like our hamburgers, we really are having it our way. And we are perfectly content with this. Should it come as any surprise that a quarter-pounder from one major party behaves any differently than four ounces of the same meat from the same cow extruded onto a grill at exactly the same temperature--only packaged in different styrofoam containers? One might as well argue that Democrat begins with a D whereas Republican begins with an R--three syllables as opposed to four, any fool can clearly see the difference. Like our hamburgers, these slick salesmen cook the country's books to a crispy burnt cinder using the same secret sauce of fuzzy arithmetic and slight of hand. They deep fry the electorate in the same promises and lies. They equally despise us. And their self-contradictory commercials are exactly the same. If we deliberately vote for this, then why complain about color, consistency, and smell of our sewage?
Talk of third parties is not new. Alternatives to career politicians have been proposed throughout our brief history. Americans are a risk averse short-sighted race, however. Some Americans actually believe the lesser of two evils is the best road to improvement. They like their D's and R's. It is familiar, like the jingles and commercials of our favorite food chains. If, however, we finally grow frustrated enough, and angry enough, and desperate enough in large enough numbers, perhaps we will venture into unfamiliar territory and pull radically different levers in that little booth they still allow us into every couple of years. It may even facilitate some temporary improvement and shake 'em up a bit. Being subjected to the same market forces though, and human nature being what it is, I fear that any third party will eventually transform into a Wendy's. Now that's what I call: free choice.
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