Who's winning?

Last weekend a friend of mine and I had a little political debate. Actually he did a large part of the talking, trying to convince me of his views and I sort of counter-punched. It got good after a statement he made which went something like this: "I'm just saying, the Republicans are stronger on family values and because of that alone I think we should all vote Republican in the next election." Not exactly a Harvard level argument, but to his credit there were more layers to it than that. His first minor point was that he now has a child and another on the way, so he thinks about things he didn't used to think about in the past. He then said that with all the crazy things going on with today's youth (school shootings, teenage pregnancies, etc.) that he thinks one of the best answers to combat all this is religion. The funny thing is, he knows my overarching view on religion, and he is of the same mind. He said, flat out, that he doesn't agree with religion, he's not religious, and it has caused lots of problems throughout history. BUT, he said, "religion teaches fundamental values to children and if more children got that, they'd be better off." Thus, kids would stop shooting themselves, having sex, getting each other pregnant, eating cookies, being fat, playing video games, and engaging in any further activities he would consider morally compromising. This has many flaws, but my two main concerns were that he would consider it the job of the president to enforce morality in this country and that it had to be a Republican to do it.

After a brief argument that the president has more important things to concern himself with than your family, I came back, casually, with examples like Tipper Gore fighting for the past billion years against bad language in music lyrics and Joe Lieberman constantly trying to get ratings on video games. There are moral people on both sides, I argued. How had morality become the property of one party. Then something else occurred to me, and I disengaged from the argument completely. You see, in years past, this would have been the part of the argument where I would have screamed Democrat while he screamed Republican and we would have listened to each other politely while knowing full well that we weren't going to convince the other of anything but our bull-headedness. I have been so terribly upset by so many of the current President's decisions involving this country over the last 7 years that I could hardly make any argument without feeling like my head was going to explode in frustration. I had been so anti-Republican after the Lewinsky scandal, then later the Iraq War decisions, that my stock quote was always something about mistakes in war apparently not being as important to the Republican party as mistakes in marriage, i.e. people die in war, not giving (or receiving) bjs. And I used to get so frustrated (again, head on verge of explosion) when people would say about the war, “well we're here now.” Yes, we're here now, because you brought us here and you should be held accountable! But those days have passed as well. The days where I fought for one side for the sake of fighting for that side or more accurately for the sake of fighting against the other side, are over. It really is time for this country to get over itself and at least start trying to see eye to eye on some things. It's amazing to me that people out there can clearly understand something as complex as Vladimir Putin stirring the pot in the middle east to keep people fighting, so that oil prices remain high and in turn his country makes tons of money, but they don't realize that we're all being pitted against one another in our own country.

What occurred to me while he continued to rant, was that the Democrats and Republicans want us to keep fighting each other because it will keep the two party system in place and, more importantly, keep us occupied. Keep us from looking for the really bad stuff, like lobbyists buying votes that keep our pharmaceuticals three times more expensive than any other country; like the lack of term limits which would keep congressmen from getting complacent and susceptible to "gifts"; like the fact that the rich ONLY get richer; like giving companies that pollute and destroy our country and our planet a pat on the back because they built a playground in Des Moines. There are larger issues to deal with than the pettiness they feed us, but we can’t see it because they’ve gotten so good at burying us in their bullshit. We don't hate each other. We don't even really dislike each other (all that much). And the funny thing is we’re not all that different. My friend and I actually agree on many things, and yet he votes consistently Republican and I vote consistently Democrat. I’m not sure if it’s because we have a different “most important issue.” It could be. But it could also be because we’ve gotten so riled up in the red state/blue state, my side versus your side pissing contest that we don’t even know what we’re arguing about any more. We’re pushing our points to win the argument, not to make things better. It’s like when you get your house painted and the company does an okay job, but you recommend them to your neighbors anyway because you want to seem like you know what you’re talking about. You want to sound smart, like you only make correct decisions and you’d be happy to pass on your genius to others.

And that's why, at that moment of debate, where my friend said that the next president had to be moral and therefore has to be Republican, I just sat back, took a deep breath and said, “Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong. But we won’t know for sure because no matter who gets elected, they won’t really give a shit about you or me.” He looked at me kind of funny, as if maybe this was some sort of ploy on my part. Like I was setting a trap. He waited a few moments more, then just went right back into his stump argument: “But don’t you think…..” I took a long drag of the Cuban cigar he himself provided me, blew smoke slowly into the air and enjoyed my most impressive moment of non-violent, non-vocal resistance. And I smiled wide. Why? Because nothing is more frustrating to fight against then someone who’s not fighting back.

What? Just because I said we should stop fighting doesn't mean I don't want to win....