Throw the Bastards Out!

So, here's the deal. The Republicans have all but had a lock on every branch of the government for the last close to eight years, and what have they done for us? On every level I can think of (and probably some I haven't even considered) they have made things worse. Our standing in the community of nations may have never been worse, thanks to the use of torture and extraordinary rendition, the abuse of power, the curtailing of civil rights (including wholesale spying on citizens); our economy, now besieged by the ever-growing loss of jobs, the sub-prime greedfest, and the implosion of Wall Street, is pretty much in that tank and now those of us who can least afford it - and have benefited the least from the excesses of these Republican dominated years of deregulation - are going to have to pony up the money and resources to bail out the very crooks who we were led to believe would (thanks to the "wisdom" of the market) be prudent stewards of our economy. Need I go on?

Now we have an opportunity to change the game - to vote the worst of these fools out of office and replace them with Democrats. Now, there is really no love lost between the Democrats and me. I think Ralph Nader was at least partially right when he described them as two sides of the same coin. They all, after all, will defend to the death (probably ours, not theirs) the righteousness and efficacy of Capitalism, regardless of ever-growing evidence of its predatory nature and its penchant for consolidation and monopoly.

However, given a choice between the likes of Grover Norquist (who famously said he wished to shrink government to the size where he could drown it in a bathtub) and his ilk, and the possibility of a nanny-state where bloated bureaucracy and wasteful spending runs a bit rampant, I'm inclined to think I'd prefer the latter. At the very least, more of our children would stand a chance of being well educated and we could ensure everyone in the country had health care. This may seem somewhat ridiculous to those who believe self-reliance is the paramount virtue in this life.

However, I think if one takes a systemic view of not only the nation, but also its place in the world community, making a priority of taking care of everyone; of removing some of the pain and uncertainty - and the unnecessary competition for what are not scarce resources - from the daily lives of all our people, it would go a long way toward creating greater security and that oft-referred-to domestic tranquility most of us crave. At least those of us who don't wish to live in gated communities and lock our car doors whenever we drive through the city.

So . . . I say we give the Democrats a chance to fuck things up which, I have no doubt, they will almost certainly do. As I said, given the choice between the greed and corruption, and the zero-sum, no holds barred, Social Darwinism of the far right, and the pork barrel corruption and bureaucratic tendencies of the not-so-far right, I think we stand a better chance of having decent lives and a safer, more secure nation.

PS - I find it interesting people who don't believe in evolution find it so easy to apply Social Darwinism when it suits their avaricious needs.