Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Send In The Clowns



Here we are at "Super Tuesday", during yet another disgusting presidential primary season that insults the voters. Looks like Romney will pick up most of the states today, while the Newter appears to be eking out a meaningless win in his home state of Georgia.

Does any of it even matter? Gingrich and Santorum command followings in various extreme categories, such as most theocratic, most loony and most corrupt. Of course none of this nonsense is electable.

Romney, the least common denominator consensus candidate, puts on an amusing show of attempting to talk tough and resolute, while simultaneously kissing every ass associated with the halls of power. The reptilian minds that dominate the Republican electorate expect their candidate to sound angry, coarse, and simple-minded. It doesn't hurt a Republican candidate to start out wealthy, but coming from an elitist background creates a challenge to dumb-down sufficiently to please the rabble. Occasional slips of how many luxury cars he's collected or how many millions of "hard earned" money he has socked away in the Caymans really doesn't help.

It really doesn't matter. Would a Romney administration govern any differently than Obama? Probably about as different as Obama has been from Bush - not enough to matter.

Bush lied and plunged the nation into costly, senseless wars, and has any of that changed? Political rhetoric aside, Bush ran up the deficit, bailed out the Banksters, and lined the pockets of Big Pharma with Medicare legislation. Obama - more of the same, and ObamaCare simply expanded on a familiar theme.

So what would the Republican clowns do any different? None has proposed anything meaningful to help those who are struggling economically. More tax cuts for the rich - give me a break. All, save for one notable exception, would continue to beat the war drums and even escalate into WWIII if possible.

We hear a lot of rhetoric about reducing the size and intrusiveness of the federal government, but who speaks against the Patriot Act (save Ron Paul)? Who dares criticize the TSA, a  massive, intrusive bureaucracy that costs increasing billions?

Ron Paul is actually the only candidate who makes any sense at all. Many of his libertarian ideas are worthy of discussion, although his Austrian School economic philosophy would tank the economy further into depression. But why not stop the endless wars and bring the troops home? Why not halt the phony war on drugs, which only maintains high prices for druglords and pork barrel funding for law enforcement agencies? Why not begin to dismantle the massive security state that was erected following 9/11?

Any candidate who broaches those last few issues gets my attention. The rest of them will simply continue their circus act. To hell with them all.

Lynn