It’s getting to be that time of the year where political debates are bound to creep into the SickSiteNetwork editorials. Personally, I’m excited. We have a broad mix of conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, and every one is quite opinionated. I mean, come on… We’re writers for sites. While I haven’t been on staff for a Presidential election yet, I can only imagine how this is going to go. I remember the war between Mike from SnC and Marc from CJ (and just about everyone else, now that I think about it) back in 2004. I’m really going to try to make this just as much fun!
Of course, this isn’t my home. Writing for the Weekly Wipe takes me away from my core audience. Most people reading this aren’t Freakhole fans, per se, and are therefore more prone to misunderstanding my point. So, I’ll try to make this a little more blunt then normal. I vote Republican. I have always voted Republican, and I will undoubtedly continue to vote Republican. It doesn’t matter who ends up on either ticket. My vote is already cast. I know, it’s a shame, but that’s one of the reasons I write for these sites. I hope to change that someday. Unfortunately, we have to change society first.
I don’t vote Republican simply because I’m a Republican. Truth be told, I’m not a Republican at all. I only vote that way because they are just a little bit closer to my ideal. I would be best described as a conservative libertarian, although I realize that most people have no idea what the fuck that is.
When my grandfather was 11 years old, his father took him into the back yard and taught him how to drive. They were farmers, and that extra driver allowed the grown ups to continue working the land while the kids could pick up supplies. When he was a little older, the farm was having problems with irrigation, so they attached a blade to the front of the tractor and built a giant pond on their land. They lived in the hills of Ohio, and just about every other house on their road was Amish. Today, that house is the only one on the road that isn’t owned by Amish families. Everything pretty much looks the same on the farm, but in reality, it’s completely different. The difference, is the government.
Today, 11 year olds aren’t allowed to drive cars, and if you decided to dig a pond in your back yard you’d have the EPA so deep in your ass you’d be shitting paperclips. Today, there are so many laws, you can’t do just about anything without there being some statute dictating in exact detail how you should or shouldn’t do it. It’s expensive, and takes away the very idea of personal freedom that this country was founded on.
Enter Libertarianism. Originally a school of philosophy, it’s now a political party. While some of us consider that a perversion, it doesn’t detract from the message. To a Libertarian, personal freedom is the most important aspect of live. The role of the government, is to protect that freedom. Of course, this doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. To a Libertarian, you can do whatever you want, as long as you aren’t interfering with the rights and freedom of anyone else. Makes sense, doesn’t it? If you want to sit in your basement and blow coke all day, what business is it of mine? If you want to fuck your boyfriend in the ass, have at it. As long as your not bothering anyone, do whatever the hell you want. It’s live and let live, and the only role of the government is to 1) provide protection and stability to the nation, 2) provide services that wouldn’t be as effective if privatized (building roads and shit) and, 3) facilitate disputes between private individuals. That’s it.
These are the original beliefs this country was founded on. However, somewhere along the line, the government decided that people were either too stupid to make their own decisions, or too evil to be trusted. They decided that we shouldn’t be allowed to smoke pot. They decided that parents don’t love their children enough to put them in car seats unless forced to. They decided that driving ability was objective and based on a person’s age, and they decided that you can’t dig holes in your yard without expensive ecological studies to access the effects of the hole on the environment. Along the lines, our personal freedoms were handed over to our Daddy, and we all died a little inside.
I laughed a couple of years back when we first entered the war in Afghanistan. The news reported that the Taliban was so strict that if your facial hair wasn’t a specific length you would be thrown in jail. Yeah, that’s a little extreme, but it’s only a hundred years or so away from where we are now.
So, back to me voting Republican. I don’t vote Republican because I am Pro-Life. I don’t vote Republican because I am for Capital Punishment. (I am actually Pro-Choice and against Capital Punishment) To me, these aren’t important issues. I don’t plan on having an abortion, and I don’t intend to end up on Death Row. As far as I’m concerned, the most important issue to me is the size and role of the government. Democrats tend to “Tax and Spend,” taking more money out of my pocket for need-based social welfare programs. Republicans tend to favor a smaller government. It’s that simple. Do I believe that we should help out the poor? Absolutely. Do I think that we should force people to help out the poor? Fuck no.
Changing society? How the fuck are we going to do that? Well, the first step is to inform the people. There are some outstanding Libertarian candidates out there today, but none of them will ever be elected because nobody supports them. So, I’ll continue to write. I’ll keep trying to inform, and I’ll persist in changing the mentality of my readers by subtle and subliminal suggestion. Most importantly, I’ll continue to argue with Marc from CJ (a democrat) about who should lead this free country, while in the back of my mind knowing that both of us are wrong.