a vote for bulimia

voters say they’re sick of politicians.

i’m sick of voters.

though they’re still vastly preferable to those who don’t bother to be counted, most voters are a waste of a ballot. face it, y'all don’t know what you’re voting for or why. you make your decisions reflexively, based on party affiliation. you don’t know what the local issues or initiatives are, and you sure as hell don’t know who you just picked as a judge.

all you "know" is that taxes are bad, and anyone who even hints that more money may be needed should be politically crucified.

you must be extremely talented thieves, ‘cause you sure don’t want to pay for anything.

you don’t want to pay teachers a living wage, or see any new schools built. anywhere. ever again. if a new school did manage to build itself, it’d be full of kids sitting on the floor looking at each other, ‘cause they’d get no money from you for desks or books or elmer’s glue.

you don’t want to pay for police or fire departments. you’re pretty sure roads are fixed by the pavement faeries, and public transit is an insidious scheme by welfare queens to siphon cash from the far corners of your coin purse.

what are you happy to pay for? weapons of mass delusion. guns for urban guerrillas. people who want you to worship their god, and would be happy to teach your kids His views on science. the right of women to have back-alley abortions. the right of the government to monitor who you sleep with and what you do with him/her/whoever when you’re not sleeping.

oh yes, you’re lining up to pay for these life-affirming, all-american programs, either proactively or by default, because you don’t stand up to say, “no more.” rather, you sit down and turn on the television. football, followed by a must-see, all-new episode of “fear factor.”

you’re sanguine about being stripped of civil liberties, because the current administration says it’s for your own good. and who are you to question them? if you’re not with them, you’re with the terrorists, by god, and anyone who says otherwise is un-american.

when did we lower the bar so dramatically? when did it become okay not to know what you’re voting for, as long as you get out and vote? when did we bury the premise and the value of the vote under so much rhetorical offal that even when we go through with the act we feel dirtier and more stupid than when we started?

when did voting become the civic equivalent of nailing a ten-dollar whore?

so go ahead, sport your “i voted” sticker, whistle a happy tune, and congratulate yourself for helping keep america great. then get back to sneering at politicians and complaining about your taxes.

proud to be an american voter. yay.