Atomic Nerds

The rocky streak Stingray alluded to on Friday has done nothing but continue, and it hasn’t been till this evening that either of us had the energy to do much beyond slogging through chores and going to bed early. (An effort rather sabotaged for me by the fact that all the decongestants and antihistamines I have only last a fraction of the time they’re supposed to no matter how much I take or how many, so that I invariably snap awake very early because I can barely breathe.) A light dose of food poisoning damn near finished me off yesterday, but fortunately, food poisoning is quite transient.

Since the only part of my brain that has really been working is my sense of irritation- it might even be fair to describe THAT as a bit disproportionate at the moment- so I’m going to take the easy postfodder and bitch about some of my pet peeves that have been sucking up a lot of light and energy in this election that I can see absolutely no goddamn reason why they should have.

“Obama/Palin has no foreign policy experience!”

This is because setting and executing foreign policy is the sole responsibility of the executive branch, although Congress can occasionally do an end-run with funding slashes. The only way for a candidate to have truly meaningful foreign policy experience is either to have been the sitting President of the last four years- which is why election years in which one candidate is the incumbent executive usually turn into referendums on his foreign policy unless the other guy strikes the voters as too naive or aggressive to be better- or to have been a high-level Presidential appointee in a relevant arm of government, like the State Department or the Department of Defense.

Biden, the supposed master of foreign policy in the race? Given that in forty years he’s managed to: vote against funding the South Vietnamese government in the seventies (which moved the timetable of its collapse and the subsequent depredations and “boat people” up to “nearly instant”), to vote against Reagan’s Strategic Defense Iniative (which was one of the things that led the Soviet Union to spend itself to death rather than explosively combust), to vote against the first Gulf War (in which we were defending an ally from a naked land-grab), to vote for the second Gulf War but THEN for partitioning Iraq along lines of warring ethnic groups- and finally against the Surge, which even the Washington Post admitted has worked better than they’d ever dreamed… and they wondered why Obama won’t admit this as well. Biden’s foreign policy experience is mostly limited to being insulated from the consequences of his bad decisions.

As for McCain, his foreign policy experience is mainly suffering through the consequences of someone else’s bad foreign policy decisions- which does not necessarily mean he’s taken away a great deal of accurate wisdom from it. The separation of powers may be apparently considered quaintly outdated by Republicans, Democrats, and all three branches of government alike, but asking for real foreign policy experience in a candidate who has not done some very specific jobs- including President- is asking for the unrealistic.

“McCain voted with George Bush 90% of the time!”

Yeah, and? Obama voted with the other Democrats 97% of the time. Deeming him to be seven percent worse is splitting hairs, because there’s a very simple reason for this: McCain is a Republican and Obama is a Democrat. If they did not vote like Republicans or Democrats, they would not be the nominee for their party. See also: Joe Lieberman’s political career, and what happened after the current incarnation of the party started its hard slew to the left after 2000.

“Do you want another eight years of George W. Bush? If you don’t why the hell would you vote for McCain?!”

Uh, because he’s not George W. Bush? They freaking hate each other, mostly because Bush did some very nasty stuff to McCain in the 2000 primaries and McCain shivved Bush in the media or in Congress a few times- hence the only 90%. They may look basically indistinguishable to liberal eyes, but that’s because they’re both conservative Republicans- to whom they seem pretty darn distinct.

Besides which, even candidates who are so politically simpatico that they run on the same ticket usually produce very different administrations if and when the VP is upgraded in the next election cycle. LBJ’s administration was not JFK II, to the disappointment of many. George H. W. Bush was definitely not Reagan II, to the disappointment of many. Andrew Johnson was not only not a thing like Abraham Lincoln, he was the first President ever to be impeached- although he remained in office when Congress unhappily realized that being a raging asshole is not, technically, illegal. Electing a President has a high degree of uncertainty to it, partly because a lot of events are unexpected- such as the massive foreign policy changes 9/11 sparked, after G.W. Bush ran on a platform largely dedicated to domestic issues- and partly because for many, the Presidency is the first chance they have to do what they really want and not what they have to promise to do to stay in the party’s good graces. Hence the shock of conservatives when, again, G.W. Bush proceeded to massively expand federal government and spend like a drunken trophy wife on entitlement programs.

This election is so divisive! Why can’t we all just work together for the common good?

Uh, because the reason we have two major parties and a host of minor ones for hardcore ideologues is that everybody has a very different idea of what the common good is. Republicans and Democrats both want to protect and strengthen the economy, preserve and strengthen our position abroad, and support the common man- they just very often have completely opposite ideas of how to go about this. The same candidate that scares the shit out of one side may look like the Second Coming to the other because of these ideological reasons. Policies that are demonstrably logically inconsistent with the problems at hand also plague both sides. The government is deeply in debt and federal programs are riddled with corruption and inefficiency, so we should nationalize health care. Drugs are bad, so we should throw tokers in next to violent felons to learn new tricks. Suicide and psychological problems are more prevalent among homosexuals, so we should disapprove of it harder so no innocent youths think it’s a fun lifestyle.

Besides, for those that think Bush (or Clinton) is/was Satan incarnate- you really think it would be better if both parties were functionally the same and did not frequently act to rein each other in? Teary-eyed pleas for bipartisanship and cooperation are usually code for “This country would be so much better off if those assholes on the other side just did things our way, which is clear to anyone that is not an evil retard is the right way.” Examples of bipartisanship: FISA. The PATRIOT act. The War On Drugs. Those have all been awesome for the country, yes?

“What we really need is a President who will protect the little guy and hold corporations responsible”.

Unfortunately, Obama and McCain are in agreement on this- apparently completely unaware that corporations employ millions and millions of little guys. Beating up on corporations with taxes and crushing regulations means layoffs and relocations overseas. I’m not in favor of NO regulation- and the unholy blend of government self-servitude and lack of oversight gave us the current financial crisis- but punishing “the rich” (read: big employers, not Scrooge McDuck with all his money in gold coins in a vault) usually doesn’t lead to anything but empty satisfaction before the economy gets even worse.

Given that Stingray has had to get me to correct or revise roughly fifteen times as many typos, awkward sentences, or clear omissions as normal, I’m going to take that as a hint and stop here. I’ll be sure to let you know what else pisses me off…

Posted current events |