17 November, 2016

More Thoughts on Politics

Because it's on everybody's mind lately, for obvious reasons. I, like many others I think, fell into the trap of thinking that people would finally shut up about politics after the election. Nope.

Democracy is like deciding where to go for dinner, except you're in a school bus outnumbered by dozens of children, and every single time, without exception, they either vote McDonald's or Burger King. If you happen to like either of those two options, then you're in luck. Because otherwise, you're gonna feel like your voice doesn't matter. Periodically, you see small subgroups campaigning for Wendy's, but not once has it resulted in success. Which is demoralizing. And say you really want to eat at Olive Garden. There's no chance in hell of swinging that vote, so why bother?

Here are three issues on which a candidate coming out in support of would cause me to become invested in politics:

1. Abolishment of the concept of obscenity, which is unconstitutional (twice over*), and unfairly discriminates against sexual expression. *In addition to effectively abridging the freedom of speech, I feel that this is an artifact of Judeo-Christian morality (which, unlike older, pagan beliefs, is very critical of human sexuality), which reeks of respecting an establishment of religion.

2. Decriminalization of prostitution, because whether somebody wants to buy or sell sex, they should have the freedom to do so (within the bounds of supply and demand). And before you cry "sex trafficking!", the best way to combat human rights violations is to drag the industry out into the daylight. Criminals (and make no mistake, anti-prostitution laws punish the victims) have no recourse to the law.

3. A federal statute either explicitly permitting, or prohibiting local or state laws that criminalize "simple nudity" (which is the simple state of being nude, not involving "lewd" or explicitly sexual behavior - honestly, I think this would police itself given that a citizen is allowed to film anything that goes on in public view, which can be used as evidence) either on private property in public view (such as my own house or yard), or - to go further - in shared, outdoor, public, community spaces, such as parks and roads and sidewalks and the like.

And those are just a few of the main bullet points. Can you see why I don't think there's any point in me voting? (And for those of you who are thinking right now, "thank god he doesn't vote!" - you're welcome :-p).

4 comments:

  1. Change comes slow, but you could easily see yourself get politically active in your lifetime. It hasn't necessarily reached the mainstream political realm yet but there's a hearty pro-nudity movement among the youths (e.g. free the nipple). And I have to assume that people will wake up to prostitution eventually. It's such a no brainer (like the war on drugs), wanna subject people to the criminal underworld? Illegalize something harmless. Want to protect sex workers? Then legalize prostitution. I reckon when the tide finally turns against the misogynistic majority, that's when prostitution will become legal.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The one thing I agree with the feminists on is the fact that the "personal is political". Nobody gives a crap about politics until it affects something personal in their lives. But that's the way it should be. I dunno why anybody wants my input on how to run a damn country. Don't we have academics with degrees who could provide better insight on that than some drug-addled hillbilly who's never left the town he grew up in? I dunno.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's a pretty weighty question, there. How do we constitute the rule of law...

    I'm not necessarily a capitalism-or-bust guy. Ani Difranco says capitalism is the devil's wet dream. But what I will say, is, look at how corrupt our government already is. If we have a system where the population DOESN'T vote, how could the government possibly not be even more corrupt? The people in charge need to be accountable to SOMEONE. Or else they'll have no reason to not sell us all down the river, as most (all?) dictatorships do.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Right. And that's where the robot overlords come in. Step out of line, and you get the death ray. Though I suppose it would be better if the robots supervised so as to prevent anyone from stepping over the line in the first place. I know, it sounds like a totalitarian dystopia. There are still a lot of kinks to be worked out.

    ReplyDelete