The perils of democracy

One of the wonderful things about today (the day after Election Day) is that the trash-talking negative campaign ads have stopped. No more "robocalls" or stupid pamphlets in the mail. And my music will no longer be interrupted by ominous sounding announcements offering words of caution like "Did you know that Steve Cowtipper is an anarchist and cruel to trees? He called for the abolishment of--everything! Do we really want someone like that representing us in Congress?.... Paid for by the Committee to re-elect Dan the IcecreamMan."

Or so I thought. But as I was listening to the radio today, I actually heard the commentator say with all seriousness, "Now that the 2010 election is over, there's only 735 days until the 2012 election, so it's time to start campaigning!"

The downside of democracy

Remember my impassioned plea of a few weeks ago to motivate people to get off their collective backsides and vote? It turns out that an unfortunate consequence of allowing people to vote for whomever they want is that they vote for whomever they want.

Por exemplo...

Sodaville, Oregon is about nineteen miles from where I live. (If anyone who lives in Sodaville is actually reading my blog I should probably appologize for this post, but you have to admit that this is pretty weird.) Thanks to the recent elections, it has a new mayor. Who also happens to have a criminal record stretching across a decade and three counties.

Tell me this isn't funny!

Vote, dammit!

While I shamelessly use my blog as a platform to yak about whatever is bouncing through my head, I try to avoid mentioning the sorry state of American politics. (I haven't even brought up Dolores!)

But this last month has convinced me of two things: First, while I believe our American system is "fundamentally sound," it's got a lot of issues. But most importantly, it's convinced me that disengaging and whining is not going to make those issues go away.

These last eight years of the Bush administration have made me alternately very proud to be an American (all those heroic pictures from September Eleventh are quite moving) and equally ashamed to admit I'm American (Guantanamo Bay, need I say more?) But on Tuesday, we have a chance to do something about this crazy mess we call a democracy. We get to vote for someone else to be President.

I'll leave all the fancy words about "civic duty" and such to the poor saps who actually want to run this country. But if you aren't satisfied with how the country is doing and you don't bother to vote, don't bother whining.