Although I've touched on political systems and their defects in other past posts at my earlier blog, I today take aim at the modern day farce that is the democratic election process. As of last year, I vowed firmly to never vote in an American election, not even for the local dog catcher (not an elected office in my part of the US), because the process is a waste of time, it legitimizes the wicked Nation-State by sanctifying political spoils through the sacrement of the civic religion - voting. Unless an election is won by one vote, your vote as an individual voter casting it becomes meaningless (factually and statistically).
In America, the choices we are offered from Big Government Political Party A and Big Government Political Party B every two to four years in a word stink. They stink to high Heaven, but the voters hold their collective noses and trudge down to the government building designated as a polling station and mark a secret ballot AGAINST that which they don't want, far more often than voting for what they really DO want. Until 2010 in Ohio, third parties were never identified by party label on the ballot until former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (D) opened up the ballot to third party access by name, whereas her immediate predecessor, Kenneth Blackwell (R), had done every dirty trick to prevent such identification (perhaps even fantasizing about keeping the Democratic Party from competing in Ohio). I registered and voted Libertarian together for the first time in March 2010 to cast a primary ballot, after becoming "Independent" in 2004 and reregistering Republican (as I had been between 1986 and early 2000) to vote for Ron Paul in May 2008. But two years later, after sitting out the 2009 and 2011 off-year elections for other reasons, I was fed up with voting for a party that had no actual or potential chance for winning. The two-party sham runs the elections, win all the offices, spread their propaganda with big budgets and donors to maintain the status quo of their power and control over us.
I sat out local elections (off-year odd-numbered year contests for local and county offices that are officially non-partisan) in 2009 and 2011 after the local debacle that was a new increase in property tax to build new schools in my hometown. This election process and the local elite machinations behind it sickened me to my stomach at how politics and elections work here (but in reality are no better anywhere else). Let me begin with some (admittedly biased) background that some living in the City of Ironton, Ohio would dispute my interpretation about. In 2007 the Ohio School Building Commission offered the city of Ironton somewhere in the amount of $25 million dollars to construct a new high school (that included the junior high grades), middle school and elementary school, provided the community agreed to pass a new school levy to purchase bonds for the remaining cost of construction (I think it was $8 million). The State gave the local county election board the right to hold (now, get this) up to four elections to place the issue on the ballot - one general election, one primary election and two special issue elections. That's right, the people who wanted their property taxes to increase by hundreds of dollars or more per year in Ironton just for the sake of the kiddies getting to attend brand-spanking new schools had FOUR, count 'em, FOUR chances to pass the tax increase (I hate the word levy used to describe them - it is a deliberately neutral-sounding word that is less objectionable than tax - so the peons won't rebel against being gouged for more money for some great civic purpose for the so-called common good). All the pro-tax partisans needed to do was win just ONE of the potentially four votes with a majority voting YES and the entire matter was decided in favor of tax increases to build these brand spanking new buildings with all the bells and whistles. Those of the anti-taxation persuasion had to win their point with a majority NO vote each and every time to triumph over their rivals. How exactly is this a fair proposition? The YES side only has to win one time to get their way. The NO side must triumph up to four times for their point of view to prevail. That's bullshit and any reasonable thinking person knows it when they smell it sticking to their shoes.
Unfortunately as the 2008 Primary Ballot effort to get the new schools tax passed approached in that Presidential Election year, the pro-tax coven in Ironton (that included the City School Superintendent among its elite champions campaigning for the tax increase upon property owners - some of whom have no children going to the local state school system) pushed their campaign for the State's money, an opposition force (led by a local attorney and others) arose objecting to something I find akin to deciding how many angels can dance upon the head of a pin. They objected to the front architectural facade of the old 1922 high school building being demolished with the rest of that building for the construction of the new high school on the same site - due to the urge for historical preservation and local nostalgia for a building I was forced to attend from 1982-1986 (some locals used to call it Oak Street Prison as a local joke). Well these obstructing elites that wanted the front section of the old building preserved managed to tip the balance in two election during 2008 (the March Primary and a special May election) in favor of the NO vote prevailing. However, when the pro-tax forces sat down with their elite rivals in the save the front of the school movement and came to an agreement to preserve the historical front facade and steps of the old structure even if it might cost more to do that, as someone once said THE FIX WAS IN. Miraculously, the new school tax passed in the November 2008 general election and the matter was settled (allegedly the pro-tax forces said they would not bring the matter up again with a second special election if it hadn't passed on the third try). After all this local chicanery, with the forces of ever-expanding government and ever-higher taxes winning over those opposed (I was vocal in my opposition to anyone I talked to about it and in editorial letters to the local newspaper), I decided my participation in local elections was equally a joke as in national ones. One consequence of this new schools tax (the buildings were built between 2009 and 2011 - and although I toured the high school with classmates during our 25th Reunion weekend conducted by one classmate that had become principal - inside I still hate all taxation no matter what the alleged good cause or reason for it) was that my own real estate taxes went up a couple of hundred dollars and I was forced to sell my home in part because I could not afford them by November 2011.
So, dear reader, now that I've vented my disdain from personal experience as a former voter on how meaningless elections are in this rigged game of politics, you may cling to the sweet notion that government is good and only has our best interests at heart. I will never believe that, setting me at permanent odds with all those self-identified Progressive (socialist/Marxist) Democratic voters and their dumbed-down lowest common denominator fellow travelers - all useful idiots in enshrining Barack Hussein Obama Junior (AKA Barry Soetoro) for another four years of remaking America into a welfare state/police state HELL on Earth where his political party will become the permanent majority with their various brain-dead identity politics enthusiasts stuffing the ballot boxes every even year election to maintain their power to decide everything about all our lives whether we like it or not. And don't turn to the rotten Grand Old Party for salvation. They have been equally guilty at advancing and consolidating the State's rule over us as supposedly free people - with the PATRIOT Act, the Transportation Security Administration's flagrent abuses of air travelers, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011's indefinite detention of American citizens never charged with a crime, the drones that will soon fill our skies to spy on our every move and the ever increasing rules and regulations on every aspect of our daily lives courtesy of the evil citadel called Washington, D.C. Both parties are in on the rigged game and electing these crooks only encourages them that they are in reality your rulers (not your humble servants). Choke on that, America.
In America, the choices we are offered from Big Government Political Party A and Big Government Political Party B every two to four years in a word stink. They stink to high Heaven, but the voters hold their collective noses and trudge down to the government building designated as a polling station and mark a secret ballot AGAINST that which they don't want, far more often than voting for what they really DO want. Until 2010 in Ohio, third parties were never identified by party label on the ballot until former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (D) opened up the ballot to third party access by name, whereas her immediate predecessor, Kenneth Blackwell (R), had done every dirty trick to prevent such identification (perhaps even fantasizing about keeping the Democratic Party from competing in Ohio). I registered and voted Libertarian together for the first time in March 2010 to cast a primary ballot, after becoming "Independent" in 2004 and reregistering Republican (as I had been between 1986 and early 2000) to vote for Ron Paul in May 2008. But two years later, after sitting out the 2009 and 2011 off-year elections for other reasons, I was fed up with voting for a party that had no actual or potential chance for winning. The two-party sham runs the elections, win all the offices, spread their propaganda with big budgets and donors to maintain the status quo of their power and control over us.
I sat out local elections (off-year odd-numbered year contests for local and county offices that are officially non-partisan) in 2009 and 2011 after the local debacle that was a new increase in property tax to build new schools in my hometown. This election process and the local elite machinations behind it sickened me to my stomach at how politics and elections work here (but in reality are no better anywhere else). Let me begin with some (admittedly biased) background that some living in the City of Ironton, Ohio would dispute my interpretation about. In 2007 the Ohio School Building Commission offered the city of Ironton somewhere in the amount of $25 million dollars to construct a new high school (that included the junior high grades), middle school and elementary school, provided the community agreed to pass a new school levy to purchase bonds for the remaining cost of construction (I think it was $8 million). The State gave the local county election board the right to hold (now, get this) up to four elections to place the issue on the ballot - one general election, one primary election and two special issue elections. That's right, the people who wanted their property taxes to increase by hundreds of dollars or more per year in Ironton just for the sake of the kiddies getting to attend brand-spanking new schools had FOUR, count 'em, FOUR chances to pass the tax increase (I hate the word levy used to describe them - it is a deliberately neutral-sounding word that is less objectionable than tax - so the peons won't rebel against being gouged for more money for some great civic purpose for the so-called common good). All the pro-tax partisans needed to do was win just ONE of the potentially four votes with a majority voting YES and the entire matter was decided in favor of tax increases to build these brand spanking new buildings with all the bells and whistles. Those of the anti-taxation persuasion had to win their point with a majority NO vote each and every time to triumph over their rivals. How exactly is this a fair proposition? The YES side only has to win one time to get their way. The NO side must triumph up to four times for their point of view to prevail. That's bullshit and any reasonable thinking person knows it when they smell it sticking to their shoes.
Unfortunately as the 2008 Primary Ballot effort to get the new schools tax passed approached in that Presidential Election year, the pro-tax coven in Ironton (that included the City School Superintendent among its elite champions campaigning for the tax increase upon property owners - some of whom have no children going to the local state school system) pushed their campaign for the State's money, an opposition force (led by a local attorney and others) arose objecting to something I find akin to deciding how many angels can dance upon the head of a pin. They objected to the front architectural facade of the old 1922 high school building being demolished with the rest of that building for the construction of the new high school on the same site - due to the urge for historical preservation and local nostalgia for a building I was forced to attend from 1982-1986 (some locals used to call it Oak Street Prison as a local joke). Well these obstructing elites that wanted the front section of the old building preserved managed to tip the balance in two election during 2008 (the March Primary and a special May election) in favor of the NO vote prevailing. However, when the pro-tax forces sat down with their elite rivals in the save the front of the school movement and came to an agreement to preserve the historical front facade and steps of the old structure even if it might cost more to do that, as someone once said THE FIX WAS IN. Miraculously, the new school tax passed in the November 2008 general election and the matter was settled (allegedly the pro-tax forces said they would not bring the matter up again with a second special election if it hadn't passed on the third try). After all this local chicanery, with the forces of ever-expanding government and ever-higher taxes winning over those opposed (I was vocal in my opposition to anyone I talked to about it and in editorial letters to the local newspaper), I decided my participation in local elections was equally a joke as in national ones. One consequence of this new schools tax (the buildings were built between 2009 and 2011 - and although I toured the high school with classmates during our 25th Reunion weekend conducted by one classmate that had become principal - inside I still hate all taxation no matter what the alleged good cause or reason for it) was that my own real estate taxes went up a couple of hundred dollars and I was forced to sell my home in part because I could not afford them by November 2011.
So, dear reader, now that I've vented my disdain from personal experience as a former voter on how meaningless elections are in this rigged game of politics, you may cling to the sweet notion that government is good and only has our best interests at heart. I will never believe that, setting me at permanent odds with all those self-identified Progressive (socialist/Marxist) Democratic voters and their dumbed-down lowest common denominator fellow travelers - all useful idiots in enshrining Barack Hussein Obama Junior (AKA Barry Soetoro) for another four years of remaking America into a welfare state/police state HELL on Earth where his political party will become the permanent majority with their various brain-dead identity politics enthusiasts stuffing the ballot boxes every even year election to maintain their power to decide everything about all our lives whether we like it or not. And don't turn to the rotten Grand Old Party for salvation. They have been equally guilty at advancing and consolidating the State's rule over us as supposedly free people - with the PATRIOT Act, the Transportation Security Administration's flagrent abuses of air travelers, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011's indefinite detention of American citizens never charged with a crime, the drones that will soon fill our skies to spy on our every move and the ever increasing rules and regulations on every aspect of our daily lives courtesy of the evil citadel called Washington, D.C. Both parties are in on the rigged game and electing these crooks only encourages them that they are in reality your rulers (not your humble servants). Choke on that, America.