I give up on politics. Bush stinks; Kerry stinks. They each have a few good ideas — I guess — but who cares. Our society is so bloated with regulation and law that we all must walk precarious paths in our private and professional lives (check that alliteration!). And does all this regulation and law make our society better? Crime is up, jobs are down, homelessness is up, economy is down, poverty is up, and on and on. But I only care about that in the abstract. What I care about is that most people are rude and impolite, and often do idiotic things that screw up what I am trying to do. It feels like there is a lack of personal responsibility. I am generalizing here, but it seems like most people behave like other people should give them things, make space for them, clean up after them, etc. Which I believe to be some stinky cheese.
And so I believe that government needs to stop doing things for people, and thus people would have to do things for themselves, thereby assuming more personal responsibility for their actions, their community, and their society. And the only party that ain’t jivin’ about smaller government is the Libertarian Party. I have just discovered that they have a candidate for president that is appearing on my state’s ballot. One Michael Badnarik. Now this guy is just some software stooge who got down with the constitution. But I read his issues page and be damned if I do not agree with a good bit of what is going on there. Maybe not so much with the spartan specifics he dribbles out as so called “plans”, but definitely with the high level approach being laid out (especially for the hemp).
Looks like I will end up voting after all. Not that it matters because I live in Kerry’s home state, but at least I will still respect myself in the morning.