I hate politics

[spatch]

There's some rabidly conservative planes flying above us right now. Well, I'm not so sure about the planes' own political leanings, but the banners trailing behind them are inspired by today's legislative circus over at the State House. The banners point to an anti-gay marriage website which implores us to do away with "the judges who started all this trouble" by "imposing gay marriage on us."

Oh, all this trouble! How well we all know the plagues visited upon us when the first same-sex couples emerged from Cambridge City Hall with marriage licenses, how the economy collapsed, dogs started meowing, ice cream lost its flavor, and how God punished Massachusetts by, uh, flooding New Orleans, I don't know.

And sure, I know how tough it was when gay marriage was imposed on me. What a surprise it was to wake up that day and hear that the state was imposing one on me, compliments of Judges Wossname and Whoever. (I mean, sure, Rick's nice and all, great sense of humor and he always makes sure to tivo Gilmore Girls, but golly this is not what I wanted.)

All hyperbole aside, what really galls me is that the only reason why such a stink is being made is because it's an election year. Gotta keep our partisan status quo! The basic freedoms of people who just want to live their lives with those they love are being toyed with simply because some politicians don't wanna give up their cushy ol' jobs unless it's a promotion, and will say anything to their constitchensee to stay in the game. Politics is for those who never matured beyond schoolyard bullying, who enjoy your typical pick-a-side-and-throw-rocks-at-the-other games. The whole "If you ain't for us you're agin us" crap. Witness the online genius who railed against Matt Amorello in the wake of his Big Dig mismanagement, calling him a "stubborn Dem hack." Oops, dude, the guy's a Republican. Just because Mitt Romney hates him doesn't automatically make him the Party You Despise. Way to jerk, knee. (I mean, I want Amorello out too, but not because he's affiliated with The Other Guys. I want him out because he's a tool. Being a tool transcends political affiliation.)

Oh hell. All this just disheartens me incredibly. Time to move to one's own island and declare a benevolent dictatorship or something.

Comments

[muse0fire.livejournal.com]

One of the chicks I was out with last night is a socially liberal Republican, and she was ranting about how annoying it is that all of the Republican candidates are going off on the gay marriage issue. She has no problem with gay marriage, and is furious that they aren't putting their energies to better uses (like the shitty Georgia school system.)

It gave me a bit of hope - perhaps other Republicans will see through this stupid charade and maybe have a bit of a backlash of their own, and start berating their own people for not focusing on REAL issues?

And why the hell aren't the Libertarians (aka Pussy Republicans) raging about this issue publically? Why aren't they protesting the people who want to DENY rights to Americans?

I'm with you on the island thing.

[ckd]

Funny how, when the SJC rules unanimously that the ballot initiative doesn't violate the clause against using referenda to reverse SJC decisions, they don't get called 'activist judges' by the folks that were clamoring for their removal earlier....

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I don't mind politics, but that ain't politics. That's hate on a motherfuckin' plane.

[mybadhairlife.livejournal.com]

"And sure, I know how tough it was when gay marriage was imposed on me. What a surprise it was to wake up that day and hear that the state was imposing one on me, compliments of Judges Wossname and Whoever. (I mean, sure, Rick's nice and all, great sense of humor and he always makes sure to tivo Gilmore Girls, but golly this is not what I wanted.)"

This (a) made me fall over laughing (of course, I am sitting on the swiss ball today to help make my muscles work, but it's still a fair acheivement, sir) and (b) made me want to steal it to use on every single Yobbo who says such stupid crap.

Thanks!

[limax.livejournal.com]

There you go using that confusing word again... is it benevolent or malevolent that I want? I can never remember....

[desultor.livejournal.com]

Politics is for those who never matured beyond schoolyard bullying, who enjoy your typical pick-a-side-and-throw-rocks-at-the-other games. The whole "If you ain't for us you're agin us" crap. ....Way to jerk, knee.

uh... i think there's some unintentional irony here.

maybe those who stay in politics have a better stomach than you or i for the schoolyard bullying, grandstanding, and rabid partisanship that seems to characterize much of politics today, but i don't think that too many people got into it because of a desire to pull hair and throw rocks. i think that they wanted to do some good, even if their definition of good doesn't fit with yours or mine, and even if they might have gotten lost along the way.

then of course there's the problem that if you want to stay in office or get into office, you have to appeal to the widest number of people, and i hate to break it to you, but the lowest common denominator isn't highly educated or particularly open-minded or sophisticated.

i'm not giving politicians a free pass, and i'm not saying that politics isn't fucked up. and i know that what you're saying is born primarily of frustration. i just feel it necessary to give caution about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase an old Bloom County, there's two types of people who aren't welcome in the Republican Party: Bigots and Homosexuals.

[desultor.livejournal.com]

it's tough with socially liberal republicans, because the question is, are they really republican, or conservative? it used to be that the republicans were the ones advocating small spending and less government intervention, and that was synonymous with the term conservative. but lately, many conservatives have been waking up to the fact that the republican party has been (to some extent) hijacked by the religious right and by people who aren't conservative.

i had a friend who voted for bush in 2000, he defended himself by saying he was a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. i told him he was full of shit, because he had to realize that if you vote for the republican, you get all the republican's policies, not just the fiscal ones you want, but the social ones you say you don't agree with.

so i still respect the people who say they're conservatives that are appalled at what's happened to the republican party, and who will no longer vote along party lines. the important question, though, is are their loyalties to the republican, or conservative ideology.

[desultor.livejournal.com]

ps - here are some really classy pictures of protesters i took that night at the cambridge courthouse

[ron_newman]

those are the lovely folks who were standing on an American flag while picketing. I saw them again in the Free Speech Cage outside the DNC in 2004.

[ron_newman]

it's not a straightforward Democrat/Republican issue. Here in Massachusetts, we have some Republicans who support gay marriage (for instance, Bill White in Somerville), and we have some Democrats who oppose it (like Vinnie Ciampa in Somerville).

[desultor.livejournal.com]

exactly my point, that it's no longer straight-up democrat or republican. :)

[muse0fire.livejournal.com]

It's different in Georgia, where I live (I'm formerly from Mass.) Here it goes almost straight down party lines - except for psychos like Zell Miller who claims to be a Democrat but is really a three headed alien.

In the south the Republicans use the issue to show how "godless" the Democrats are.

Forget about the fact that the marriage record for most of said Republicans is filled with multiple marriages, divorces, and adultery. Somehow that's still sacred because it's hetero marriage. Whatever.

[dpolicar]

I do try to remember that, annoying as all of this is, the situation where the right wing complains loudly about how Mass. allows same-sex marriages represents significant progress over the situation a few years ago when the left wing was quietly mumbling into its herb tea about how maybe some day we could manage to swing civil-union legislation.

Feels worse 'cuz it's better.

And give Rick a hug for me.

[archangelsk.livejournal.com]

They — the nebulous, nefarious they — will come for your island, eventually. Why not stay and fight?

[desultor.livejournal.com]

hm, okay, i think i misunderstood ron_newman's comment when i was replying to it. i was using "it's no longer straight-up democrat or republican" to mean more that people's political affiliation now is less likely to tell you their general beliefs because the title "republican" has moved away from the meaning of "conservative". i wasn't actually talking about gay marriage specifically. but now i realize that ron_newman was. oops!

i saw an article, or maybe it was just a quote, that i liked the other day, talking about "godless liberals" and ann coulter. it said, um hello, but didn't anyone remember that this country was founded on the principle that your religious beliefs were a matter of personal choice, and not coercion?

[ron_newman]

Massachusetts still has a remnant of Republicans whose ideology is basically lower taxes, fiscal restraint, and business-friendly policies. All of which are compatible with support for gay marriage. This probably is less true in other parts of the country.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

That's the Phelps clan, aka Westboro Baptist Church.

They are absolutely batshit fucking loony. Their current schtick is to picket the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq* saying that said soldiers are being killed because the US is a Fag Nation.

The problem with WBC is that compared to them, everybody looks good. So you have all the nasty fundie motherfuckers saying "Look at these dreadful people! We're not like that! OK, we want to deny all rights to homos and force them to have psychotherapy to counter their 'abnormality' but we don't call them Fags! We're FWUFFY!"


*You know, I was distracted when I typed the above sentence, and I initially typed 'Vietnam' instead of 'Iraq'. No joke.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

Same here. I'm British, and in my lifetime we've gone from Section 28 (search for "pretended family relationship") to civil partnerships. So have the Czechs, and they were communist until 1989. And I'm not convinced that it won't be full-on marriage in a few years' time. According to Google Ads, what gay people can have in Britain is definitely a marriage, and who can argue with Google Ads?

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

Spatch, if you have the number of Rick's sister Rochelle, could you hook me up by any chance?

It happened in Britain...

[ralpheman.livejournal.com]

Sure, women got the right to vote in Britain and the US wanted to keep up with the Jones' but I don't believe that is true anymore. We are defiantly associating our alliances with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China. I think the Repugnant Party will keep it off the agenda for a minimum of 20 years. I see our sense of Freedom will be far behind the rest of the industrialized world for decades to come.

[arielblue.livejournal.com]

If you'll let Abbie be at least the Assistant Benevolent Dictator, I'ma move to your island too. At least I know there'll be tuna. Hell, we could just saw off the end of Cape Cod with a really big saw, and set P-town afloat, stick a really big sheet on the Pilgrim Monument for a sail, and have that.

(i have to laugh 'cause, you know, otherwise i'd live in indiana crying.)

[ckd]

Another point, given the juxtaposition of same-sex marriage and the Big Dig:

The Big Dig has shown that it threatens "traditional" marriages. Let's see some picketers!

[ketzie.livejournal.com]

Huh. The left in the US isn't "mumbling into its herb tea"? What I hear is, "This isn't the issue for the Democratic Party now.", and "I hate to say it, but pushing for gay marriage lost us the 2004 race."

[dpolicar]

Oh, it certainly is. But it's mumbling into its herb tea while same-sex couples are busily getting married in Massachusetts, which constitutes progress over the state where it was mumbling while they weren't.