ILIM Invites You to Share a Dark Vision

Okay, so are you ready for some political cynicism?

The other day, I had a hygienic epiphany*.

I wondered if, at heart, most politicians are moderates who take less-centrist positions in order to get elected.

All you need is ambition.

Let’s say that you grow up in Southern Utah, and you want to be a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Secretly, you’re pro-choice, anti-death penalty, against prayer in schools, and you support gay marriage.
You could move, but Utah is your home. You like the National Parks, the low population, and all the repression and sexual tension.

So you adopt the prevailing viewpoints of your district as your own, and you make a run for Capitol Hill.

You make an entire career adding your vote to measures that would easily pass whether you support them or not. For example, you add your vote to a tax cut for the wealthy because it will pass anyway.

You vote in favor of things that, ultimately, will make very little difference. You vote in favor of 24 hour waiting periods because they don’t deny women the right to choose, but they allow you to maintain your pro-life credibility. You talk tough about how, little by little, abortion will be outlawed, but in 35 years, it never happens.

You fail to fund mandates. So, you vote in favor of that piece of legislation that purports to increase police officers in major metropolitan areas by 15% over the next biennium, but you gut it (or fails to give it legs) during the budget cycle when no one is watching. You say you're tough on crime, and you cite your voting record as proof of same.

All the sudden there, covered in Lever 2000, I just had this sense that empty votes are cast all the time. That symbolic legislation is favored over meaningful steps, and that bills never get the funding they need to really make an impact.

But individuals get to hold elected office. Could this be one explanation for why very little gets done in Washington? Is the whole thing fake, with moments of reality in between – like NASCAR or Pro Wrestling?

Last, might this cynical notion explain liberal democrats who, all the sudden late in life become conservative Republicans? I cite this idiot, and chief presidential stoolie, as an example. Might it explain Dinos like Lieberman and Rinos too**?

Is the whole thing just a well-orchestrated farce? Is it possible that Washington, D.C. is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against a people in the history of the world?

Or should I change my brand of soap to something less provocative?



*A hygienic epiphany is my term for those moments of clarity that come to us whilst showering or bathing.

**Dino – Democrat in name only; Rino is Republican in name only.