Professor Geek

Usually, I stick to things technical in this blog. However, every once in awhile I feel the need to vent with regard to politics and the like. This is not, actually, unrelated to technology. Since the invention of radio, American politics have changed forever. There are numerous pundits that make a living talking about how the new media has shaped politics, how politicians pander to special interests and big money, and how the system is broken, bearing little resemblance to that envisioned by the founding fathers.

I think this is our fault (”we” being all of us who vote or don’t choose to vote). We have allowed it to happen through apathy, disinterest, and a general attitude of powerlessness. So here are some of my suggestions for fixing things:

Do away with the current parties and replace them with three parties - The new parties would take all hard-core conservatives and put them into the Conservative Party. All hard-core liberals would be put into the Liberal Party and all independents and moderates (both current democrats and republicans) would become the Moderate Party. The moderate party, being the most reasonable and, ostensibly, encompassing the largest number of voters, would swamp both of the other parties, eventually leading to their demise, putting us back to a one-party system. We could then rename the Moderate Party the Federalist Party and start over.

Do away with the current parties and replace them with two new parties: The Haves and the Havenots - Since we’re heading the direction of Brazil (5% of the population holding 95% of the assets), why not separate the political parties by net worth. Then the Havenots would have a great voting block majority. They could make the Haves pay all the taxes and could eventually repeat the feats of the Mexican Revolution, taking all of the property from the Haves and redestributing it to the Havenots.

Do away with the current parties and replace them with two new parties that are age-specific - The Over50 Party would compete with the Under50 party. Yesterday, the Over50 Party members were called yuppies (young upwardly-mobile professionals). Well, these people are now retiring and I would propose that a new term be coined to describe them: grumpies (grumpy retirees with underfunded pensions). Interestingly, the Over50 Party would be losing members to death while the Under50 Party, still being quite fertile, could enhance their numbers through increased reproduction.

My last suggestion is to replace the current parties with geographically oriented parties. There would be the West Party and the East Party (formerly known as the blue states and the red states). They could duke it out with the middle of the country being the swing group. Living in the midwest, I could envision us taking over, allowing the two coasts to degenerate into their own countries and we could form a new country called the States of the American Heartland. The States of the West could have sushi as their national food, Hollywood as their capital, and rely exclusively upon solar energy or imports of gasohol from the SAH. The States of the East could increase the size of the current beltway to encompass the entire country and live as political junkies. The SAH, with the great lakes, the Mississippi, and most of the country’s food production, with merge with Canada and become the superpower of the 21st century.

Well, maybe the current system isn’t so bad after all. It just needs to be fixed, so let’s get to it.

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