House of Eratosthenes

I notice we seem to be arguing lately not quite so much about what to do, as we are about who is to decide what we should do, and who should have no say in the matter at all.

Quoting my own words of wisdom in the Hello Kitty of Blogging account:

Awhile ago, columnist Larry Elder noted that conservatives think liberals are misguided, but liberals think conservatives are really, really, really, really bad people.

Maybe it’s time for an update.

Conservatives would like liberals to be disenfranchised from the electoral process, until such time as those liberals grow up a little bit, learn the value of a dollar, recognize that all people are created equal and deserve equality-of-opportunity but not equality-of-outcome, actually READ the Constitution, learn how our system of government works — and, where it applies, attain citizenship, meet the conditions of their parole, and use their own stinkin’ ID.

Liberals would like conservatives to be disenfranchised from the electoral process forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever…until they die of old age, in a fire, get reincarnated as something hideous, die of old age again, in another fire, foreverandeverandeverandeverandeverandever.

The sad thing is, this “electoral process” has become more and more important to us, ultimately concerning itself with everything from, is appeasement the best way to deal with a country whose leaders want us all dead, and is trying to get nuclear weapons…to…what busybody bureaucrat will we hire to go through kids’ lunch sacks to make sure Mom put the right things in there. Think about it — that is quite a stretch.

From is-it-okay-this-guy-wants-us-to-bake-in-a-mushroom-cloud, to — are-you-wiping-your-ass-right. Perhaps it is possible for the spectrum to stretch more broadly than that, but it is difficult to see how.

There is more wisdom from Yours Truly over at Hello Kitty that dovetails into this:

Justice Anthony Kennedy nailed it. Obamacare is about changing the relationship between government and the citizens it purports to govern.

Time for some Dilbert logic. Imagine if you will, a society in which government takes care of the “citizen’s” most intimate and personal needs, and in order to do that, provides the citizens with instructions about how to live, right down to what kind of car to drive, how many times a week to have sex, proper toothbrushing procedures, etc. What do you think the elections for President would look like; what kind of megalomaniacs would want the job.

You might see the candidates most interested in preserving the dignity and autonomy of the individual, ejected from the running early on. For entirely nebulous reasons…like for example, “I just don’t get the feeling she’s qualified.” Like that. You might see the candidates most interested in providing their own children with a happy and sane childhood, pushed out of the race as sleazebag “journalists” rent houses next door and start peeking through their windows.

As the field is winnowed down, you might see the few remaining candidates utterly and completely failing to capture even trace amounts of real enthusiasm…even though the entire electorate knows the incumbent’s got to go.

And speaking of the incumbent, in the guys who actually get the top job, you might see this weirdly extreme self-centeredness. You might see their chin jutting upward at a permanent angle, as if their neck bones have been surgically fused together maybe. You might see them doing strange things like filling in fantasy sports team brackets while the unemployment bobs up & down around 9% to 10%. You might see the First Family take on this air of almost royalty. You might see the First Lady start campaigns to “battle childhood obesity” forcing the peasants to subsist on arugula and kale while she and her friends wolf down on cheeseburgers and fries.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you America Anno Domini Twenty Twelve.

So we have a bigger and bigger “everything” being decided by our political process, and we’re getting further and further away from the one-man-one-vote vision, embracing instead a model of we-vote-on-who-votes (and how many times). Well, what more is there to be said. We all like things to be a little less tense in our politics…nobody wants a fist fight over the Thanksgiving table just because this branch of the family is Roosevelt democrat, and that branch is Reagan Republican. We want our friends to be friends first, political allies/antagonists a distant second. We want to get along with each other. But I have to ask: Is there anything we can do to produce division and rancor, that we’re not already doing?

That, perhaps, is the ultimate argument against Obamacare: Politics will become more and more divisive, as long as politics decide more and more things, with little or no sincere or workable process for appeal.

Is there anything we can do to produce division and rancor, that we’re not already doing?

Boom. Leave aside the lies, the crappy math, and the even crappier procedural precedents in the Obamacare debate. For me, the scariest thing was that I could not get a single liberal — not one — to acknowledge that some kind of federal health law very quickly ends up with ME voting on YOUR private life. It’s baked right into the cake, as it were — the awful, fattening, sure-to-result-in-obesity-diabetes-and-heart-disease cake that, under the old dispensation, you could eat to your heart’s (ahem) content, because you yourself would have to shoulder at least some of the consequences later. Under a federal health law, though, your care comes out of my pocket, so you’re damn skippy I’m going to vote for major jail time for compulsive snackers. Cue the Capone Mob running Twinkies in over the border in the dead of night.

Other things I’d vote to outlaw under a federal health law: anal sex (the prime vector for the costliest STD); automobiles (some umpteen million Americans are permanently injured in car crashes each year, as Ralph Nader used to so often remind us); abortion (we’re gonna need a lot of new taxpayers, plus the consequences of a botched one are so horrible); anime (find me a fan under 300lbs); alcohol (do I even need to go there?), etc. etc.

And we’re not even out of the A’s yet.

Needless to say I like at least some of the things on that list, and at least two of them are among the very favorite activities of some of the left’s very favorite groups, and all of these bans are gross violations of personal freedom…. but so what? We’ve already established the Government Knows Best principle when it comes to your bodily economy, and guess what? I AM the government. That’s the beauty of the franchise.

No leftist will admit this, or even acknowledge the possibility it could be an issue in the debate…. even though this was precisely what “death panels” were about (my reply to the left’s glib dismissal of those: “ye gods, you’d better hope there are death panels! Otherwise the necessary rationing decisions are going to be made by either exceedingly bribe-able bureaucrats… or popular referendum. Guess who I’m voting off the island first?”).
- Severian | 03/29/2012 @ 08:05
Carousel, Lastday, Lastday, Carousel, Sanctuary, Runner, Lifeclock, Carousel…
- mkfreeberg | 03/29/2012 @ 08:38
Actually you could make a good argument we’re moving more quickly toward a future of “Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman.”
- mkfreeberg | 03/29/2012 @ 08:40

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DisenfranchisementThursday, March 29th, 2012

Disenfranchisement
Thursday, March 29th, 2012