House of Eratosthenes

…political scientists would do well to come up with a name for election cycles like this one, in which one of the candidates manages to plow ahead by being the youngest — therefore, culminating in the inauguration of a new generation. The ramifications are huge…substantial debate, the one thing everybody says they really want, will lose out every time.

It happens on a sixteen year cycle, pretty reliably.

Because they are the political party of feeling-over-thinking, the democrats are the constant beneficiaries of this — also pretty reliably. This has strong appeal for people when you’re in the middle of one of these sixteen-year cycles. You’re young; those old guys are in charge, and they don’t care about you. And here’s some new guy who, while still a little older than you, is much closer to you in age therefore he knows all about your problems.

Put him in. And we’ll have “change.”

It seems to make a lot of sense during one cycle. It looks laughable and silly when you observe a succession of multiple cycles. Well, I happen to like making things look silly when they really are silly, so let’s go.

Obama, 2008. He’s going to change things (H/T: Rick).

Clinton, 1992. He’s going to change things too.

Carter, 1976. A southernor for change.

Kennedy, 1960. He understands the problems of these young West Virginians, and he stands for change.

I honestly don’t know how to explain this thing about people. I don’t completely understand it myself. When we go shopping for houses and cars, we’re so determined to avoid getting ripped off. Salesmen have to be friendly, but they have to be friendly in the right way, because if we think they’re friendly and they resemble us well, but we don’t pick up the right “vibe,” we just get more suspicious.

Then we select someone for the most powerful office on the planet and we’re all just ooh…bright shiny object.

All these issues we say we care about. But every sixteen years the guy who can pull off this “I’m young like you and I can feel your pain” nonsense, is the consistently the guy who discusses those issues the least.

All four of these guys campaigned to end war. All four of them campaigned this way without directly coming out and saying that’s what they would do. Just kind of implying it.

And of the three who have already served, all three of them made war by emboldening our enemies. All three of them, it can be plausibly argued, caused wars to happen that didn’t have to.

And here’s George Bush, the incumbent President, the exterminator, being blamed for the infestation problem in the first place. When we know for a fact the infestation predates his presidency by a good stretch. We know it. Suddenly, millions upon millions of us seriously wonder if the problem isn’t caused by government interference in the first place. Would that we had that hyper-popular spirit of skepticism with some of our social programs!

When are we gonna learn?

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When Are We Gonna Learn?Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

When Are We Gonna Learn?
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008