A Generation without Heroes:
Because everyone's just too scared to be one.
So, the election is over. It's going to be another four years of bellyaching, cock-blocking, and elevated racial tensions -- and I don't think any of that was dependent on who won or lost. I actually waived my rights as an American citizen this year, and opted not to vote. Why? I didn't like any of my choices, for anything. The democratic process of representation is designed to maximize the happiness of all by finding a candidate best suited to the needs of its people and I, this year especially, find myself harshly at odds with what those needs are, and what is 'best' for the country in which I reside. This isn't at all an uncommon event, but I find it's much more starkly painted in recent months than it has been in quite some time.
With election time looming and life taking all kinds of twisted spirals, I shut myself down from the technological world. I spent a near month without the use of text messaging, Facebook, or any other kind of social interaction that didn't involve an actual voice. I sat down and talked with the furthest lefts and rights I could find, I sought out the middle, I had conversations about damn near every candidate I could find, and all I heard was the same speech of controversy. Whatever side was speaking was right and whatever side the opposed was going to be the downfall of America. The context of stances didn't even seem to matter, it was listening to people prattle on about their favor sports team, how the games were all rigged and how the pitcher on the opposing team was an absolute piece of human trash, and likely some kind of uppity race traitor.
It seemed, without question, that the politics of my generation had become a spectator sport, where the issues in question were no longer 'What is best for my country?', but instead 'What is best for my team?'. Politics, to me at least, seems to have become less about the advancement of a people, and more about a new league of fantasy football, where it's always the red team vs. the blue team.
It was a cluster-fuck of social issues and contextual statements that illustrated something fundamentally more important to me than the political anchoring in this country. What I saw, what I heard, what I came to understand, left me with a stronger sense of self than I've had in quite some time, and with it, I found a rushing surge of words - words I chose to leave silent until after the dust storm of wolf-crying had been settled as much as it likely will be in the next four years.
Politics, to me, seems to be the dirty business of decision making for a people in how they are perceived by those who do not reside in their country. It's for people who are willing to look at what will make their country a stronger, safer, better, place to live in the world. It's about brokering deals, shady handshakes for peacekeeping and propping people up only to knock them down later.
So then, the 'issues', so it seems to me, are just one giant Jack-a-lope hunt. People have built issues out of gender and sexuality equality, about the right to marry whoever you damn well please, and how it's your legal right to force people to abide by your way of living that it's what elections have become all about. Do you like God, guns, believe that marriage is between a man and a woman only, and have some kind of secret agenda against any kind of tolerance? Do you have questions about God, tout your opinions about marriage equality and make demands that all people are, in fact, equal and should be treated as such? Congratulations, you're a card carrying member of political stagnation.
These issues about gender and sexuality equality, these issues about what's the right way to conduct ourselves as a people. the fact that we have to turn these things over into a political arena -- and one nobody seems to like the way it's going or run, no less -- seems just utterly fucking absurd to me. You want to have a country where everybody can hold hands, hug, love, and agree that nobody's any better than anyone else. That's amazing, that's great, that's the way it should be - and yet your solution is to hand it over to a bunch of people who really don't ever do a whole lot to act upon that for you? That makes about as much sense as shooting yourself in the foot, then pricking yourself in the finger with an infected needle.
We live in a country where a 'sense of 'equality' and 'political correctness' has become absolutely crippling. We've been mainlining tolerance into the veins of the up and coming generations to the point we've clipped their wings in the interest of keeping the playing field as level as we can. We're all so chicken-shit scared of being able to sort out any of our own problems, that we turn them over to politicians and then make elections all about social issues plaguing the country -- and I think that's a large part of the problem
It is not a presidents job to give his blessing to gay marriage, no more than it has any place being drafted into any kind of law. The only reason that this process exists in modern culture is because we've all gotten so lawsuit happy over the affairs of political correctness and, instead of letting these issues go and ignoring the would-be-terrorists of these social agendas, we continue to propel a system that seems more and more interested in fixing a social system with tax dollars and less about being people with a whole lot less sticks stuck up our asses.
I'm frankly worn on seeing people winning elections on the platforms of God and Equality. The principle tenets of America, at least if you were to poll it's base population, are freedom and equality, but there's a catch to that. These same people, even those whom I admire, revere, and respect, all seem so hung up on enforcing it, that is not longer what they've been striving for at all. It's not freedom when you have a law in place to govern it, or when you have seven billion safety nets dividing a country on the grounds of race, creed, gender, religion, background, the number of children we have and are unable to support - and so on.
Social issues are not the problem of the government, they're the problem of the people. Sure, you need protections in place that prohibit crimes of rape and murder, across all platforms, and you're damn right to throw the fucking book at anyone still willing to me motivated by such ignorant factors in a crime, but when you start singling out the factions for special treatments and rights, in this day and age, you're really just driving the wedge of dissent deeper and deeper among the people.
Everyone has the right to be a human, to be protected, to get an education, get a job, slave away until they hayday of dried up social security and piss away the rest of their days staring out a window taped up with greeting cards from last years Holiday - and maybe, just maybe, doing it with your spouse in the eyes of whatever new or old God or Goddesss you've chosen. That's your American right. That's the freedom you have by living here. It doesn't matter your gender, your skin color, who you like to take to bed, or what you think about anyone else - and that's the catch.
You want your parades and your equality speeches? Fine, but you have to let everyone have them. We live in the information age, an age where every last shred of love, hate, inhumanity, and hope can all be found in a search bar and a few clicks of a touch-pad. Supposedly that bullshit needs to be okay. I call shenanigans on that and suggest that it needs to be less about teaching compassionate people to walk on eggshells, while those who seek to separate themselves are issued jackboots nobody wants to stand up to anymore, and more about getting people to have their opinions without having to be right all the damn time.
It's a nation of judge all, but don't judge me, a place where everybody has the right to be somebody, as long as you're not like everybody. It's a nation where you're identified more by who you vote for, who you fuck, and what you think about your gender than by what you want to do for the world. The merit of a companion is no longer held in account on matters of worldly goodness, but rather is asphyxiated and fucked in some trashy novel sold on new stands everywhere - and the protagonist is a real likeable asshole who happens to agree with everything you say even if it's only to shut you up.
You want to make your country better, you want to stop seeing your election go by the wayside you can't stand? Stop making them circuses about social issues that are things you, as American people, should be fixing on your own. Grow as a people, get over the fact that who you fuck doesn't make you special, nor does what's between your legs. Let go of the fact that skin color is even a consideration in your daily life, or that you may or may not believe in the same God as everyone walking down the street. In short? Make the world better by making issues out of less, standing up for equality for everyone, and quit adding taglines to further fictionalize a sense of unity among a people who've never been more separate.
Be a hero - and be damned with always being politically correct.
