Ramblings From Justin Penney

Every four years the minds of Americans are thrown into a blender of spinning talking points ... someone just hit liquify. The wildcard pick of Sarah Palin as McCain's vice-presidential candidate has made complete fools out of everyone. Really ... party lines have been crossed with the amount of stupidity I have seen this weekend.

I've heard women that are letting ovaries dictate their vote ... even if that vote means that they would no longer be in control of their ovaries. I've heard verbatim "talking points" spouted off by a disparate cross-section all prefaced with the phrase, "I did my research." I've heard "executive experience" (emphasis being theirs) more in a week than I've heard in the last ten years.

This week I also learned that no one in America has a concept of average. This words is used to convey, "I can relate to that." No one in the upper echelons of American politics is average ... just doesn't happen. At that level they are wealthy and isolated from the trials and tribulations of working family life.

I find the concept of a liberal bias to major media outlets to be hard idea to swallow. Most major news outlets sound like Republican talking points. The Right-wing machine is in full-effect in spinning things like PTA membership and mayorship of tiny towns into massive leadership building skills. They are great steps, but don't try to spin them in to something they are not. As a father, husband of a teacher, and son of rural town I know what's involved in those positions.

The worst trait that I'm seeing now is the blind steadfastness of ideology. As someone who deals in logic, if something doesn't work I change it and observe the results. In my profession, computer related, doing the same thing and expecting a different results is a sure sign that you need a break ... or a beer ... or an extended stay at a psych ward. Pushing for abstinence only education when your seventeen year old daughter is knocked up shows that something, somewhere failed ... and I doubt it was a condom! Maybe a condom, or a pill, or a shot, or a patch ... could have made that girls life a whole lot easier to traverse. That path is difficult, and I speak from experience having fathered a child at twenty. Even at twenty I was not prepared to handle a life. I'm twenty-nine now and just feel like I'm getting it when it comes to taking care of a child.

I should go on record saying that I don't blame Sarah Palin for her daughter's preganancy, or fault her for it. I do fault her for not seeing that result and altering the ideology that she is hoping to foist onto Americans. It's wool over the eyes, rose colored glasses ... or any of a million clichés.

We need to open our eyes, turn on our bullshit filters, and use our brains. America didn't get to be the empire it is by ignoring change in the world. In contrast, we were at the front. We innovated. We grew. We are the architects of the life that the rest of the world clamors to achieve. We're losing it. Our ingenuity has been out-sourced. We're handing over liberties in exchange for the fiction of safety ... and we're broke. Flat fucking busted.

# posted by Justin @ 10:34 PM