Raging Pencils
The terpsichoric
web comic, by Mike
Stanfill
New comics every Monday, Wednesday & Friday.
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Vote
Loony. Vote Often.
It's funny how, as far as the U.S. Congress goes, what's good for the goose should
be allowed nowhere near the gander.
Free health care? You bet. Your representative or senator gets the best available.
The rest of us, however, must trust our fate to Chinese drugs as both Canada
and Mexico are plotting to kill us all with their freedom-hating alchemy.
What I really wanted to talk about, in a roundabout way, is the American ideal
of open competition. Until this present coterie of cronies occupying the White
House started tossing no-bid contracts around like teeth at a hockey brawl many
government contracts were theoretically open to anyone capable of performing
the required function. Black, white, brown, male, female, left-handed, lactose
intolerant, Unitarian, it didn't matter, anyone could claim the gig of supplying
toilet paper to the whole U.S. army if they played their cards right. Doubly
so if an ace or two came wrapped in hundred dollar bills.
Just don't try and start a third political party as the Republicans and Democrats
neither want nor need competition as they're quite happy scarfing up all that
lovely lobbyist money for themselves, thank you very much. That's really what
all this famous American gerrymandering is about. It's primary goal is to effectively
compartmentalize liberals from conservatives, a division which makes most local
political races in this country over before they began. However, it also effectively
blocks new parties from finding a constituency.
Since all state governments, that's ALL state governments, are currently heavily
populated by the two main parties they also get to make the rules when it comes
to placing a third-party candidate on the ballot. And they're not very nice or
very subtle about the forms of discrimination they use or the roadblocks they
employ. Their tolerance for the third parties that presently exist stems mostly
from their value as spoilers. (See: Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Sanjaya)
Yes, we have a few stray Greens out there, and a splash of Libertarians, but
England has the Official Monster Loony Party, for crying out loud. I mean, those
people know how to vote.
The best third party we have in America, the one with the best chance of winning,
is that little empty blank marked "Other". If we could somehow crowdsource
this loophole using the power of the internet then, by Crom, I think Mickey might
actually have a chance this year.
After all, we had Goofy for president for the past eight.
=mike=
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Raging Pencils is a massive conceit courtesy
of:
Mike
Stanfill, Private Hand
Illustration • Animation • Web Design
www.privatehand.com
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