Party Lines

On my 18th birthday, I registered to vote. I was Libertarian even then, but I decided to register as a Republican because I figured that any sensible Libertarian politician would likely try to run under the Republican party. I could vote for the most Libertarian candidate in the Republican primaries. But this idea was never realized before I decided to formally switch my political affiliation because I figured that if number of registered Libertarians grew to a substantial percentage, politicians would have to start paying some attention to the Libertarian ideals.

I bring this up because I would have liked to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primaries. He won’t actually win, but I think the fact that he’s gotten more attention and more votes than most people initially thought he would makes a strong statement about the current state of American politics.

The truth is that none of this makes a damn difference, and Ron Paul is probably just as much of a shitty bastard politician as the next guy. If I had $500 billion maybe it would make a difference. I am overwhelmingly disheartened by American politics — by how thoroughly disconnected it appears from popular consensus, by how being a politician has become such a specialized career path that our governments are being run by people who take the shortest path possible to advance their careers, and by how arrogant and brash politicians think they can be, telling all sorts of lies in confidence that they can get away with it.