Yes, and.

Ah, the baby in the bar. God. My stomach still turns thinking of that night. I’d also like to add that there was, at another table, another family with two kids. Two girls, probably aged 8 and 12-ish. Not babies, but not your typical liquor swilling hole-in-the-wall denizens, either. But they seemed happy enough wowing over their uncle’s customized saw, which had some sort of NASCAR logo carved in the blade. I kid you not. (TeemKuntz says he doesn’t want to be elitist, but I think I do.)

I’ve digressed before I’ve begun.

Despite my shared loathing for all the aforementioned people, I have a semi rebuttal.

Do these people get a vote? Yes. Do they, in theory, have more sway than us? Yes.

Will all of them utilize their vote? I am saying probably not. I would bet cash money that that woman will be dealing with that baby’s chronic cough (or other ailment, or daily problem) come Tuesday in November, and she won’t make it to the polls. (Which is a shame, because I tend to think she’d at least have survival instinct enough to vote for a candidate with a sturdy healthcare plan.)

But if we prefer to dwell in a realm of ideals, I still think there’s another answer.

The American answer is: Everyone gets a vote, but you can do more.

And to clarify, I don’t mean George Bush’s ” ‘MERICA! FUCK YEAH!”, the world-policing nation, or the super-slickly marketed, superficial pandering of current politicians to this half-assedly stuck together for-better-or-for-worse group of diverse and pissed-off people. I mean America, where people used to give a damn.

I don’t know that there was ever a nation of equality where “anyone could become president” (Zinn says no so far and I’m only on Chapter 4),. I don’t know if hard work ever paid off for everyone. I doubt it. But I do know causes used to mean something.

Protests, riots, enlisting in the army. These acts meant something. And you know for damn sure they meant more than the contents of a ballot box.

The American answer is: make your vote mean more. Volunteer, hold a protest, make art, start a movement. Create a website. Craft a heavier vote with your hands and your sweat and your time.

Thank you for visiting the Realm of Ideals. Now entering: Reality.

I don’t think I have to take the time to explain why this doesn’t happen. 40+ hours with these fluorescent lights sucking at my eyeballs — SUCK SUCK SUCK — and THEN I’m going to commute, make dinner, potentially work on my second job, and THEN campaign? Or create? Or donate?

I don’t think so. The most political thing I’ll probably do tonight is watch the Daily Show (IF I can wrestle away the remote and turn off the O’Reilly Factor…)

So for the time being, I suppose I’m surrendering to having less of a vote than the baby-weilding bar hoppers.

 

Do these people really have a vote?

A few weeks back we were in a local watering hole. It was the day of the Datona 500, so my ire was up anyway. (I find NASCAR fans among the most insufferable people on the planet, but that is a topic for another post.)

After several rounds (and much delicate mocking of the NASCAR fans), a family of sorts walked in. It was a woman, two men and yes, a baby. I mean literally a baby, as in ‘I’m-just-learning-to-stand-on-my-own-baby’).

Now, I’m not a believer in ‘family values’ or the nanny state. I generally believe people should have the freedom to do what they want to do. Coercion is usually a bad thing.

But this bothered me. Keep in mind this isn’t a restaurant that happens to serve booze. It’s a bar. Smoky, full of drunks, loud music blaring, sports on the TV – a bar.

Then one of the guys at the table lit up a smoke. The baby starts to cry, or more accurately, scream. The other guy gets pissed off at, of all people, the baby, not the jerk who’s smoking less than two feet away from the baby.

Then it hit me; there’s three of them, and only two of us. We’re both politically-minded people, and the primaries have become our new favorite sport. Lately, our nights out involve beers, whiskey and hours of discussion about the merits of different healthcare systems.

And these three jokers, who probably couldn’t pick a presidential candidate out of a police lineup, will actually have more sway in the general election than we will. I don’t mean to be an elitist, but seriously, what am I supposed to make of that?

Freedom = good. Coercion = bad, but does that include the freedom to be morons? Freedom to be uninformed? It’s this freedom that’s given us the past eight years.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe when these people aren’t getting tanked up with their baby and blowing smoke into his face, they’re at home watching “An Inconvenient Truth” and reading policy papers about taxation.

Somehow I doubt that.