People get the government they deserve, collectively. It's just too damned bad about that majority rule thing, frankly, because it's always the majority who are the least informed, the least educated and the least likely to make decisions in anyone's best interests -- except for the best interests of the people who manage to find the best way to MANIPULATE that majority.
It's almost midnight here in Los Angeles and I'm feeling especially bitter and cynical tonight. Less than half of voting age Americans vote. Of that total, 44% voted for GWB in 2000. Of that 44%, probably 75% bought his bullshit and continue to buy it. The remaining 25% will vote for him again DESPITE their strong suspicion that he lied and that he's inept, because he's a conservative Republican goddamnit and that Kerry fella is a goddamned pinko.
The vast majority of the world's population is comprised, I have come to believe, of idiots, morons, imbeciles, fools and dipshits. They are, by and large, fairly fucking stupid.
And as for the common assertion that most people are inherently good... Well. Should I start at the beginning of recorded history, or work backward, or just pick a few random examples of rampant human badness to shatter that assertion? Let's start with the obvious and move on from there. Holocaust. Rwanda. Bataan. Laos. Matthew Shepard. Stoning people to death for saying the word "Jehovah." The immolation of widows. Female genital mutilation. Lynching. Jim Crow. Being a United States Senator and getting away with raping and impregnating your teenaged maid. Place kicking a neighbour's dog. Keeping a child locked in a basement to live his entire wretched life of eleven years covered in his own feces while recovering from everything from bruises to broken bones to venereal disease passed on by his own father. Standing on a street corner and watching as several men beat Reginald Denny mostly to death with bricks. Hiding in your apartment while you listen to your upstairs neighbour beat the shit out of his wife. Gay marriage bans. Sodomy laws. Obscenity trials for the use of words.
I guess I should stop, because that list could go on ad infinitum.
Yeah, I'm a little depressed by man's inhumanity to man tonight. For some reason, lately, when I look at my beautiful innocent, charming, lively four year old son,
I shudder in horror at the world he was brought into. I should have had an abortion. Better that than consign an innocent to this godforsaken planet.
I just re-read this post and am more than a little appalled at my words -- especially that last paragraph. I may regret this, but I have decided not to edit it. It was what went through my head, and I must confess, it wasn't the first time.
Sorry for the downer.And yes, I'm on medication. : )