Politics ad nauseam

There's one thing to be said for this year's election circus: it's a much more interesting spectacle than any I've seen before. What's also interesting about it is that the candidates are not reaching for the middle: Obama and Biden are both pretty far left, both economically and socially, and McCain's pretty much the personification of national greatness conservatism. The media's made a lot of hay out of McCain's policy shifts (and correctly so, in my view), but his real core's always been about America's awesome, our military is ridiculously powerful and we should use it like a battering ram whenever possible, and also have you heard that I was a prisoner of war because it's not like I mention it six times a day prior to shaving. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what Palin's all about. She certainly seems to lie a lot. You'd think if you were going to introduce yourself to the nation by telling lies, they'd be about things that were not easily verifiable.

GOV. SARAH PALIN: [repeat forcefully 25x] I hate earmarks, America! I told the federal government Thanks but no thanks on the Bridge to Nowhere!

CHARLIE GIBSON: That's actually not true. In fact here's a picture of you literally wearing a T-shirt saying you support it.

GOV. SARAH PALIN: Uh, well, I-

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: [raging] BARACK OBAMA WANTS TO SHOW YOUR KINDERGARTENER PICTURES OF HIS BLACK COCK, I SWEAR TO GOD! LOOK HOW CREEPY AND BLACK HE LOOKS IN THIS PICTURE AS HE HOVERS OVER VARIOUS YOUNG WHITE CHILDREN! DID I MENTION I WAS A PRISONER OF WAR BY THE WAY BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE HEARD SINCE YOU'VE BEEN LIVING IN A CAVE, VERY SIMILAR TO THE PRISON WHERE I WAS ONCE BRUTALLY TORTURED BY THE VIET CONG!

...which is more or less what the past week has seemed like to me. Entertaining, in sort of an idiotic, surreal way, and kind of depressing for the same reason. This is our politics, huh. How about debating policy, guys? Anyone? Mention a policy? Joe Biden had some policy tidbits, too bad he fell down an open manhole cover and died, which is what must have happened because why haven't we heard from him in like a week?

That said, what's interesting about the race is that it makes you review your political leanings, since it isn't permeated with the odd feeling that all the candidates are actually the same guy (the guy being the bastard love child of Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, actually a robot controlled by Karl Rove, who is actually a robot owned by Halliburton). When people ask, I tell them I'm 'basically a libertarian.' Kinda. I like the idea of small government, anyway. Or, more precisely:

Economically, I'm in favor of free markets. They're efficient, they're responsive, they're Adam Smith's cold dead invisible hands crushing our lives into meaningless dust. Just kidding. But in general, I think if a job can be reasonably done by private industry, it should be done that way and the government should leave them alone to do it. There are areas that are not handled adequately by private industry, in which case I'm fine with the government doing it. Environmental protection is one really obvious example of this, and one where I differ sharply from orthodox libertarianism. Yes, you can imagine hypothetical scenarios where a private company would want to protect the environment. But there are enough cases where profit and conservation part ways that the free market, left to its own devices, will give the environment a nice firm rogering. The solution isn't to nationalize these industries, as some of the more fringe leftists would suggest, but to regulate them. This is already being done. Tweaking the level at which this is done is fine and probably a good idea, proposing to either massively deregulate everything or nationalize everything is not fine.

Socially, I'm about as liberal as you can get. While I've got a relatively boring personal life, I fully support your right to use all manner of wild and crazy drugs, have sex with and marry whoever suits your fancy, believe in whatever the hell you want to believe in, and so on. I've got mixed feelings about abortion, but I certainly don't think it's the federal government's business to say you can't have one.

Pet hot button issues of mine: science (more funding for all the natural sciences, please, both basic and applied), space (more space development and exploration, not just lip service, and support commercial space initiatives, please), free speech (book banning, censoring, and excessive political correctness are all pretty horrible things, and yes 'speech' on the internet and in video games still qualifies as speech), guns (don't own one myself, but it's really not ok to say that people shouldn't be able to defend themselves, and yes the second amendment really does guarantee that right, so stop pissing on it).

Where does this odd melange of ideas leave me with regard to this year's elections? If you just look at policy details, it's actually kind of a toss-up. The elephant in the room (pun intended) is that John McCain is older than the big bang and has a temper hotter than dirt (OOPS, DID I FLUB THAT LINE? MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE I'M 72 YEARS OLD AND SENILE AND HAVE NO BUSINESS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT BECAUSE I HAVE ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE AND THE OTHER IN MY MOUTH BECAUSE I'M SENILE AS HELL), and regardless of his particular policy stances, really isn't temperamentally suited to be President. Frankly, I'm not sure Sarah Palin is, either, although in her case I'm willing to chalk it up to ignorance. Not that that's much better. Perhaps we should go to war with Russia? Not even the most diehard supporters of the Bush doctrine think that. Not that Mrs. Palin would know.

So, damning him with faint praise, I'm supporting Obama. I do like his idea of changing the tone of politics in Washington. Too bad the McCain camp ruined that by burying him and his change of tone underneath a giant stinking mound of political feces. Thanks for nothing, assholes.