2016 | penfist

The political system in the United States is broken

I watched the first presidential debate of 2016 last night. Gross.

Why do I have to choose between a shady, back-room power deals career politician and a shady, back-room power deals career businessman? Both of them are liars. Both of them are flip-floppers. Both of them are power hungry. These are not qualities I can support in a leader.

Every logical fallacy I am aware of was at play in the debate last night. These two individuals are not the best choices to lead the United States for the next four years. We shouldn’t have to choose between two paragons of fail. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are not root causes. They are not the disease. They are the symptoms of a bigger problem.

The virus of the two-party system, where all opinions are slowly silenced until there are only two voices left. A system of decision making that offers only two choices is not healthy. The debate last night didn’t offer any real dialog about the problems average Americans face. It didn’t offer any real perspectives. That’s because, in the United States, minorities who aren’t bought are still silenced. That’s the real problem.

If you’re a socially progressive and fiscally conservative, like I am, there isn’t a real choice. If you believe politicians should be honest and responsible, you don’t have a real choice this election cycle. If you think government should operate transparently, always choosing to balance personal liberties with social infrastructure that demands personal responsibility, neither of these two is palatable.

They will both hoard power. They will both continue the vast, non-transparent, morally bankrupt security state we’ve been building since Sept. 11, 2001. We’ll keep using drones to extra-judicially murder those who, real or imagined, represent some sort of threat to this nation-state. All of our options will continue being boiled down into soundbites that lack any true substance. I can’t vote for that. I won’t vote for it. I don’t want to build a wall, and I don’t want to create more failed states like Libya and Syria in the name of the American people.

We owe it to ourselves to destroy the two-party system that offered up these two as our best hope for turning the ship before it collides with an iceberg named mediocrity.

I asked my girlfriend to register to vote. “It just feels like a waste of time,” she said. She’s right.

Until we manage to destroy the two-party system, this country is going to continue its downhill trajectory. It doesn’t matter which party wins in the upcoming election. The problem isn’t the candidates, it’s the system that offered them up as saviors.

Should one percent of the world’s population have more resources amongst themselves than the other 99 percent? I’ve never believed the world is a fair place, but as I age, I realize that we, all the human beings alive, are collectively in charge of whether or not that’s true. If we wanted it, we could work together to make the world a fair, or at least, fairer, place.

The 80 richest people on the planet have the same wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people.

That is a pretty staggering fact. Especially if you care, even remotely, about people whose basic needs aren’t being met. If you haven’t been close to poverty, count your blessings. It’s one thing to want to have enough resources to take care of yourself and your family. It’s quite another to have as many resources as your closest forty-three million, seven hundred and fifty-thousand neighbors. I’m sure that the statistics don’t work out quite that nicely in the real world, but the disparity is still staggering.

People shouldn’t starve to death. We can all agree on that, right? People shouldn’t die of easily controlled diseases. That seems like an easy point to get a consensus on. People should be warm, well-fed, and have their health care needs met. Can’t we all agree on that?

The society I live in obsesses over the weirdest things while 80 people control more wealth than 3.5 billion.

Terrorism. Statistically, your chance of dying from terrorism is less than your chance of being crushed to death by furniture. If you live in the United States, in any case. It isn’t a real problem. Like so many other things some of us are worried about.

I try to worry about things that actually matter. When 80 people control more wealth than 3.5 billion, and they’re doing very little to fix the world’s big issues, like

starvation
war
pollution
unnecessary deaths caused by preventable diseases

These issues are solvable. If we demand the resources. They’re available. If we take them, using the force of law backed by the will of the majority.

I’ve been actively listening to the people vying for leadership of the United States, which is my current home. All I can say is #feelthebern. Bernie Sanders is, more than any of the other contenders, focused on the huge problem of 80 people controlling the destiny of 3.5 billion other people. Those 80 people are doing a shitty job of solving the world’s problems. Despite their very clear moral responsibility.

I’m willing to risk all the negative connotations associated with #socialism if it means four years of seeing what a motivated idealist is willing to do to rebalance things. Nothing risked, nothing gained. No one else seems to be as genuinely angry about the current state of reality, and I think that’s a reason to give this guy my vote.

This country. This planet. We have enough resources to give everyone a shot at having a decent life. We can do better.

You are a human being. We all are. Our species is better when we take care of each other. Bernie appears to get it. Far more than any of the other viable candidates for the next President of this place I call home. The alternatives make me cringe.