Toad, or anyone else.... Whaddya got? I'm completely out of ideas.
Hegemony?
Backwards arsed conservatives foisting religious doctrine on a sympathetic government?
The rape of America by scoundrels?
The sad joke that is Iraq?
Actually, I've got one. I really have no idea where this one will go. But it could be interesting...
The psychology of people like you and me and everyone else who gets a rise out of politics.
Why is it that we do? Why is it that we pay so much attention to it? I mean, I've never been the type who gets out there and attends a rally, waving some sign. But I am passionate about it. For some gawdamned reason.
I would say that there exists a distinction between the way, for example, we follow it, and the way others do. That the contributions to the political posts here come from several levels of motives or reasons.
Just for example, many use a politician as their avatar, and along those lines, Eagler recently said something like "Which Democrats can you be a fan of? Which Democrat would you have as a poster on your wall?" as if to suggest that fandom was the driving force of the interest in politics. Bush as rock star, basically.
Others, such a lazs, view politics only as it pertains to how it effects their immediate surroundings. Never mind that car emissions effect everyone's health, or that riding without a helmet effects everyone's premiums, if there is any limit on what one can personally do, it is bad. I don't say this to argue an arguable point, but just to illustrate another's approach to politics.
Another, such as Gscholz, seems only to follow it in as much as it bears evidence to an already held belief.
Nuke follows it in a way that glosses over the minutia or pesky details, and instead uses it to help shape a grand or overall world view he holds. A great amount of idealism involved here.
Sandman views it with a healthy skepticism.
Funked thinks that pretty much any discussion of politics is verboten. And that any criticism of it can be simplistically reduced to an attack on Bush.
Hangtime... perhaps the most liberated from it all. He doesn't get handcuffed to any set ideology. Instead attacking this, attacking that. Supporting this, supporting that. Often conflicting, but that's okay. Never the distrust of motive with him. There is apparently none. Er.... except when it comes to France. Heh.
Martlet and his ilk... pure party-line regurgitation.
MT, always seemingly to fall just shy of the full investment into his own beliefs or opinions. Not a knock - that's a good thing.
All of the above is open to debate, of course, obviously. Just some notes dashed off to say that people come at politics through a variety of angles. And they all join together to form the political debate on this ubb. I haven't examined my own role in this, nor my compulsion to participate in the way that I do. I definitely will.
Whenever (and there's a lot of whatever) I hear words to the effect of "But you're Canadian, what can you do about it?" the immediate reaction in my mind is "But you're Oregonian (or whatever), what can you do about it?" Listen, the cold hard fact is that basically none of us can, or are doing, a damn thing about it. But we're drawn to the same thing anyways. The question is why?
So this thread is open ended. It is not about left or right. It's about giving a damn in the first place. Why we do it. Whatever.
(How's this, Toad? God knows I tried....)
