It summarizes the struggles that different groups went through to get the right that so many people foolishly throw away. The right that many people died for.
Women
Blacks
Asians
Hispanics
Folks 18-21 (who could fight, but couldn’t vote)
“Language Minorities”
If you pay any attention to the news, you know that the GOP has been very successful in limiting voting, in cutting the access to the polls. How? By requiring a government-issued photo ID (my favorite — in Texas a permit to carry a concealed weapon is acceptable but a student ID is not; by preventing early voting; by culling voter lists; by sending out confusing information on voting. All sorts of ways.
Maybe you’ve seen this before. Maybe you haven’t. But it is worth watching. It is worth seeing again.
We do everything we can to protect our kids from possible dangers. Except when it comes to guns. Really. How can we as a country, we as thinking rational people, we as parents continue to let the NRA decide.
Get rid of politicians who won’t stand up to the NRA. Get rid of politicians who think that it is just dandy that anybody can get a gun. Or collect enough of them to maintain an arsenal.
Protect your family. Vote these folks out of Dodge.
You guys know that I take voting seriously. I believe in it with every fiber of my being, actually.
it’s not just that if you can’t be bothered to show up and vote that you lose your right to complain, although you should. But it remains everybody’s right to bitch. Look it up — it’s in the Constitution.
but really, I think it is important to pay attention, and express your preferences in local, county, state and federal elections. Primaries count too — because in these screwy days, primaries are often more important than the actual election in November.
which brings me to my immoral dilemma:
Tomorrow is the Republican primary in my congressional district.
Now Elyse, you are saying, “you are too smart to be a Republican!” Which, of course is true.
However, in Virginia, all primaries are open; I don’t have to be a Republican to vote in tomorrow’s GOP primary!
And frankly, since there is a good chance that whoever is chosen on Saturday will end up representing me in Congress, well, I want input. And the field is wide open and filled with lunatics. Some of the lunatics like Bob Marshal are known crazies. But the front runner, Barbara Comstock, is hardly any better, and she looks like she is always sucking on a lemon. So I don’t want her. If I go and vote for one of the real way out loonies, the Democratic candidate stands a better chance.
Are you still awake? No? Then how come you’re answering my question?
Now I am getting to my immoral dilemma.
If you vote in Virginia’s GOP primary, you must swear an oath to support the GOP candidate in November.
It is, of course, un enforceable. They will not know if I break my vow. Personally, I don’t think it is either legal or ethical of the to ask for such a vow.
Still, I try not to lie, especially when swearing oaths.
But does it count to knowingly make a vow you have no intention to keep because the vow shouldn’t be asked for to begin with?
****
Sorry for all the typos. My computer died. Obviously a Republican.
Just today I realized that I really am a good person. Nice. Law-abiding.
It’s true. Because somehow today I did not live out my longest held fantasy. One that I’ve wanted to enact since childhood.
I will admit that I was close to doing it. Possibly closer than I have ever been to saying “What the Hell, I’m gonna do it! — Now! Today!”
I will admit to seriously considering doing it just for the moment when I was struggling to get into the driver’s seat of my car today at lunch time. The moments. OK, it took half of my damn lunch hour.
You see, I had an important errand that I had to take care of.
But some asshole had parked so close to my car that I couldn’t even get my purse into the car from the driver’s side.
Did I deserve to be placed in this, ummm, position? Did I park outside of the white line? No. I was parked just fine, thank you very much. Parked within the designated parking spot. Straight. Did I mention that I was well within the white lines on both sides of my car? Well I was.
I did not deserve to be treated in such a manner.
So when I realized that without liposuction, a detention in a concentration camp or a colonic, there was no way in hell I could get to the driver’s seat from the driver’s side. I was annoyed, I stood there for minutes with my hands on my hips, glad there were no children milling about to increase their vocabulary.
But I had no choice; I had to go. So I walked to the passenger side of the car, to climb into the driver’s seat. I soon realized that the driver’s seat was as close to the steering wheel as vehicularly-possible. I realized that I was also not supposed to exert myself following my surgery.
Did I mention that it was important that I go?
So I struggled to get my body into the driver’s seat without a cerebral hemorrhage.
Somehow, I managed.
The cerebral hemorrhage happened when I carefully backed out of my parking spot, and realized two things:
There were 24.5 parking spots in that section of the parking lot alone, and five floors of empty parking spots on the floors above us; there was no reason for someone to park in such an assholic/inconsiderate manner.
The car sported a special license plate.
Instantly, I started fantasizing. Within a heartbeat, I was transported back in time. Teleported to the very first movie I remember watching.
I was very young. Young enough to be crabby that my brother, Bob, had control of the TV. Annoyed that he was watching a movie instead of cartoons. Annoyed enough to forget that as long as the TV was on I didn’t really care what was showing. (I had, just that morning, been watching the test pattern.)
The movie was brilliant, and I have never watched the test pattern since. It was called
If I Had A Million
It was a compilation of a bunch of sequences where various characters were given a million dollars that they could spend however they chose. It later became the TV series “The Millionnaire” where a wealthy man would give people $1 million as long as they didn’t tell where it came from.
Anyway, in the move If I Had A Million, WC Fields’ lady-friend Mary had just had her new car ruined by what we would today call an “asshole,” but who was then called a “Road Hog.” When WC Fields and Mary Bolandgot their million, they knew just what to do:
They bought a bunch of old clunker cars, and whenever there was a road hog around, they would ram their clunker into him, causing the jerk to totally wreck his own car, along with theirs. But that didn’t matter, because that was why WC and Mary had bought those old clunkers!
They did this repeatedly. And it has been my fondest wish since I was about six years old, to be able to do that to the bad drivers, the folks who cut people off, who weave and edge and drive dangerously.
Revenge would be so sweet!
But in spite of being a wise ass, I am not an asshole. I did not smash the car that parked so inconsiderately. I did not accidentally-on-purpose run my keys along the $60,000 Audi Q7 SUV. I did not even spit in its general direction.
It was especially challenging because I realized that the owner is represents everything I hate. I realized that I’d seen him before, changing lanes discourteously. He (and yes, it was a he) had an overpriced car that he drove like he owned the road. And those specialty license plates?
The Asshole was A Tea Partier! Photo Credit: VA DMV Website
And I realized that I really needed to feel sorry for the dumb rich guy. You see, this genius paid extra taxes to the Commonwealth of Virginia so that he could protest paying taxes.
FiftyFourandAHalf 