Okay folks I am calling this one a total loss. We most likely will be getting one of the two highly disliked and untrustworthy clowns as the head of the Executive branch of government. We have four years to implement some new rules so my suggestions are as follows.
Rule 1: If you have ever repeatedly and with purposeful intent been in more than one “reality show” or “unscripted dramas”, “improvisational programs” or any show that places people in contrived situations without dialogue being provided and without rehearsal beforehand and it’s sole purpose was to make money, then you are eliminated from the pool of eligible candidates for the highest office in the land. We do not need someone with a maturity of a child in a hotel swimming pool. (Hey Dad, Hey Dad, Hey Dad, watch this, watch this, Hey Dad watch me.)
Rule 2: If you are related to either by marriage or blood to a person who was previously the President of the United States you are not allowed to run. This is America we have no need for a monarchy, dynasty or a ruling class. We have over 319 million people in this country surely we can find someone other than a Bush, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Clinton, or Obama. (My prediction Michelle will become Senator and then will try to get back to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.) This will make it harder for future school children to remember a President’s name but we all have to make sacrifices.
Rule 3: If you are the second runner up in the election (which means you are the first place loser) then while your opponent is running the country your also get to serve in a slightly different capacity. You will be given the head principal position at an inner city high school and have to live at the school in an apartment provided for you. Your claimed you wanted to serve, well now is the time to prove both your abilities and willingness. (If as Principal you hold a press conference you must devote 99% of the time talking about bake sales, test scores and the funding to fix the roof, the gym floor and/or the copy machine.) Maybe after running a school for four years you will be more palatable to the American public.
Rule 4: Essay, Section 1. All candidates will be locked in separate rooms on some military base or other secure location. You will be given a five questions, about such topics as civil liberties, world affairs, taxes and other important topics. While locked up you can either dictate your answers to a stenographer, write them long hand, or use a computer with no internet access. You will have two days to answer these questions. After you are finished a goverment school teacher of your choice may help you edit for grammar, style and spelling. All essays will then be submitted to 100 random public high school students in a blind survey. Each student will either give you a plus or minus for each answer. If you do not get at least 75 pluses then you will not be allowed to go onto the next round. Your grades will be posted and your essay can be read by the American public. One week later there will be a big reveal matching the candidate to the answer.
Rule 5: Essay, Section 2, You and four advisers will be placed a secure location with no internet and given questions to answer. For this round no teacher may help you with grammar, style or spelling. Then your raw answers will be placed on a website and the public can see your answers, again with no names attached for a week.
Rule 6: You must get a letter from your high school math teacher stating that you did your own homework and if not who the teacher suspects did the homework for you.
Rule 7: (Applies only if Rule 6 shows you did not do your own math homework.) You must produce the person who did your math homework for you and they must swear under oath weather or not they were paid (money, promise of a date, or simply sweet talk) or if they were threaten (physical violence or social bullying). This person will then tell what type of person you were in school and how many pimples you had.
Rule 8: You must produce while filing your intent to run for President of the United States of America at least ten different pictures of you and a pet. All pictures must have been placed on social media over the last three years and at least one if not more cleaning up after your pet. This will show that you have a heart and that you realize there are somethings you cannot control.
These eight simple rules might not make this a better process but at least make it less of popularity contest and more about stuff that might actually mean something as opposed to the name calling, grandstanding, flag waving and overall silliness that we have now.
Everyone, her friends, her parents even people on the street were all taking about why their car was better than someone else’s. Betty decided it was time to go shopping so she did what everyone else did and went to the dealership. They sold the two major brands ,the brand her parents always drove and brand that her friends wanted.
“I could tell by the way you came in here you want to make or keep this country great am I right?”
“I just came in here to look.” Betty said. The salesman looked perfect, blue suit, flawless hair, red tie knotted precisely and a smile that matched his perfect white shirt.
“Very wise but you want a car that is great like this country, dependable but bold, tough and smart. Do you want to buy or lease?”
“Well I don’t want to be tied to something forever so just a lease, maybe like four years.”
The salesman continued smiling. “Of course, but with the option to renew for another four years. Once you commit to four years it will be hard to change.”
Betty looked around the showroom. “How come the only cars here are either red or blue?”
Smiling he showed those sparkling teeth. “Red and blue are the most popular colors and we give America what America wants.”
“Do you sell other colors, maybe green or yellow?”
“Of course we could but we really suggest either red or blue, it is much easier to get body work done and other colors are more likely to get stolen. I am sure you have heard the phrase ‘the tallest nail gets hammered first’ well by selling only red or blue cars we are protecting our customers.”
“I guess that makes sense.” She strolled between two cars which were both on elevated platforms with the salesman at her elbow. “I can’t really get a good look at the cars from down here.”
“But you can see their great profiles while looking up at them, let me show you the brochures, which one do you want to look at first, blue or red.”
Betty shrugged. “Red I guess.”
“Great choice a very impressive model this year.” Pulling out a glossy brochure he handed it to her.
Looking over the brochure she asked. “Does this car really get a hundred miles to the gallon?”
“It depends on your driving habits if you are a lead foot in the city then you mileage may vary, but look at this,” he said flipping the page to a picture of the the trunk. “isn’t that impressive, you could probably get seven suitcases in there.”
Betty nodded it was a huge trunk. Glancing at the remaining pages she turned to the last page and as if on cue the salesman asked. “So what do you think can you see yourself showing this off to all your friends?”
“Well maybe, but I should shop around, what are the features on the blue car.”
“An awesome selection it is a very impressive model this year.” The brochure was produced and at the same time he relieved her of the first, flipping to a page seemingly at random he pointed out a feature. “This car’s interior is made with sustainably produced fabrics that have a zero percent emissions rating in the shipment to the market.”
Betty looked at the stats but not knowing what he meant. Although the cars looked different and were different brands it seemed to her that the cars were basically the same. “Can I see the brochure for the red car again?”
The salesman continued smiling and deftly produced the brochure again, but this time he presented it to her open which forced her give the blue one back to him.
The facts seemed clear but not quite. “Can I look at both of the brochures together?”
His smile faltered slightly. “Sure.”
Betty held both and flipped thru them together. “It says the blue car has 30 cubic feet interior space but the red car has 17 cubic feet in the front and 13 cubic feet in the rear. Isn’t that the same amount of space? They are both four door sedans after all.”
The salesman answered as if he got asked this question all the time. “You are very observant.” Then he winked. “Yes they are both sedans, with the same basic layout but with key differences. One has 30 cubic feet overall that is in total space and the other has 13 cubic feet in the passenger area but 4 more cubic feet in the front seating area.” Still smiling. “I can see you are very astute. Are you interested in a leather interior?”
Betty shook her head realizing what he had said did not make any sense. She closed the brochures and noticed a logo on both brochures. “Are both these car manufactured by Omni Consumer Products?”
The salesman winked again at her. “No they are manufactured by different companies, both with different but similar manufacturing processes.” Then he pointed towards the blue car. “This design team spent hundreds of hours on the greatest luxury car of all time,” he shifted his body to now block the blue car while pointing towards the red car. “Their design team polled countless people to determine what people want and created the most supreme luxury car of all time.”
Betty nodded and then stepped around the salesman and began to walk around both cars. “What if I wanted something totally different from these two cars?”
“I know what you want.” Snapping his fingers. “A convertible, well we have a crimson model and a sapphire one right on the other side of showroom, you are going to love one of them.”
Betty shook her head. “I don’t think you understood me what if I did not want a car made by Omni Consumer Products?”
“These are the best the country has to offer.” He said smiling.
Betty folded her arms “But in the end Omni Consumer Products makes money no matter how the car performs; good or bad.”
He still smiled but anxiously. “So what color convertible would you like? The sparkling sapphire would match your eyes perfectly or maybe the crimson one, it is a real racy number.”
Betty turned her back an looked out the window and noticed something across the street a much smaller dealership, this one had yellow, green and even purple cars. “What about those cars?”
“Them.” He waved disdainfully. “A bunch of nuts.”
Betty regarded him and he chuckled. “They can’t advertise as much because they don’t have our budget. Secondarily our maintenance department promises everything you could ever want. We take care of everything from start to finish. All they do is give you manual and make suggestions.”
“What is wrong with that?”
“Our machines are complex, checking the air pressure in a tire is a multiple step procedure, steps most Americans don’t want to do, let alone understand.” Stepping in front of the window he blocked the view. “What do I have to do to put you in a convertible?”
Betty shook her head moved towards the door but he casually slid in front of her again. “Do you know anyone that has ever driven one of their cars? Everyone you know drives one of ours.”
Betty stepped around him and started walking. She heard him yell as she left the showroom. “These are the best our country has to offer.”
Once upon a time there was a basketball game in that everyone was interested in. The basketball game was very important and everyone was excited to watch it. There was a blue team and a red team. Everyone had a side they were cheering for, so much so that they would get into very serious arguments about which team was better. It came time for the big game and each team had their cheerleaders and each team had an announcer that was broadcasting for their team. All the fans were very invested in the game, the fans wore their team colors and put signs up in their yards.
The cheerleaders and broadcasters were true believers that believed their team was the best and nothing the other team did was ever good or honorable. People who were really interested in the game saved and scrimped and bought tickets for this huge stadium event, while those who could not either watched it on TV and tuned into their favorite broadcaster.
The broadcaster’s had the best stats and details about the teams, information they could produce at a moment’s notice. If a guy for the red team scored the blue announcer would state it was luck and show that of the last three times shooting he missed and he had once kicked a cat. If a guy for the blue team scored their announcers would show almost instantly, that he fowled a red team member each time he dribbled with his left hand while stepping with his left foot and broadcast the fact that ninety percent of the time he did not use his right turn signal when stopping for coffee.
The game started and the crowd roared every time a basket was scored. The announcers made dramatic calls and everyone at home was glued to their television cheering their team.
Meanwhile up in the skybox seats the sponsor and the owners looked down and smiled. They smiled because they were making money, they sold food and drinks to all the fans, the sold the television rights and sold their products, they even sold the red and blue t-shirts the fans bought and wore.
Sometimes though a fan or maybe someone at home noticed something, there was no scoreboard. The looked and looked but could not find a record of who was actually winning or losing. No one was keeping track of the total baskets scored by each team. The game progressed with each team scoring, sometimes they would miss a shot and half the fans would cheer and the other half would boo.
It came time for halftime, and both teams went to the locker room. They had played their hearts out and were dripping with sweat, some even trash talked the other teams on the court, jeering at them and making fun of the other team to the delight of the fans. Unseen by the fans though even though the red team and the blue team left the court via separate and spectacularly decorated tunnels they both ended up in the same locker room, they met with the owners and sponsor who slapped them all on the back and congratulated them on the fine game they were playing.
Meanwhile out on the court, the cheerleaders were dancing. There were cartoons on the big screen showing red and blue icons competing with each other. The red and blue mascots got into a game of pranks and the crowd cheered with almost as much wild abandon as when their team scored a goal.
Some people kept looking for a scoreboard.
I was inspired to flesh out a thought that Jack Spirko at The Survival Podcast passed on this week. Over the past couple of years I have become very disillusioned with the political parties in this country. Is my analogy perfect, of course not, is it all inclusive, no. I just think that the people in the U.S. are missing the big picture.
Jack Spirko read this on his podcast on 9/15/2014 about the 50 minute mark.
