Last night, after the polka-ing, we had a long raucous discussion about politics, complete with drawings on a dry erase board. Ha, I guess that’s how you know that you’re among your own people, when someone can pull out the dry erase board and no one laughs.
Anyway, we had put before us as a thought experiment what three things we would boil the Democractic message down to in order to make our point succinctly to the American public.
I don’t know how much consensus we came to about any one thing. But it did get me thinking about why I’m a liberal. And, basically, I’m a liberal or a lefty or whatever because I believe that the deck is stacked against individual people and that the only way for us to achieve anything approaching a level playing field is for us to work together. And, often, when the weight of individuals working together isn’t enough to get done what we need to get done, we need to bring in the strong arm of the government.
And I had narrowed down my three things to three things I felt like covered a lot of ground, but in a succinct manner:
1. Restoration of Individual rights
2. Restoration of the Environment
3. Restoration of vital government programs
Just thinking broadly again, from where I sit, it seems like we need to bring some of the gun nuts into our fold. If I were in charge, I’d do this in two ways. I’d stop advocating for new gun control measures. We already have a shit-ton of laws on the books. Let’s set around to enforcing them (bringing some folks in under prong one). And I’d work with hunting organizations under prong two. Many of these folks get that what they do goes hand in hand with wildlife conservation. They want deer for their grandkids to hunt. They want to pull fish safe to eat out of our rivers and streams. And these guys are out there in nature. If we work with them, they’re our first sets of eyes and ears, our first witnesses to environmental problems.
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Holy shit. I am in a complete fog. I am like a zombie in search of brains. Must have caffeine. Must have caffeine!
More later.
I go in search of my beloved drug.
Tiny Cat Pants 
You lost me at #3.
I think you had me at “right after the polka-ing.”
Your platform really should include polka parties as a plank. Not that I need anything else to convince me to vote for you as Queen, but it’s always good to incorporate more of the polka demographic. (Which also can encompass the square-dancing demographic, and the buck-dancing demographic usually follows where they go, surprisingly.)
By the way, I’ve also long been for enforcement of the gun laws we have, not adding to the ones we ignore. I say that as my granddad’s shotgun sits proudly in the corner. (I had to get it out the other night because we apparently have a peeping tom in our ‘hood. No need to load it; that whoosh-click is generally enough for someone at the other end to need a change of drawers.)
That’s okay, Sarcastro. I figure it’s just one of those head injuries veterans of the Gulf Wars seems prone to that has made you forget how someone needs to be standing over the VA with a whip and some chains getting them to do right by our servicemembers.
…standing over the VA with a whip and some chains getting them to do right by our servicemembers
So, your platform does indeed advocate the use of torture.
Only upside the head of them what needs it. And I promise to feel guilty later.