Silly season is here again

Election time is once again upon us and the bullshit has started though not in full bloom yet. This isn’t a rant over position on either side this is just an early reply to a statement I heard often in the last election and will probably hear as well in this one. The object of this missive is the opinion of those pundits that the vast middle of the electorate, those called the undecided, are useless because they have gone for years without making up their mind about where they stand. They are made to sound like no nothing morons because they don’t declare their support for any party or candidate right out or have a stated political philosophy that can easily be labeled. Not that it will do any good because quick quips, sound bites and talking points are what these bloviating peckerheads are all about but as on of these supposed “no nothing idiots” I figure I’ll try to educated those who would hold such opinions.

First off, when a person says they are undecided doesn’t mean they haven’t made up their mind on a political philosophy, it means they just haven’t taken a stand on a candidate. Unlike many who call themselves liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans and walk in lock step to whomever is the leader of that school of thought of thought us independents have no philosophy that can be covered by a single label. Many of use believe in bits and pieces of each of the well defined philosophies out there. I, for example, like the idea of balanced budgets, less government spending and interference in our lives and term limits, once solid points of the GOP, but hastily abandoned once they got in to power. OTOH I am what could be described as libertarian when it comes to social issues. As far as I’m concerned as long as you aren’t hurting anyone whatever you do with your own life is your concern. For environmental issues I guess I fall in to the liberal category. I don’t give a damn about Spaceship Earth; the earth will survive whatever man can do to her. I do however don’t believe in fucking up said spaceship’s life support system. Hello people, that’s what keeps us and our descendents alive and kicking. If I had stayed happily unmarried and had no offspring I might not care so much but I was a fool and spent some time in conjugal bliss, if that’s what you want to call it, and produced offspring, so now I have to give a shit about what happens after I shuffle off this mortal coil, if only for her sake. So yes, people like us have definite views on issues, they are just not views that can be collectively quantified under a simple label.

So you see, it’s not that we are morons with no opinions or even indecisive. We have strong felling on a lot of different matters and find no one candidate fits the bill as they have to play to the base, those great unwashed masses that find it easier to spout a party line than to use the brains they supposedly came equipped with. One has to sort through the issues and decide whether to go with one or two one feels strongly about or whether to go with quantity over quality and pick the guy who agrees with more of your viewpoints. Hell, it’s a lot easier to parrot a party line and spout talking points as if they were gospel truth. I have an uncle that passes on every conservative based email that gets forwarded to him and refers to them as signs that his viewpoint is correct without even bothering to check as to whether they had any truth to them or not. I usually run them through a fact checker and send the results back but it never seems to do any good. So, not that it will do any good when it comes to the parrot brigade I figured I will get this out there to try and enlighten those with a spark of intelligence and free will. Hey, maybe so straying candidate might even read this and try to appeal to us.

Thanks for the listen.