Editorial- Read at Your Own Risk!!

Remember.... You were warned!!

When did we stop being a nation of reason? There was a time in our past when knowledge and reason were used in decision making. Apparently that time has long since passed. We have, as a collective, set aside reason in favor of being right. Being right has become the all-encompassing goal of each American citizen. It doesn’t seem to matter what the subject is, though politics is the most obnoxious and unfortunate target of most.

I first started to contemplate this problem in high school when I was awakened to the psychosis of the election year. Out of the blue, all these people who had always seemed normal human beings morphed into political zombies overnight and an invisible fence was built by ethereal beings, because once transformed into a zombie you are forced to live on only one side of this fence or the other. At transformation zombie captains pick you just like they used to for dodge ball in the school yard. Once your team is chosen the zombie agenda is downloaded into your brain and you are no longer allowed to think for yourself ever again. You worship at the altar of your zombie captain and kill any zombie who says anything bad about your captain. During the day you return to work pretending to be a normal human being, but the zombie heart beats loudly inside of you. The moment a political word is whispered the zombie heart begins to pound louder and louder, deafeningly loud in your ears, and like the wolfman, your transformation begins. Before you know it, you are snarling and grunting, at the mercy of the zombie captain once again. You pass out political fliers, give long winded speeches at group dinners, chase unsuspecting people around cocktail parties, all in an attempt to win these unwitting humans over to your zombie side of the fence and make your team bigger than the other zombie team.

The only problem with this, as far as I can tell, is that you have to live as, well, as a zombie. I personally really like to sleep, so the zombie lifestyle just doesn’t work for me. Seriously though, what is going on with people? I recently read an article where the writer was asked why all journalists seem to be so biased these days. Her answer was so logical I don’t think a majority of people would even believe it. She said that even the most unbiased writer, who strictly writes about the facts on both sides of the agenda, is constantly being accused of pushing one agenda or another. It isn’t the writer who is biased, it is the reader. The reader is so deeply entrenched in one single-minded thought process they only read and comprehend one side of the issue. (Clearly we are only referring to some writers, not all). I have found this to be very true. I am constantly speaking with people who only think, read, write, and hear in one agenda. Anything said to the contrary is offensive and should be ceased immediately. Heaven forbid we discuss both sides of an issue and think for ourselves. I am also constantly shocked to hear the same catch phrases coming out of people mouths. The political parties have been disseminating information to their zombies, err I mean party affiliates, and apparently that is all anyone knows about any subject. Otherwise they would have something else to say other that a word-for-word repeat of the party agenda.

I honestly don’t see what is very attractive about either of our major political parties. They are both two-faced money worshipers. Neither party is truly interested in doing what is the best for the future of the nation.

Let’s return to my high school days. It was the nineties. It was Clinton vs. Bush (the elder). It seemed you hated one and loved the other. Why? If either of these men were my neighbor, boss, friend, or brother I would be appalled. As individuals they aren’t great people. They are both motivated by things other than purely good intentions. And yet it seems everyone thinks they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. (And we won’t even get into the moral in-fighting over which philanderer is a better person- as if that even makes sense!!) If you don’t vote for (insert candidate of choice here) then you’re just crazy! People pass out fliers, stand on the side of the road with signs screaming at the cars driving by, and dedicate their precious hours to ensuring their candidate becomes the leader of the free world. But WHY? Are these really the best the United States of America has to offer? No. There are greater leaders, greater thinkers, greater souls throughout the country, but people won’t vote for them because they are the same people who refuse to tote a party agenda that is so corrupted it is laughable. Because when they do run, they run on the real issues. And people just don’t care about that. They would have to think. Not only that, they would have to think for themselves. It is so much easier to be drafted into a zombie team and have all the answers downloaded into your brain. Oh, sure, zombies pretend to think for themselves, but they're really not. They just have those buzzwords…

We all do it. We don’t have time to research the people we are voting for. We pick up a pamphlet, read a news paper article, get nauseated by the one billionth political ad. We look for those buzz words. He/She is ‘pro-choice’ or ‘tax cuts’ or ‘conservative’. We may as well ‘Christmas Tree’ the ballot for as much as these few words really tell us about the people we are putting in charge of our future. The reality is that it only takes a few minutes more to really learn about each of the candidates and make an informed decision that most of them are idiots. It would only take a decision on our part as voting American citizens to just say ‘screw you’ to the political system. To decide we are sick and tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. To demand we actually have a real choice between quality candidates. But as long as we keep screaming at each other, and not caring, that will never happen.

And that’s ok. Who really wants to carry on the traditions of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Marin Luther King, Jr.? To choose what is best for the future of the country and not what the devil in our hearts would prefer? It’s not the easier path. But we all know anything worth having is worth fighting for. (We clearly believe that democracy as an institution is worth fighting for or we wouldn’t send our young men and women around the world to fight for it on our behalf!)

Of course, there is always a Hollywood movie in the story of ‘The Nation of the Zombies”.