The United States is in the preliminary process of electing a new president.  The great debacle otherwise known as…

The Lesser of Two Evils: 

A Game Where We Pick A Winner and Everyone Loses!

That sounds like pessimism, and I am sure there are a whole slew of people pipping up to give me all their reasons why their candidate isn’t all that bad, but the reality is – in my humble opinion – that the two party system in America is a system built to breed division.

If you look at all the major debates in American politics, they can all be divided down party lines:

1. Abortion
2. The Death Penalty
3. Marriage Equality
4. Immigration
5. Religion in Schools
6. Gun Control

The list could go on and on, but just looking at it you could assume where a “Democrat” and a “Republican” fall in those debates.  Why?  Because that is what our politics do, they force us into a black and white world where a grey answer – most often the most reasonable – is not possible.

The question we have to ask ourselves is this:  

Is it political beliefs that disunite us, or the core of our political system?

I look at politicians and I see something repugnant.  Even the best of them are liars and to deny this would be to misunderstand their very natures.  They are pursuing a job that pays nearly 8 times the median income, and should they obtain it, they are paid 4 times the median income for life.

Then they stand on a pulpit and speak about the need for jobs and the desire to raise the minimum wage.

Assuming that the ‘haves’ really care about equality and protecting the ‘have nots’ is dangerous thinking, and I refuse to be disillusioned. You don’t have to look hard to find dirt on any political candidate.  They are all people who have lied, flip flopped, backstabbed and weaseled their way toward the top.  That is the very essence of politics.  Do we ever choose a candidate that we really love?  That we feel 100% behind?  No.  We choose the candidate that we more than 51% like.  More often than not, we choose the one that aligns with our color and chosen party animal…

Jackasses and Elephants.

That pretty much defines America.

I feel like the very nature of the system is why our division and disunity exists.  We are divided in two, forced to bicker, and so very little ever gets changed.  I know that throughout the world every form of politics has it’s faults, and America is better than many while still worse than others, but it makes me sick seeing how divided the country is over such petty things.

Are we really so far apart?  Or are we made to be that way?  Are the people in Texas and the people in California really so different?  Or are we made to believe that?  Do we fear and hate and lash out at each other from first hand experience?  Or do we do so because we’ve been made to believe things we don’t understand or attempt to fully comprehend?

Take any two people and put them on opposite sides of a line.  Then bring a whole group of other people over and tell them to choose one.  Do you think the gathered people will be more or less united at the end of that exercise?

Until American citizens start looking around and seeing the cage they have built for themselves by dividing their numbers along two party lines that ultimately mean less than nothing, progress toward true unity will forever be retarded.

The only question is… how do we erase the line?

I wish I had the answer to that question.  I wish I could tell you how to fix politics… but hell, if I had that kind of answer I would be the one with a six figure salary.  Probably even seven… or eight.  Who the hell knows what they would pay me just to shut up.

What I do know is that people have way too many petty reasons to divide themselves up and close themselves off from other human beings.  Until we see that for what it is we will never achieve our full potential.

For me, I live in Japan now and may never go back home.  The blessing of being a foreigner with no real rights or say in anything is that I don’t have to invest in politics.

Still, I must say that I’ve always felt politics is a game played by men and women who desire to be in control of the chessboard.  They aren’t “one of us.”  They want you to believe that, and their goal is always to make sure you understand that they can “sympathise” with your situation, but no one making 400k a year can say they truly understand what a college student surviving on ramen and racking up a lifetime of debt feels like when they walk out of their University with a degree that is worth less than the paper the president uses to wipe his ass.  You really feel bad for those kids, Mr. President?  Why don’t you pay off their debts with the exorbitant salaries we pay our politicians, force you and your brethren to live at the median, then you can tell me you ‘understand’ the people.

Until then, you are nothing more than another condescending rich man who is attempting to insult my intelligence and think I am going to thank you for it.

Think again.