I read an article in the Washington Times last week that inferred Barack Obama has lost some major support from Independent voters following the passage of the healthcare reform bill. This whole “Independent” concept is something that has really perplexed me for a number of years now. And so, here on this fucking spectacular blog, I am going to try and put my thoughts down to see if I can make sense of this fleeting and indeterminable category of Americans.
First off— who the fuck are “Independents”? Well, the definition may depend upon the state you live in. Being a resident of the occasionally reasonable Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I am able to register myself as “Unenrolled” or “No Party.” This registration is not categorized as “Independent” and (much different than in other states) allows me to vote in either party’s primary election when I enter my voting station (you are asked at the door which ballet you would like to take up). I find this to be a surprisingly flexible method of voter registration in what is generally a very inflexible state. It gives me the opportunity to Freely follow a number of political races and make a game time decision on where my vote would best be served on election day. It is a system that I fully support in every state of this union.
But, here’s the rub: when national opinion polls are carried out to gather feelings on “Independent” sentiment, am I categorized as one? I can only assume so. But this really bothers me. Why? Well, because Independents appear to be—on a whole— the dumbest mother fucking voters in America. Only in the category of “Independent” could there be a spike in disapproval ratings towards President Obama after the Democrats passed healthcare reform— clearly one of Obama’s most important initiatives during his 2008 campaign, a campaign that had attracted so many of these so called “Indie” voters. Sure, it’s true that many of these “Independents” who disapprove of the reform bill may actually be left-leaning folks who don’t think that the healthcare bill went far enough. But my gut tells me that most of the disapproval comes from that group of reactionary fuckwads—these dumb mother fuckers who neither understand the nature of public policy nor the constructs of the Legislative Branch of the US government. They are people who vote on character over execution and prefer immediate rewards over long-term vision. They are like bratty kids who are given the choice to have one piece of candy now or get taken out for ice cream after dinner and they choose the fucking piece of candy.
If anyone really has a right to be mad at President Obama, it’s not the “Independents” (who are often portrayed as fence sitters), but, rather, the liberals. Liberals have been abandoned by the White House on one policy after another. Each week of this presidency brings a new issue that could make a liberal cringe—from the very first month when Obama took office and decided he would not seek to repeal the Bush tax cuts to earlier last week when he agreed to move ahead with offshore drilling. Now, as much as I hate a significant portion of these PC, yuppie pussy-footing liberals (which I have stated on this blog many times), I will say: at least they fucking stand for something. Because you can bet your fucking ass that there are a larger number of so called “Independents” who voted for Obama in 2008 and now are a part of this TeaBagging fuckwad movement— a band of fear mongering lunatic retards who don’t stand for one cause that’s founded in reality. And they are certainly a group of people that I’d rather never be associated with. But, yet, as a Massachusetts “Unenrolled,” am I? Am I lumped in with this group of misguided reactionary morons?
Where does all this leave me? Who am I?
Well, I’ll tell you just who I goddamned mother fucking am:
If someone called me (they couldn’t because I rock hard on the down low, but, theoretically, if someone called) and asked if I supported the healthcare reform bill, I would simply say yes. I’ve stated on this blog that it is a very moderate bill and that we need to keep a full court press on these politicians to further expand the availability of healthcare to Americans in the years to come, but I would not get into the fucking nuances of the goddamned bill on that phone call. And, I certainly wouldn’t be petrified of a reform bill after a group of white people tossed around the word Nazi in a few fucking town hall meetings.
If this same someone asked me if I supported the president’s plan to allow offshore drilling, I would say no I do not. Not because I am a tree-hugging liberal sandal-wearing hippie fuck. I do not where sandals and have never favored that form of footwear. In fact, I do not associate myself with any sandal-wearers of any sort. If you become a Friend of Freemont, this wardrobe option must be stripped from your repertoire. I do not support offshore drilling, rather, because I believe that such an action goes against the very idea of alternative energy and will only open the flood gates to where we can drill for oil in the United States of America (or in the waters that surround it). It is a short-term solution that will gobble up money that could be put towards research of more environmentally safe forms of energy— ones that could actually expand the US economy globally.
And, if I was asked if I support the president’s troop increase in Afghanistan, I would give a simple answer of yes to the question. This is a plan that Obama clearly supported during his campaign and one of the few campaign promises that he’s actually followed through with up to this point in his presidency. I continue to believe that it is the only current conflict that we should be involved with and should have been involved with in the first place.
So, what exactly do these answers make me? Do they make me an “Independent”? Do they make me a liberal? Do they make me a conservative?
I think the only thing that they make me is a fucking asshole who is willing to actually think for himself rather than someone who is dragged one way or the other by knee jerk reactions to governmental policy. Do they have a political fucking category for that one? Can I take that ballet when I walk into the fucking voting booth this November?
Your Most Practical Radical,
Mr. Freemont Barrington
