America, lesbians, and coma-inducing boredom

I hate boredom.

If there’s one thing I would like to eliminate as a trait in human beings, it’s laziness and the propensity to become bored, then do nothing to remedy it.

The United States, as a country, is quite remarkable (in a good way), and so too are their politicians (in a not so good way), but American politics makes me bored, and I’ve tuned-out for the last few weeks. Viewed from this corner of the world, it seems like the majority of the U.S. population is beyond reason, and beyond common sense.

Case-in-point #1: the halcyon summer I thought to be coming with the Occupy movement. I sincerely hoped that it would evolve out of the ‘occupying’ force it was, and in to the protest movement it did become, yet it failed to evolve again when it so desperately needed clear leadership, a strict mantra, and modus operandi.

Sigh. Let’s play a word association game.

You say ‘Romney’, I say ‘soulless and amoral capitalist’.

You say ‘Obama’, I say ‘murderous drone overlord’.

As above: American politics has become boring and predictable. Nothing surprises me any longer. I was beginning to think that only an assassination would peak my interest again, but thankfully two stories broke recently that revived some sense of spirit.

Case-in-point #2: Obama’s victory with his Universal Healthcare mandate.

For all the wonders of modern technology, science, rationality, and common sense, it seems to be balanced by philistinism, solipsism, self-defeating tendencies, and a desire to return to the Stone Age.

The 33rd Republican effort to repeal the Obamacare law (which succeeded at the Supreme Court on the basis that it’s a tax, not forced insurance) will hopefully come to nothing with a Democrat-heavy Senate, yet their hypocrisy is so utterly sensational.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, during his time as Governor of Massachusetts signed a state healthcare bill in to law that reeked much more of government forcefulness than the proposed Obamacare platform does. It mandated that all Massachusetts residents buy a minimum level of state-government-regulated healthcare insurance. Further, it penalized those who did not sign up for the program.

“What we need is a free market, federalist approach to making quality, affordable health insurance available to every American,” Romney said on USAToday, and yet healthcare spending in his former stomping ground has risen exponentially since 2006 due to handouts from the Federal Government.

For a former equity manager, Romney sure does look like a communist!

Case-in-point #3 is a little less straightforward.

The legalization of Super PAC’s, or political action committee, on which no funding caps are placed, allows the free flow of money in to politicians’ coffers. President Obama looks well on his way to securing US$1bn for his war chest (pun intended).

Now, for a staunch democrat (note the lower-case D) such as myself, the burgeoning relationship between money and politics is becoming highly distressing to watch as it raises all kinds of problems around dubious groups (read: Wall Street) funneling limitless funds into a political pocketbook.

But the flipside emerged recently.

Obama ‘came out’ in support of gay marriage earlier this year and a lesbian PAC (LPAC) has been gathering steam ever since.

Marriage equality is such a delicate and vital issue and of the most utmost importance to the state recognising personal freedoms, but does positive advocacy make PAC’s any more legitimate?

I would suggest that they don’t, and should be banned entirely. Yet at the same time, the politicians on the receiving end of funds actually don’t have to agree to anything - it’s a two-way street.

So we’re back to the start - a corrupt, but still mildly entertaining, political system in a country that appears to have gone to the dogs entirely.