Vote or Die, again

With the election tomorrow, I feel compelled to read as little as possible about who's who in New York. I don't like what's going on, so I want them out. I'm not even living in New Jersey, but the constant, ugly barrage of mud-slung ads is making me feel dirty. I need an apolitical shower.

Wash away the dirt and grime that has put a stranglehold on America. Even though it's common knowledge that the New York Times' has a strong liberal bias, I don't really mind. I'm a re-transplanted New Yorker, born North, grew up South, moved back North with a liberal-conservative mesh of sensibilities. The NYT's editorial on the election is about the only thing I've read, and I appreciate the writer attempting to re-define the NYT as a common supporter of moderate Republicans, but this year, the NYT supports none. I hope that that is enough soap to promote good voting hygiene.

How many scandals can there be? How many more hypocrites of the Christian right can be exposed? How many Constitutional rights can be tread on roughly and swept under the rug of Checks & Balances, only to be recovered when the next staff of Washington's sanitation workers comes into power. Our republic is a war of inches, and each inch that is given away, bill by bill, Patriot Act by Patriot Act, will slowly lop off the feet and limbs that support a free and more perfect Union.

I'm so tired of the way things are being done. I don't follow politics as much as some, and I know more than others, but as an everyday citizen who watches enough of the news over the past four years, and reads into little details here and there, I want them all gone. I want our country's rights back and a departure from the fall into executive dictatorship that has happened with a Republican-led House, Senate and Executive Office.

I may be speaking in general terms, but I know enough of the specifics to feel embarrassed about what's going on in our country. I never thought there would be such a return to the storied past of the Vietnam era. Scandal and war, secrets and cover-ups. I thought that the culmination of those times would end with progress and change, and learning from the past. But under-achieving cowboys tend not to learn about the failures of the times when partying it up on Daddy's bill, snorting blow and failing at running a business.

If we're going to dive into the past, I want to call upon a voice of the past, a fictional one that called to a nation to get "Mad as hell, and [I'm] not going to take this anymore!"

I hope the nation is angry. I hope the angry turn out to vote. I hope the winners shake up the current losers in office, and I hope the new leaders will not fall into weakness the way the current base, fearful representatives have done.

We need hope and we need courageous individuals who are willing to risk there first term on doing what is right and fighting for it, life or death. Life or death is what our soldiers are facing, and life or death is a suicide bomber's choice culmination. Our leaders need to be willing to die politically in order to save our country. Let them be martyrs for the Cause. Otherwise, we shall sit in this pigsty for another two years, maybe longer.