Slip-Sliding Away

With my son duly college-enrolled, my daughter to follow in what seems like a blink of time, and the world to inherit them both so very soon—I'd like to weigh in on the historic presidential election upon us.

I say 'historic' because it's the first one in which I won't be throwing a democratic vote for president the nominee's way. Had the Democrats followed the rules, distributed delegates fairly, allowed the voters to honestly choose whom they wished to represent them, I'd have ante-ed up. Whether I liked the nominee or not.

However, all this business about unity and coming together and getting behind the nominee only works if we got to the goal with integrity. I vehemently refuse to validate cheating and lying and sliming with my vote.

But that conviction places me in the minority. And that's what alarms me. Here's why:

When we say the system is corrupt, or it's faulty, or it rewards the undeserving, and yet we must do the best we can to work within it—it continues it! It validates it. It negates what came before.

But you, the voter, see no other way. So you shrug your shoulders, take a deep breath, and vote the party line. With that action, you erase what you know to be right. You accept the flawed process and you bow to the inevitability of an increasingly flawed and corrupt system for each and every time to come.

But here's something to think about. WE are the system. WE are the party, the voters, the delegates. We are not, contrary to the democratic leaders of a wrecked party, puppets on a string. WE ARE THE SYSTEM. So when we vote to validate, we vote to degenerate.

I get this picture...we're sitting on a long seat in a subway train. 'We' are the system, the voting populace, the families that want to hand a good world over to their children. And each time we accept the adulteration of our rules and our integrity, we get shoved down the bench.

...the Supreme Court has the right to step into an American election...oops...slipped down that bench a bit...
...habeas corpus can now be withheld by the president....oops...slide a little farther...
...three equal branches of government can be negated by signing statements and executive orders issued from one branch...oops...slip-slidin' here...
...Iraq did not attack us and yet we did not rise up in the streets, even when that knowledge was officially confirmed...oops...
...Geneva Conventions? Archaic!...oops...
...one contender for president gets all the marbles, regardless of votes—sorry, other contender! (Women just aren't yet ready for prime time, or so we're told in relentless, countless ways)...oops....
....and so on....

So here we are, in my little picture. Hanging off the subway bench. On every one of the bullets above, the Democrats had the chance, no, the responsibility, to speak up. To right us. To shove us back down the honorable bench. They didn't.

We're just hanging there. Almost on the floor. And our next move is to vote for the product of stealing delegates, lying unabashedly, cheating to be the nominee?

OOPS.