If Irony Could Be Found, It Wouldn't Be Lost On Me

Apparently, Republicans are afraid of the glowing box that makes the wrrrrrr sound and shows the naughty pictures.

I watched the Democratic YouTube debates. You know what I learned? About the same thing I learned from any other debate: Candidates hate you.

Maybe not you personally. You as an entity. Maybe you personally, I don't know, I haven't asked them. Candidates don't answer the questions you want to know about. They want to read from scripts that will appeal to "their base," whatever that actually means.

The YouTube debate wasn't really as groundbreaking as it should have been, or as revolutionary as some of the pundits might want to think. The people who took the time to create and send in videos should feel slighted. I know I do. I didn't even make a video. I tuned in as an honest-to-goodness American, and I wanted to see what any honest-to-okayness American should be entitled to. I wanted to see someone panic and flip out.

You see, the problem with the YouTube debate is the same problem we have with 'democracy.' I put that in the little quotes because, if you've forgotten your Jr. High civics, we live in a republic, not a democracy. Democracies are rather hard to keep working on a national level, since it'd be pretty hard for 300 million people to coordinate. If we truly lived in a democracy, this is how debates would go:

Citizen: "Ok, I'd like to know what you would do to lessen our reliance on foreign oil."
Candidate: "That's a great question. In order to lessen our reliance on foreign oil, I would propose ((insert program here)), along with ((insert scientific reference here)), as well as ((insert public relations campaign here))."

See, at least we'd get some semblance of an answer, and then it'd be up to us as citizens to decide whether or not we believe them, and then whether or not they can deliver on their word.

But no, this is America, and we can't do it that way. This is the way a similar scene would go:

Citizen: "Tell me, to what extent do you believe the federal government should dictate the rights of homosexuals to acquire civil unions? Should it be left up to individual states?"
Candidate: "That's a great question. Of course, the family is the basic unit of the American society, and today our families are spending entirely too much money on non-renewable resources. I am pushing for an incentive program designed to lessen our-"
Citizen: "Wh.... what are you doing?"
Candidate: "Hm? Can I finish?"
Citizen: "Finish what?"
Candidate: "Telling you about my proposal that will require us to-"
Citizen: "Stop that."
Candidate: "Stop what?"
Citizen: "I asked you about gay marriage, not energy."
Candidate: "Right, but I segued into energy. It's where all my best material is."
Citizen: "We can talk about that later. I'm talking about gay marriage. I'm talking about civil rights, here..."
Candidate: "I'm talking about... uh... our rights... in a civil framework... regarding the usage of fossil fuels and..."
Citizen: "I hate you."
Candidate: "Can I count on your vote?"

**Curtain**


I think any modern and 'new' debate system should allow Americans to get answers to the questions.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Republicans aren't going to give us another bite at the inane apple. Not most of them, anyway. "[...]the CNN team used the device of the third-party video to inject a question that would have embarrassed any anchor posing it." So it's CNN's fault? What if it had been that bastion of Fairness and Balance? I've heard people on FauxNews inject questions that would have embarrassed any rational human posing them.

They report, They decide.

So, another election cycle seems to be coming into view from the horizon, the dust cloud rising from the beat of the hooves of goose-stepping satyrs.

That metaphor really got away from me.

I guess I just expected something new this time around. I think we deserve it. Maybe at the next debates, they can have a panel of ordinary people that have buttons that are connected to electrodes that can shock the bejezuz out of someone that starts blabbering incessantly.

That'd be a hit on YouTube.