A recent post hijacking got me thinking. The "two parties" have done a perfect job of brainwashing America. Ask someone to define a typical Republican and they would list them as being "Rich, white guys" at best. Ask for the typical Democrat and you might hear talk of being "socialist". Why do we believe this?
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -H.L. Mencken-
That's pretty much it isn't it? We believe what we are being sold. We see the advertisements and disregard the ones we don't agree with. We see the ones we agree with and add those "facts" to our list of talking points. Here is a fact for you. Political speech has no requirement for truth. That's right. There is no such thing as false advertising, bait and switch, or breach of contract associated with political advertising.
You may have heard the radio spots where one candidate (Beaubien) is claiming the other (McSweeney) made comments about denying a woman's right to an abortion, (He did, but not in that context) then launches, without segue-way, into a quote, made by someone else, that is very inflammatory The ad then states that McSweeney, being of the same party, clearly feels the same way. If this were advertising it would be brought to court over this flagrant misstatement. But political speech is exempted from the requirement of truth.
McSweeny, of course, ran an ad defending himself and saying that Beaubien was just trying to cover up having voted for a tax increase. I still don't see what one has to do with the other, and they both are lying. Again, there is no requirement not to.
See the idea is that the opposing party will just run an ad countering the claims of the first. A great solution if there are only two, well-backed and very well-connected, parties. Slander a green party, libertarian, or other "third party" candidate and they will just have to take it. They don't have the money to run a counter ad. That is a bit imbalanced isn't it? If they were selling a product they would be brought to court over price-fixing, market-fixing, or collusion.
So the "two parties" have a lock on the system, no requirement for truth, and a set of stereotypes they have sold the American people on, to such a degree that we automatically assume Romney to be an elitist, owned by big business, and Obama a gun-hating socialist. Their voting records actually show those roles to be reversed.
I would ask you to make sure you go vote your conscience, but you really can't. Unless your candidate is the honest one, and clearly, the other guy is lying. Sure, we'll go with that.
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Keep it clean and well thought out.