But at the same time a part of me desparetly wishes we'd handle political upheaval the same way these 3rd world countries do. The closest I've came to that kind of excitement was the Redsox playoff series' while I was still in college, but even that was just a few local cops with bean bag guns dispersing crowds. No tear gas or baton beatings, none of the good stuff.
Instead of peaceful elections in which more than 50% of our residents don't participate anyway, how about a couple weeks of demonstrations, violent riots, looting, and open street fires? How much more awesome would it be to run down to your local town hall or state house and whip rocks at the windows when you felt it was time for a change, rather than enter a boring booth and punch out a few chads? I'd be all about the democratic process if that were the case.
Plus we'd see some real change. The last two congressional elections have seen huge swings in the majority parties in the house and senate. Have you noticed a change? No. When the biggest threat you have against you is you might lose your office but can still collect thousands of dollars in appearance fees there is very little incentive to make some real changes. Angry citizens armed with molotov cocktails? Thats a different story. You bet your frigen ass congress would get some work done instead of all the petty bitching that's been going on lately.
And yea, I'm fully aware that I'm probably going to end up on some governement watch list after this post. I know none of this stuff is gonna happen, but I can't help but sit here and read stories about these riots and protests going on and wish for the same level of excitement. Look at the passion in those people's eyes, they're raving lunatics and that is frigen awesome. They're having the time of their lives. The last time America experienced anything like that we were tossing tea bags into the ocean and freeing black people from their chains of bondage (yes I know those were two different time periods). Its been almost 200 years since Americans have banded together and thrown a national party, excuse me for wishing for a little excitement around here.
