What could be more fair, we are taught from elementary school on, than to decide issues by a vote? Soon enough, though, we learn about voting's dark side--politics. Two of the dictionary definitions of the word appear in sharp relief for all of us...

   pol·i·tics

• The total complex of relations between people living in society


• The art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government

Joe might make the best student body president, but Jack promised to get financial support for your after school club. Maria would make the best head cheerleader, but those Hispanic kids already control too many activities. Denise is the best looking girl in the school, and should be the homecoming queen. But, she wouldn't go out with you, and she's probably bi, so you'll vote for Susan instead. And so it goes. By the time you're 18, you're voting for real.

Everyone, no matter where he may be on the political spectrum, asks, "What's wrong with America?" America, the land of opportunity. America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Combine universal suffrage with confiscatory taxation, and what emerges is the have nots, led by the Leftist elite, voting on how to spend the haves' money. Add to this the politics of race, gender, and illegal immigration, and the question is answered. It's really as simple as that.

Even this might not be so bad, if elections actually mattered. Unfortunately, with a very few exceptions, the members of both major parties are nothing more than advocates for a mega-government social welfare state. That the rhetoric of the Republicans is slightly more conservative is at best mere window dressing. Moreover, the overwhelming number of important issues affecting our lives every day, including abortion, controlled substances, education, immigration policy, criminal procedure, family law, land use, and tax increases, are never subject to a direct vote. Rather, they are decided in backroom deals on Capitol Hill and state legislatures, or via unelected Federal judges.

Even if you are prepared to accept a socialist oligarchy, are you willing to go along with all the baggage? Here in California, every single year, we are asked to pony up more dollars for public education. My friends ask me how it can be that with a lower birth rate, and so many families opting for private school, that there is never enough money? And this question ignores how terrible the public schools are, throughout the state. The answer, of course, is that there are thousands, if not millions, of illegals in the system. Assuming that you won't be scared off by being called racist or Nazi, and you want to pursue this issue, don't bother looking for a government representative to press your case other than Tom Tancredo (R-CO). But what can one man do with the rest of the craven Congress?

OK. So you might be ready to accept some of the baggage, but how much? The oligarchs have done their level best to destroy the family, individual initiative, private enterprise, law, medicine, and the popular culture. At what point do you fight back? How do you fight back? The politicos have rigged the system so that when you're young, you sacrifice for the future, and when that usually empty future arrives, you're too old to do anything about it.

Self-preservation and denial convince us that we can strive to get more of the goodies than the next guy, and that all the flaws in the system don't apply to us. Too bad that if this paradigm is ever realized, it comes in the form of Medicare paying out huge dollars to extend your life an extra few weeks, as you approach the last roundup.

Will I be voting? Sure enough! If only to counterbalance someone on the Left.