What a gas!

I’m paying over $4.00 a gallon at the gas pump. President Bush and Repubs want to drill off shore to help me out. But P-Bush and the Repubs are being rebuffed by those wiley Democrats (sorry, I’m sadly out of funky nicknames). The Dems think drilling offshore is a lousy idea and instead, they want to open up our oil reserves and to have oil companies drill in federally owned land that the oil companies currently lease.

I’m just your average, everyday sucker at the pump, so what do I know about which solution is better? In fact, they both sound pretty good to me. I fail to see the drawback of either plan. Good job Repubs! Good job Demmys!

Uh oh! We have a problem now!

Obviously, neither side can allow the other to save the day here! This isn’t a time to help the people (you know the people? As in “of the people, by the people, for the people” yeah, those people—the ones they are supposed to be representing, you may know them as you and I), this is a time to be right!

And what a beautiful thing it is to be right! It’s obviously much more important than doing good, or—and I realize this is a crazy notion—working for the people you represent!

Let me explain to you how this works. Instead of having a decision made, a plan accepted, an action undertaken, we get to debate about who’s right. And we’re just a bunch of ignorant fucktards—we’ll do our part to get caught up in it all. Those of us who hang to the right will, with righteous indignation tell anyone who will listen that offshore drilling is the only viable answer! Those of us who hang to the left will reproachfully admonish the very thought and tell anyone who will listen that it’s time to open the oil bank.

And true to our real name, we the people, of the United States of Sheep will do as we’ve been conditioned to do and take the argument to the streets, perpetuating the high gas prices, ruining our own economy, and making our own lives more difficult, all in the name of being right.

I won’t lie to you. I like being right. I’m even a little obsessed with it if you ask the people who know me. I understand the power that comes with being right. I understand the leverage that being right gives you.

But somehow, I don’t think our founding fathers imagined a country in which it’s citizens cared so little, where it’s government consisted of a specific class of citizen, a nobility if you will, that looked out for only themselves.

You see, these are the very things our founding fathers fought against. I think they assumed that the American people would never stand for a ruling aristocracy. I think they assumed that if things were bad, that we the people would and could unite against our elected officials and affect change.

They were wrong.

We’re a pawn in the game and nothing more. We aren’t a government of the people, by the people or for the people. We are pawns in an everlasting argument about who is right and therefore powerful. We live under the illusion that whichever party we support truly cares about our lives. What fools we are!

So take to the streets my fellow sheep! Argue your side of the debate ardently! Make your points! Take part in the process of being right! And enjoy the ever-rising price of gas, the strain on your wallet, and the endless cycle of an argument for the sake of being right—which may not help with our finances, but sure does give us something to do to make us feel like we’re a part of things, doesn’t it?