I Don't Care

by Andrew

"I didn't do anything."

"I don't care."

Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive

Since I appear to have struck a nerve with my declaration I don't particularly like either party, this seems a good opportunity to further stir up the commentariat. Or, perhaps, a chance for me to expand somewhat on my remarks to make them at least comprehensible to the reader, granting that I do not expect to change anyone's minds regarding the subject.

As I noted last night in comments, I don't really see a great deal of difference between the two parties. Yes, the Republicans are certainly setting some records at the moment, both in ineptitude and malfeasance, so I will be quite pleased if the Democrats take back at least one house of Congress in November. But I don't have any great hopes for the Democrats beyond the hope that divided government will produce a little gridlock and maybe even some oversight of the executive branch. The Democratic leadership certainly doesn't inspire any real confidence, and while the sight of John Conyers leading impeachment hearings against President Bush would probably be amusing, when the judge has already reached a verdict, the odds that the hearings will actually try to highlight all the facts seems slim.

Are the Republicans more corrupt than the Democrats? It certainly seems so, with Duke Cunningham already in the big house and Tom DeLay preparing to face charges in Texas. I'm of the opinion that the Republicans are currently more corrupt as much because paying off Republicans leads to better results than paying off Democrats at the moment, but it's true that I cannot point to similiar Democratic scandals back when the Democrats controlled Congress. Of course, I'm not an expert on the history of Congress, either; I do remember Jim Wright going down for some scandal involving someone buying copies of his book or some such, and Dan Rostenkowski going to jail for his actions as head of Ways and Means. And I seem to recall someone named Jefferson who likes to keep $90,000 in cash in his freezer. But, as I said, I'm not an expert on these scandals, so I don't have the grounding to measure them against one another to determine which is more serious. So I'm willing to stipulate that the Republicans are worse, if for no other reason than I have no brief for the Republican Party.

Anarch charmingly claims that my dislike of both parties is akin to a 1930s German declaring there's no difference between the Nazis and the Social Democrats, a charming analogy. A rather silly analogy, but political discourse would be so dry and stale if we couldn't spend all our time comparing things to either the Nazis or Vietnam. Really, I think the pundit industry would dry up and blow away if we couldn't use those two. Of course, the analogy founders if it turns out that I'm endorsing a Democratic takeover of Congress, as I have, but why let the facts stand in the way of a lazy analogy?

Let's assume, for the moment, that the commentariat is correct that a Democratic Congress will be a paragon of virtue, never accepting a bribe, always giving the other party its chance to speak, never pushing through bills without input from the other party, etc. [Update: upon rereading, I clearly missed the mark here. My intent was to utilize a little hyperbole, but it comes across as snide. My apologies.] While from a good governance perspective that's a good thing, and so I would welcome it, from a practical perspective the rewards at my level are not anything I'm going to get overly excited about. I'll be pleased to see the Democrats take on the President about executive overreach (one of the reasons I'll be voting Democratic in the fall). And as I noted above, if we get some gridlock it won't break my heart, as avoiding more No Child Left Behind acts and expansions of entitlement programs like Medicare Plan D would be good things.

OK, so maybe I do care. (Ed. Way to stick to your guns. Hush.) The cynic in me wonders if the Democrats really are all that likely to be any better than the Republicans. Given that we're stuck with a two-party system, however, I suppose I'd best hope that they will be, since they're the only realistic alternative. Bring on the gridlock.

Comments

[Gary Farber]

Hilzoy, there are innumerable additional spam-filtering software choices you could use.

Plus, if you're getting so much visible spam, you are apt to not have a very good access provider and e-mail service.

I use the clunky e-mail service of Yahoo webmail, but it only lets me see a handful of spam mails a day (although, as I say, it's very clunky, and doesn't let one set one's own parameters at all, which is annoying, as about 80% of what little spam I do see comes from virgilio.it, and I'd like to just eliminate seeing all mail from that domain, since I've never yet seen a legitimate one).

I do get hundreds of e-mails per day dumped into the "bulk" folder, but I almost never look at or see any of it (once in a while it starts dumping legitimate Paypal mail there, and that's the only exception).

[Gromit]

Hilzoy, am I right in assuming the source of the message was a webpage?

As for spam, I'm having the same problem lately. Mail.app is pretty good about flagging spam, but the spammers are getting more and more clever, and my main address is hopelessly compromised. I probably get a dozen messages a day on my main account, only a couple of which aren't flagged and dumped into my Junk folder, but it's still really annoying. I can't count how many times these bottomfeeders have tried to sell me a "Vibrating Ring".

[hilzoy]

Gromit: yep.

Gary: the spam I see has made it through two filters, alas. It's not tons and tons, maybe ten a day, though I also see what I get that didn't make it through the filters, since I check that.

In any case, I wrote a post about this, wondering: why so much spam/advertising about ED and nothing whatsoever about anything specific to women?

[Gromit]

I get a lot of weight loss spam. Not specific to women, but inclusive, at least.

[Jesurgislac]

Good grief, what I miss when I take the weekend off.

;-)

There is, in fact, a group in the UK called Pro-Life Alliance, and while I would have no hesitation in describing them as an anti-choice group, their name (proper noun, capitalized, etc) is "Pro-Life Alliance", and to alter it, however slightly, to "Pro-Li Al-lie-ance" is childish and silly, and I would certainly not do that when discussing choice/anti-choice issues with anti-choicers: we have enough important stuff to disagree on without making up silly insults about organisational names. The side that first descends to namecalling of that kind has definitively lost the argument: I guess that's Republicans for you.

[Slartibartfast]

Way after the fact (busy weekend; painting the kitchen and then (surprise, me!) painting the kitchen cabinets): I disagree with Sebastian. What Gary and hilzoy (and, doubtless, others) have said about proper names, etc I completely agree with.

It's one thing if Atrios refers to Republicans as "Repugs" or the like; it's completely different if a Senator or the President indulges in "Democrat Party". Atrios is supposed to be an idiot. The idiots in office are in our employ.

[KCinDC]

Thanks, Slarti. I've been dismayed that we're playing yet another round of someone maintaining that random blog commenter = high-traffic blogger = radio talk show host = unknown assistant professor at Podunk College = senator = hate mail sender = syndicated columnist = yahoo holding sign at protest = president of the United States.

[Andrew]

random blog commenter = high-traffic blogger = radio talk show host = unknown assistant professor at Podunk College = senator = hate mail sender = syndicated columnist = yahoo holding sign at protest = president of the United States.

Hey! This is America, pal. Everyone's equal here. :P

[LizardBreath]

It's one thing if Atrios refers to Republicans as "Repugs" or the like; it's completely different if a Senator or the President indulges in "Democrat Party". Atrios is supposed to be an idiot. The idiots in office are in our employ.

Yup -- nailed it.

[Gromit]

AAARGH!

Lamont is quite good in the interview, but listen to how guest host Scott Pelley repeatedly refers to the party whose primary Lamont won.