Two Men Enter, One President Leaves

Alright boys and girls.  Get ready, grab your popcorn, put your head down and let's get through this.  Today will include pretty much zero talk of anything that most people are interested in.  Or at least most people who accidentally wander into the mental killzone that is the Markatoa Triangle.  (So far, interestingly enough, only two sides of the Markatoa Triangle have been discovered and documented.  Where is the third?  Well, if you knew that you'd know far more about the world than anyone ever needs to.  Ever.)

For those of you who are outside of the United States or are inside them but just don't really care/fear that electricity is the devil and is not to be dealt with under any circumstances (in which case, how are you even reading this?  In your dreams - sandwiched in between that time you fled the chainsaw clown and that horrible thing you wanted to do with Rosario Dawson and some home churned butter - that's the Markatoa sweetspot right there.  You're welcome), tonight is the first of the American Presidential Debates.

For the love of all that is Holy, never search "Celebrity Butter" at work. 

This will be a night where we see two intellectual titans at the top of their respective games try their damn hardest to sound as bland and unoffensive as possible.  To take complicated matters of policy that many people are hungry to hear more about and distill them into "America is Great, and will be like, even greater if I get the big desk."  Seems counter-intuitive doesn't it?  Well, we can blame that on one of those things I mentioned disliking a long, long time ago (on the Internet anything longer ago than 43 seconds is statistically "long ago").  The American Two-Party system.

See, in a country the size and complexity of the United States does anyone really believe that all (or even most) points of view and policy positions can be boiled down into two visions?  Of course we don't.  It's a ridiculous thing to even contemplate and that's why we have socially-progressive, small-government Republicans and intensely conservative Democrats and all sorts of seemingly contradictory nutbags in between.

And big-tent style parties constrict people's thinking in a lot of cases.  They'll say "well, I like that my grandma has Social Security and is not eating cat food today, so I'll vote for this guy.  Democrats like Social Security, right?  Right.  So even though this particular person hates gay people and believes that everything on earth should be censored I think his party has my interests in mind more than the other guy."  It goes both ways, too.  "Gee - I sure do think that maybe we've been wasting a lot of our money as a nation lately.  And I sure hate the abortions.  Well, this guy here is Republican, so he ought to do everything I want.  Even though he fights his party on women's rights for which I passionately disagree with him."

The sad thing is, I think that if we were able to get over this whole thing and get a few more parties that could make a difference into the world, some functions of government would become smoother.  You know, if you had to work with other people and couldn't just have strict party-line majorities but were forced into compromise for the betterment of your fellows?  It's radical and amazing, I know.  But it's also how almost every company, group of friends and/or family ends up getting things done.  No one side gets every single thing that they want, but everyone gets enough to go forward.

Now - I know that the Intertron is filled with people who care intensely about this sort of thing and can't wait to tell me that I'm wrong.  So, go nuts, people.  I dare you.  I've seen that you're looking at this from time to time.  Didn't know that, did you?  Oh yeah...I saw you hear me.

Who knows, maybe one of you will even convince me the error of my ways and make me think the two-party system is the even more awesome than a chicken stuffed into a turkey stuffed with French Toast and baby's tears.  But I doubt it.  That was pretty much the best dinner I ever had.  Even if the tears took forever to collect.