drencrome:

the gang mentality:

jolienoire:

to assert yourself with a sect or label yourself as a democrat, republican or tea partier is fucking stupid. before you vote or even form an opinion on an issue, read up on the subject, hear both sides, ask some questions & THEN make a conclusion. don’t vote for a candidate just cause they’re right-wing or left-wing. & especially DO NOT get into an argument over a subject you know nothing about just cause some pundit said you should be anti- or pro-; it makes you look like an easily-led dumbass.

all i’m saying is, learn to make your own decisions & not vote or argue a point just cause someone else says you should. assess the shit & make a personal choice.

PREACH!

People in the States often ask me how I’d vote if I was there, and it’s the same as me voting up here. I assess every candidate, referendum (Canadian versions of propositions) and whatever other option I’m voting for as soon as the finalized version of what everyone’s voting for drops, and that’s usually well in advance of races officially starting up. That way when the races start up, I can take in the campaigns as they go (with a grain of salt…hell, a barrel of salt) and vote accordingly. I don’t vote in the same person year to year, I do a performance review like any good employer should.

Because make no mistake, we hire these fuckers with our votes, and if they’re slacking off on the job, or stealing money out of the till, or spitting in people’s meals, then I don’t care how nice they promise to be if I let them pass the performance review. They work for us. That’s what a politician is. They don’t have power over us like everyone seems to think. The President of the United States is beholden to Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court, and is just as much an employee as anyone else (you just hired him or her to be assistant manager that’s all) and while the Supreme Court is appointed, the decisions have to be approved by people you employ to govern the country while you live your day-to-day. Don’t want to get involved in the hiring process? Don’t be surprised when every goddamn one of your burgers, (whether jobs, education, health care or the environment) comes back with a huge gob of spit and semen in it, if you even get a burger at all.

It’s not about party lines. Party lines breed complacency because of the comfort that a politician finds. “Oh, I’m a Democracy in a blue state.” or “I’m a Republican in a red state.” and they just do whatever they want, like the cousin of a current burger jockey thinks he can fuck around because his cousin’s got employee of the month. Just hire the right people, whether they’re in a major party or not, make sure they stay the right people, and talk to your employees sometimes. I mean, you’re the boss, so go in there and tell them what you, as a voter (and in my case I always drop as an influental voter whose friends often come to him for advice who also has a Political Science degree), would like to see done around the burger joint. Tell them what spills you saw at what tables, what issues you have with speed of service, and how you figure they can best resolve these issues for you and not get fired next election. Oh, and hire an equal distribution of men and women where possible. Sometimes the male candidates are all powercorrupt shitholes, so sometimes the balance has to be more female than male, and of course sometimes you got your Sarah Palin female employees who shit on the bathroom floor and swim in it when you tell them to go clean the washrooms.

Just my 2 Canadian cents on voter apathy in the States, although replace a lot of that with your own country’s shit and it’s pretty much the same. When the employees have you convinced that they run the place, something’s wrong with your business model. Not saying a liberal democracy is the best political structure (I’m an advocate of a participatory politics style Libertarian Socialist society built on a participatory economic bedrock) but you work with the system you got. If you want to turn the burger joint into a vegan cafe with a weed license, that’s gonna take a lotta work and massive changes, but if that’s the business you want to run, letting your employees know is the first step. But like any employee, they listen better to how it’s good for them than if the boss just screams at them.

I guess I’m just saying you gotta be a good boss, but for fuck’s sake be a firm and fair boss, don’t let these crater-faced teens we hire to serve fast food steal money out of your wallet and key your car in the parking lot.

This, dave, is why I love you.