Why You Wouldn't Vote For Me

"Hey Steve," people have said to me, "You're a smart guy! You could make a difference! Why don't you run for office?"

Simple, people. Because you'd never vote for me.

"Sure I would!" you say, and sure, maybe I could snooker you into a first term, but trust me, once I get into office, and start shaping this nation to fit my vision of what America should be, every single one of you would hop off the Steve Train.

Why?

Because I'd be fair. But not fair in the way that most of you think of fair. "Fair" to most of you means "easy" or "free from burden." It means "evenly distributed" to others, and to still others, it means "passing my burden along to someone who hasn't borne it yet."

To me, it means you reap what you sow-- and sometimes, you reap what other sowed near you, too. Your benefits from your efforts would be yours to keep-- but on the flip side, so would your losses from your bad gambles. If your choices make your kids suffer, then I hope your suffering kids don't pass that suffering along to a third generation, but if they do, don't look to Washington to stop the cycle.

Under me, the rich would get richer-- unless they took a big gamble on Real Estate or bad banking practices or poor auto marketing techniques. Then they'd go tits up, and I'd sit back on a pile of tax money and point and laugh and say, "Nope, you can't have any!"

"UNFAIR!" you say. "What about the people who invested in those businesses, but had no say in their day to day business practices??" Well, I guess I'd say they invested badly. If they ever get enough scratch together to invest again, I hope they learn to do it more wisely! "What about the workers, who slaved and labored day after day for 30 years, and walk away with nothing?" Well, I hope they find another job! Shit happens, after all. Sure hope they socked some of that money away. Oh, they didn't? Time to put the Wii on eBay!

You see? Already I'm losing some of you, right? You think the Federal Government should be the Great Equalizer. If someone invested and lost money, they deserve to get that money back.

Um.... why? Where was my cut of their dividends? They never paid me a dime from that. Where would my chunk of their earnings be, if the company had succeeded, and they had cashed out their stocks at an 80% profit? I'm pretty sure they'd forget to mail my check. So if they're not sharing the wealth, President HappyBack isn't spreading the poverty, either.

See, my Presidency would be governed by a solid and realistic principle of Fairness-- of Karma, almost. You can do whatever you wish with your money. I'd deregulate the crap out of the market. Almost no oversight-- just do as you please. But along with that, I'd also dismantle the safeguards that unfairly protect you against failure and responsiblity for unethical practices.

Corporations,for example? Gone! No more hiding your personal practices behind some faceless entity that can simply dissolve and walk away. Let's see how many banks lend half a million per mortgage to dirtbags with 350 credit ratings when the CEO and Board of Directors might be personally held responsible to the investors for the bank's collapse. Let's see if they approve such a practice when they see their competitors' personal jets and stretch limos on the auction block to pay off their account holders. Yeah, even without regulations, you'd see a sudden influx of responsible practice if you also forced personal consequences onto them.

It wouldn't stop in the market, though, for those of you who so far are cheering me on. Immigration, for example? It would be one of the easiest things a foreigner could do. They'd need nothing more than a fingerprint, a signature, functional English, and vow of solidarity to the Union. Then they're in! No BS waiting periods, no hoops to jump through, no requiring them to learn the history that our natural-born citizens are completely ignorant of. They want in? They're in!

But then, they're responsible. Immediately held to the same expectations as any other citizen. Comply with every law. Provide for yourself, cause I'm cutting welfare, too. And all government forms would be in English- period. Why, cause we hate Asians and Latinos? No, because it's impractical and costly to try to accomodate everyone. You wanted in, now cowboy up and carry your load. Don't whine about it, either, I've been in your shoes, and I learned the language, too. It's tough, but then so is life.

Welfare? Ha! Hope you enjoyed it! That's gone. Foodstamps, gone. Medicare and Medicaid, Gone. Social Security? Sorry, I'm not going to bust the bank so I can give every old man and woman not-quite-enough-to-really-benefit-them-anyway. All of these big hearted programs would be gone. And gone NOW-- immediately. I'd have 20 million Baby Boomers burning me in effigy.

And people would suffer, make no doubt! It would probably take the country a full generation to get used to having to save money again, and sock it away, and provide for themselves in their retirements. For kids to get used to taking care of their parents when they reach their twilight years. For families to refill the voids that Government left behind when President Steve dismantled the safety nets and locked the coffers shut again. For the system to swing out of the red, where everyone functions on someone else's borrowed money, and back into the black, where we make money first and then spend it.

But the Military? Bombs, baby, not butter! You want butter, your state and local governments are free to do as they please to make you happy, but on my level, the Federal level? We will tax you all--- yes, even you poor folks, at the same percentage rate as the rich-- and we will use that money to pay our military personnel twice what they make now, and to make them the most bad-ass people-killing machines seen since the last James Cameron movie.

That bad-ass military would sit on our soil, and protect our people and our shores, and unless they were BEGGED to go somewhere else and fight-- and I mean begged IN WRITING, AND OUT LOUD, ON HANDS AND KNEES IN A U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING-- where the entire world could see it-- unless that happened, they'd just sit and protect us. President Steve would practice what he likes to call Bitch-Slap Diplomacy. Meaning, if you attack us, we destroy you handily and readily. And then go home. You rebuild on your own cash, with your own people. We just go home and wait to see if you're going to try it again. IF you do, hey-- we're back!

You see?

This is why none of you will vote for me. You're apalled already. I'm so COLD-- so heartless-- I seem to hate everybody and everything.

I disagree, though. The way I see it, I believe in you- all of you-- way more than any of your current elected officials do. Way more than even you do. I think you are all able to provide for yourselves. I think you are also caring and loving enough to seek out and care for those who are less fortunate, without my big government vaccuum stealing your cash, filtering it through 15 layers of red tape, and paying it back at a rate of 23 cents on the dollar to those who can jimmy the system enough to play poor.

I believe in you, and you don't want that. It makes you responsible for your well-being, and for your own community, and that?

That's no fun.

Naw. I'll just sit back here and gripe about others with higher X Factors who dupe you into voting for them. Frankly, it's probably more productive in the end.