As a citizen of the United States of America, I must admit that I am somewhat concerned by the state of things. As a citizen of Earth, I must admit to being downright terrified that it seems like everyone is having reactionary issues. None worry me more than the US political scene, though, given that I don’t really have much in the way of options should the worst come to pass.

There’s a lot wrong with the US’ political system. The people I spend most of my time with trust comedians more than newscasters, the older people I know tend to place the blame for all our collective problems on the young, and no one seems willing to do anything constructive about any of it. There’s lots of yelling, posturing, and pedantry. It gets tiring.

I tend more toward the moderate part of the spectrum. Not because of my personal beliefs, I’m very liberal in that regards. But I tend toward the moderate because positive change takes time and the only way forward is if we all work together. “A house divided cannot stand” and all those pithy quotes. In truth, my ideologies and beliefs can probably be best summed as “everyone has the right to do whatever they want so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of anyone else.” It’s the sort of nice simple statement that sounds so easy but truthfully is almost impossibly difficult to broadly apply. There’s a lot of errata that goes along with the statement to help it fit several of the more difficult situation.

Really, though, at the end of the day, I’m against polarization. “Them or us” is exactly the wrong kind of mentality. So many other political systems, each with their own flaws of course, get beyond that by actually representing the whole population, rather than just the largest group. To be honest, though, US voters are pretty lazy and that’s half the reason we have problems. That said, there’s a fair amount of disenfranchisement and ignorance playing a part in the lack of voter participation.

See, nothing is every simple, is it? Nothing every breaks down into nice simple statements that are correct or true. There’s either always some qualifiers or the statement is so long and winding that it makes almost no sense. US politics is always trying to paint issues as black and white when they’re often barely distinguishable shades of grey. Sure, there are two main sides to a lot of issues, but there’s so much shared ground in between that is ignored in favor of snappy one-liners and campaign slogans.

I’d really like to say more, but the entire thought-process is a freaking novel and I’ve got things that are much more fun to write. Let’s just say I’m really dissatisfied with the current system and have few options to make my displeasure known other than shouting into the void or voting in such a way that our reality becomes the worst possible reality. The Darkest Timeline, for you Community fans out there.

So, no matter what country you live in, don’t be a jackass! Prevent the Darkest Timeline! I, for one, know I can’t grow a full goatee to save my life. It’d be really awkward being in the Darkest Timeline without one.