I'm feeling extra cynical today, so I put together this quick guide to U.S. politics. Or perhaps more accurately, a quick guide to hating U.S. politics. Enjoy it. Or don't, you cynical bastard. Democrats: The incompetent party. They'd like to do good, but they don't know how. Usually, they end up fucking things up worse than they were before. A growing exception is Terry McAuliffe's New Democrats who care about nothing but getting campaign money and winning elections. Another exception is Gary Condit and Zell Miller's Blue Dog Democrats whose claim to fame is caucusing and voting with Republicans while having "Democrat" next to their name on the ballot. Republicans: The evil party. They aim to take as much of the people's tax money as possible and donate it directly to their largest campaign contributers while rewriting laws to take rights away from the people and give more control to large businesses and the government, as long as the new laws don't end up giving the government any control over said large businesses. Republicans' support comes from expert mass media manipulation in getting news articles to only show their views, and spreading preschool-level lies and insults like claiming Tom Daschle is Satan and is conspiring with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to bring down the United States (real life Rush Limbaugh claims). Meanwhile, the most hardcore Republicans and the ones praised as American heroes are the ones who really are conspiring with Saddam Hussein and, if not bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini and the international drug cartels (See: Reagan, Ronald; Casey, William; North, Oliver; Poindexter, John; Bush, George Herbert Walker). Places you'll find well-meaning Republicans are places where the Democrats have been so incompetent that people have taken to calling themselves Republican in rebellion. Libertarians: The Libertarians are really two parties, in my view. Texas Libertarians don't think the Republicans are evil enough. They want feudalism, now. California Libertarians know someone that worked for a company that got screwed by Microsoft, and they read some Libertarian literature on the Internet and agreed with it. They're smart enough to know that giving more power to already powerful business interests and making them unaccountable to the public is generally not a good idea, but they don't understand much beyond that and what's in Libertarian brochures. Greens: The stupid party. They have good intentions but absolutely no clue how social structures and economies work. They often go off half-cocked in alarmist press releases about events that they really don't know much about, but think we should all be alarmed about anyway. They always attribute to malice what is explained by ineptitude. Reform: The Reform party gets support in places that are fed up with both Democrats' incompetence and Republicans' evil. Other than that, there's really no there there, and most of the Reform Party central command has been taken over by Texas Libertarians. Constitutional Law Party: The people who don't think the Texas Libertarians are evil enough. Socialists: The party that thinks the Greens aren't stupid enough, excepting a few generic liberals who call themselves "Socialists" to distance themselves from Republicans and Texas Libertarians who call themselves "Capitalists" and from Democrats who are fucking incompetent and growing more corrupt by the day. Natural Law Party: The party that really thinks if we ignore our problems and think happy thoughts, our problems will go away. No, really. I'm serious. This isn't a joke. They call it Trancendental Meditation. It's basically a religion, and they want to make it mandatory. They just try to hide that down in the States where some people still remember that the country was founded upon the principle of the absence of government-enforced religious practice. Up in Canada, they openly admit it. Same people, same party. Communists: The really stupid party. Centralized around a belief that any country that calls itself "Communist" can be as evil as it wants but must be praised, while any country that doesn't must be denounced whenever it does anything slightly leaning toward evil, or just whenever if it's the US. Marxism was discarded from serious economic consideration by the 1930s says John Maynard Keynes, and I'm inclined to think the guy knew something about economic theories. People Who Don't Vote: These schmucks don't get any right to complain about the new way the government is screwing them over this year, in my not so humble opinion. If you don't vote, they know they can screw you over and you won't do anything about it. If voting for Less Evil to keep More Evil out of office doesn't suit you, vote for Even Less Evil And Isn't Going To Win and the Less Evil politicians may tilt their philosophy a bit in your direction. Or write-in Not Evil But Got Kicked Out In The Primaries, or if you really don't like anyone, vote for Cthulhu or something similary absurd as an "up-yours" vote since blank ballots are just thrown out. Propositions are fairly simple: If it costs money, forget it; If the law's fine as it is, forget it. If you feel like voting for one, please take the time to glance over the law itself first (not just the summary). If your eyes glaze over because it's written in incomprehensible lawyerese, vote no. There's probably an evil subparagraph hidden somewhere in all that jargon. Of course, I can't leave well enough alone without insulting my foreign friends too. So here are a USian's general idea of foreign politics: Liberals (Usually called the Socialist party or some such): Like the US Greens, except not as stupid. "Everything The United States Or Israel Does Is Wrong" is a mantra to these people, and they'll go for legislation because it feels right rather than any rational thought processes. Moderates (Usually called the Liberal party or some such): Generally like US Democrats, but some of them actually know how to run a country. They attract a lot of worthless bureaucrats and often do little more than wear a hole in the Parliament seat they tend to keep for decades on end. Conservatives (Tories et al): Literally sit back and let transnational corporations decide what laws should be enacted and how the country should be run. Only form their own opinions if there happens to be a dispute between two transnationals. Nationalists: As evil as evil gets. Basic philosophy is, their race is the Chosen People and is destined to rule the world if they get elected. Stupid people think ruling the world sounds pretty nice and go for this. Nationalists happen to be the most powerful party/ideology just about everywhere except for Europe, and are fairly strong there too. Maybe Tears for Fears was right.