And Where is Ross Perot

So this is going to be the first presidential election I've voted in since I voted for Ross Perot a number of years back. Even at the age of 18 I had a disdain for the majority parties. I figured, why not let the crazy business man have a wack at it. I had a dose of Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience a little too early in life. I went around thinking I was some kind of anarchist when I was really some kind of idealist idiot. I remember reading an article about this guy teaching Civil Disobedience to a bunch of convicts. It was more of a moral lesson. He emphasized that the jail birds did not in fact agree with Thoreau because the convicts always gloss over the very important line, "and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have." (The whole essay is available online here). The idea is that these men who could not function well in society of laws are unprepared for a day when the government has nothing to do with our everyday lives. It is really a belief that we as a society will ethically evolve. It is an attractive idea, but the cynic in me sees it as so much horse manure. I'm more of the belief that therr will always be greedy, mean spirited individuals ready to take advantage of a bunch of idealists.

Anyway this comes up because I've always been very influenced by the things I've read. HDT got to me early and I was very much the anti - government man - child. Later I would come across Robert Heinlein and became interested in the continuation of the space program. I wasn't all that interested in space or stars or even the technologies involved so much as the goal of the species to move off this planet and set up shop as a sort of Human Empire. I read Neuromancer and was obsessed with bio mechanical interface. I dreamed about the sort of plug in universe people would later see brought to life in the Matrix Movies. I read Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul and fell in love with the idea that we created the gods immortal and that they walk the earth forgotten and ignored. There has been many a drunk night where I thought if I could just get myself drunk enough to actually believe in these forgotten gods, I could make some sort of Faustian bargain to bring them worshippers in return for some Godly concessions.

So in this age when you can go to an authors website and communicate with him or her it becomes hard for me to be so attached to a written work. I can go to a website a see that the author has ideas that do not coincide with the notions I formed reading the work. It is no longer a static work but a discussion. The authors come down from the pedestals and become human, and often humans with ideas that not only conflict with my own, but ideas not as well thought out as I would hope they could be.

Reading William Gibsons Blog I see him talk about a listserv of educated people and how the vast majority of them are voting for Kerry. While this may agree politically with what I want at this time I still see it as being entirely too narrow a point of view. He is saying the educated people are voting for Kerry and I say of course they are, he was talking about a survey of academics. People who live and work in the ivory tower of academia trend that way. On the other hand I know there are a lot of educated people out there who make a lot of money and are going to vote their pocket book. They may try to paint it with some high moral stand point, but it comes down to a promised repeal of the Bush Tax cuts and they aren't about to vote themselves higher taxes. Their are smart people on both sides of the fence just like their are idiot extremists.

So when I wake up I'm going to vote and then I think I'm going to delete my bookmarks to various author's websites. I prefer to read their edited completed works. I'll have my discussions elsewhere.

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