Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 09/11/2000
[Music - Die Fledermaus]
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Thursday November 9, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd., the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.
[Music up, music down!]
I never would have thought two such dull men could send my blood pressure through the roof. It was like a one-day cricket match hanging on the last ball of the last over, or a marathon with a photo-finish more characteristic of a sprint. All afternoon & much of the evening I was glued to CNN's coverage of the Bush/Gore contest, resisting the lure of e-mails, & succumbing to the calls of nature only during ad breaks & Hillary Clinton's victory speech. Though I knew, & know, that the outcome will be of little consequence, I also realised, as I bit my nails to the quick & tore my remaining hair out, how badly I wanted Al Gore NOT to win.
As the thing dragged on, it began to look as though it would hinge on a few paltry states whose electoral college votes usually don't matter a damn. States like Oregon. Oregon!! Personally, I have beautiful, poignant, romantic memories of Portland, Oregon, but overall, I have to say, the place is the pits. In Oregon, it's permanently winter. It is constantly cold & constantly wet. Most everybody in Oregon is as miserable as the weather, & consequently, a socialist. In Oregon, thus, Ralph Nader rained hardest on Al Gore's parade. That's what Oregon does best. In Oregon, they don't even have voting booths, since to go out to vote is to run the risk of drowning - they all vote by what the rest of the world calls snail-mail.
In the end, it wasn't Oregon, but Florida, with its 25 electoral college votes that did it - almost! Mis-called earlier in the evening by CNN - & all the other networks, apparently - & wrongly added to Gore's bounty, it was then put back in the too-hard basket, where it languished interminably. As smaller states came & went, it became apparent that Florida would be the one to push either candidate past the 270 electoral college-vote finishing post. Bush took the lead there, but Gore was breathing down his neck, getting closer & closer. Finally, Bush got there first - & little Elian Gonzales, condemned by the Clinton/Gore Administration to a life of slavery in Cuba, exacted his revenge, as Florida's anti-Castro Cuban-Americans tilted the state - & the election - to Gore's opponent. What sweet, sweet justice! Even though it was then discovered that Bush's margin was preposterously small, & a recount ordered, the point will surely not be lost on whoever finally wins.
All through the evening, I kept asking, "Where's Harry?" Where was the ONE candidate carrying the torch for America's founding ideals, the ideals that inspired Elian's mother to risk her & her son's life - the Libertarian Party candidate, Harry Browne? Harry, alas, was nowhere in sight. And frankly, Harry didn't deserve to be. Harry doesn't so much carry a torch as limp with a marketing package, replete with flow-charts, spread-sheets & smiling bromides. Harry has no fire in his belly. Harry displays no realisation that America's founding ideals - the right to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness - ARE a matter of life & death, to be fought for PASSIONATELY, as though this were one's last act on earth. Because of nice, dull people like Harry, the US Libertarian Party, 30 years after its inception, is no more visible on the political map than it was back then.
So now, not for the first time in living memory, it's possibly going to be President Bush. It could be worse - but it could be a whole lot better. Here's a wishful scenario - that whoever wins will allow little Elian back into the United States; that the Libertarian Party will banish the comfortable coterie who control it at the moment, & acquire some testicles & a heart; that as a result, three or four elections down the track, it will triumph - & President Gonzales will be the FIRST president in living memory to understand the Constitution he swears to uphold.
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