Todays Political Thought

I spent three years living in Holland, Ohio, home to this news cycle's Quintessential Everyman. I find it hard to believe there is $280,000 worth of leaky pipes in that township. It is not a big place. In fact, it is small enough that, were I still living there, I probably would have actually gotten door-knocked by Obama. That would have been seriously cool. Or not.

Looking at what sort of skewering Joe The Plumber has taken in the past 18 hours, though, I'm not sure I would want to have been Personally Pandered To By The Actual Candidate. As was so eloquently put on The Daily Show, "They tell you that everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame. What they don't tell you is that twelve of those minutes are a rectal exam." It is really not relevant to the discussion of tax policy that this one particular guy might be working under a questionable situation regarding his professional licensure, or that he owes back taxes to the state (maybe if it were an IRS lien, there would be an argument). I can just about guarantee he's not the only guy in Lucas County with a tax lien, and that should not disqualify him from taking the opportunity to ask about how tax policy will impact him and his plans for the future. Everyone has a few things about his life that he might prefer not get broadcast over CNN. I have a question in mind for the imaginary time when I would get to bend a candidate's ear for half a minute. However, I'm not sure that knowing what the candidate would do about the people who stand to lose their jobs if some of the health care reforms go through is worth the media proctoscope.

Full citizen participation is the heart of democracy. We can't have full participation if people are afraid that the mere act of asking a candidate a question will let loose all the skeletons from the closet. We can't have a functioning republic if only the squeaky-clean get their voices heard. Senator Amidala may have been wrong. Liberty doesn't die with thunderous applause. It dies with the squeal of schadenfreude.