Life Among the Liberals Part IV: Disenfranchised
Kim du Toit
April 15, 2002
1:48 PM CDT
It’s all very well for journalists and activists to ask me to write to my Congressman or Senator to urge them to vote against some new proposed legislation or other. Many times I am incensed enough to actually want to do something, such as when legislation is proposed that will make all gun owners subject to random body cavity searches at supermarkets and at banks.*
There are two problems with this.
The first problem is that because I live in Lakeview, Chicago, I am represented in the U.S. House by a loony liberal woman, and in the U.S. Senate, Illinois is represented by two horrible Senators, a foul Socialist and a flabby RINO (Republican In Name Only). This means two things in turn:
- there is a good chance that the offensive piece of legislation was probably sponsored or co-sponsored by either the Liberal or the Socialist, and
- that if I am to get anything like a sympathetic hearing, my only chance is to write to the RINO, an unpleasant little weasel called Fitzgerald, who came to the Senate by virtue of spending $x million of his own (family’s) money in his election campaign, and by the fact that he was running against the unspeakable Carol Moseley Braun, quite easily the most incompetent know-nothing ever elected to the World?s Greatest Deliberative Body. What makes my predicament all the worse is that said Weasel Fitzgerald is facing reelection later this year, and in a state as dominated by Democrats as Illinois, this means that he has to Democratize his position on issues like “reasonable gun control”, “multiculturalism” and other such Nanny-State reindeer games.
So that’s my first problem: my alleged representatives don’t represent me. None of my Congressturds need my vote very much, not even the Weasel Fitzgerald, who, if he kept track of these things, would know that my vote has disappeared ever since he went on record supporting the closure of the (non-existent) gun show “loophole”.
My second problem pretty much caused the first: living in Lakeview, Chicago means that voting Republican is akin to demanding a vegan meal at Bubba’s BBQ ‘n Ribs in Abilene, Texas—you’re either ignored or laughed at, and are about as relevant as a condom at a lesbian orgy. To say that my conservative political views are in the minority, is to make an understatement in the order of “Ted Kennedy likes the occasional cocktail” or “Jesse Jackson likes shaking down corporations.”
There may be another conservative living outside our household in this particular liberal swamp, but I sincerely doubt it. In an earlier article, I have already written that come election time, the Incredibly Raving Loony Party gets more votes in this district than do the Republicans. Upon reflection, this too may have been an understatement. The IRLP gets six times as many votes as the Republicans.
So, essentially, I’ve been disenfranchised. My vote is of no import or concern to anyone, only to my own crazed sense of propriety. (The same propriety kept me voting for the Opposition in South Africa for years, even though my vote was pretty much irrelevant there too?the apartheid Afrikaners had ensured themselves of electoral success by a.) making sure that Blacks couldn?t vote, and b.) by keeping Blacks out of White working-class jobs, thus ensuring a perennial 75-25% margin of victory.)
And although I’m technically an African-American, I don’t expect that my disenfranchisement will cause “Reverend” Al Sharpton to spring to my aid anytime soon. You see, I’m the wrong kind of African-American in that I’m a.) conservative, b.) not a victim of racism, oh yeah, and c.) White.
As for the “Gun Owners Body Cavity Search Act”*, I guess I’d better just do like most of the other men probably do in Lakeview, and walk around with a tube of KY in my pocket.
Life Among the Liberals
