I call you to... do nothing

We’ve been hearing a lot of political commentary about how Barack Obama should ask all of us to help move the country forward, to call us to service, to tell us to do something. But what? Is there anything anybody can do to prevent us from slipping off the cliff into near certain disaster? And besides, most of us are almost complete idiots. What do we have to contribute? Doesn’t he know he’ll be talking to a country that elected George W. Bush twice? He should really be asking most of the country to take a seat and shut the eff up for the next four years.

In the previous two presidential elections -– the only two in which I exercised my electoral right -- I voted both times for Ralph Nader precisely because I wanted to throw my vote away (and I kinda liked the old coot) and because I had nothing else to contribute. This time I voted for Barack Obama twice, if you include the primary, and I had to go through the trouble of changing my voter registration from the Independent Whacko Party to Democrat in order to do it. It took well over an hour and a half. I consider that to be a seismic effort on my part. I’m not going to do anything else because that was exhausting and once again, I have nothing more to contribute.

I’m confident enough to know that I’m not a complete idiot but I really can’t make that assertion about the vast majority of people out there, including whoever might be reading this blog. So really, almost none of you should be helping, almost none of you should serve. I know everybody likes to think of JFK -– ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, etc. –- but really, most people ask stupid questions, so most people should just ask not anything.

I’m sure Obama will say something similar to ‘ask not, etc.’ in his inaugural address and he’ll inspire us to hope and do something or other, but please realize that it’s just a speech. Just rhetoric. As a great man once said, ‘That's just what we call pillow talk, baby.’ You voted. Good job. Now shut the eff up.