I've had enough of this. I'm running for president. Sure, I'm unheard of and completely unelectable, but that's just another obstacle I need to overcome.
My fellow Americans, you live in a great country. You live in a country where you can drive up to a window and be handed a delicious sandwich for you to eat in your car, provided that you own a car and that you are not the minority wage laborer handing burgers to people in cars. None of us want to see this country take a backseat role on the world stage. After all, if we were in the back, some really tall Scandinavian dude would probably want to stand right in front of us. And then what would we get done? (Besides, it's harder to get drive-thru burgers from the back seat.)
The truth of the matter is that this world is changing, changing fast. There are hundreds of problems that we MUST deal with in the coming term, or we are going to lose our 50 yard-line season tickets to the international pro wrestling circuit... no wait, what am I saying? I meant we'll lose our ticket to the game of international politics, and we'll probably lose it to some nobody like Senegal. Jeez.
The next fifty years will be some of the hardest ever for international politics. There are more people on the earth than ever before, and we are starting to feel each other's elbows. Gone are the days when great tracts of nearly empty land and native tribes made for easy exploitation. Here is the time when we need to recognize and respect our fellow nations and work together at sharing.
There is a solution to this! In the upcoming elections, vote for your favorite elementary school teacher!
No, seriously. I am running for president, and you should vote Nato.
You should vote Nato because you don't want your president to play power games with other nations. You don't want a president who would maintain more than a dozen "enduring bases" in a country that largely doesn't want us there at all, or at least wants us to get out as soon as possible. When we don't have an exit strategy for Iraq, but a "victory strategy," we are NOT a responsible player in world politics. Under Nato, the United States will take her ball and go home when the game is over. You want to live in a country that is respected around the world. There is no way we will repair the bridges we have burned if we act like nobody else can hang out on our playground. As president, you will see our unwanted military bases replaced by diplomats who are serious about negotiation.
You should vote Nato because you want energy policy that makes sense. Our great country is heavily dependent on foreign oil, and other nations currently industrializing and jumping to the information age are seeing their energy needs skyrocket. Under me, you would see our natural hydroelectric and wind resources tapped responsibly, used alongside the newest and safest nuclear reactors. Furthermore, my administration will push for better conservation as a priority. For example, I believe it is pretty tragic that we flush a gallon and a half of drinking water down the sewer every time we pee. How is that logical?
You should vote Nato because you want your family to be free. There should be no child who has to grow up in a town completely devoid of teeter-totters. Everybody knows that you can get hurt, but if you're going to be free, you've just got to take a little responsibility for yourself. Teeter-totters don't hurt children, children hurt children! Wait, that's not what I'm trying to say. Let me start over:
You should vote Nato because you want to be free. You should vote Nato because you want to keep the rights that this country's founders fought so hard for. In a time when it seems every crime is inching closer to being defined as "terrorism" and the Homeland Security folks can do pretty much whatever they want to terrorists, a vote for Nato is a vote for freedom. Protecting the rights guaranteed to even the worst of criminals is necessary to protect the rest of our rights from erosion. When the founders of this great nation said they wanted it to be free, they meant to keep us free from government. As president, I would gladly protect every one of your civil liberties from myself.
You should vote Nato because you want justice. Under me, there will be nobody accused of a crime who must sit in detention for years without trial. For that matter, nobody's going to sit in jail for years without being accused of a crime. That doesn't fly.
I know it will be a hard race, but I have steeled myself for such an event over years of private punditry. I've watched hundreds of political figures for the last decade, and I can tell you, I wear a tie at least as well as anybody in the Senate. If that's not qualification to at least run for president, then I like hot dogs. Especially barbequed hot dogs.
Of course, my opponents will attack my character. They'll make fun of me because I've only had one girlfriend in my life. But hell. I can take that. And she's a nice girl too! I even met her on the internet, so I know at least some of you can’t disapprove. You see I got addicted to playing mafia in the first round on Hatrack, back in 2001 in my first summer. The original Hatrack mafia, if I remember correctly was KarlEd, jjkkirk, Kasie H, and me. In the months that followed, I started up a few games among my friends. In round III, I got a chance to leave the moderator's sweaty computer chair for the sweaty computer chair of a mere townsperson. I eventually fell in love with a henchwoman in the mafia, and although we lynched her, my love for her burned on.
Not that that means I am at all inclined toward gross criminal behavior in real life. In fact, I believe that a good president would not shy away from controversial party games. A real president must have the ONIONS to face what the public most fears, computer nerds pretending to be criminals. We may have lost in that first match here on Hatrack, but I have never lost an election. I ran for president of a chat room once, and I didn't see a single person vote against me.
You should vote Nato because you want to be safe. Obviously I can't promise to stop criminals and terrorists, but I can promise that I will work to eliminate the environment that cultivates terror and reduce international resentment of the United States. With transparent international policy that advances our goals and the goals of the whole world community, we will no longer be the target for terror that we are today. We will cooperate with other nations to cut off the motivation and funding for global terrorism. I will work to create a culture of life, in which respect is of utmost importance, where we solve our problems not by strapping explosives to our backs, but by throwing toys at one another.
On the home front, you can feel confident in a vote for Nato because you want the children of this nation educated to the highest level we can provide. As president, I would make sure that the people who know how to educate children best would be in charge: teachers. Our responsibility to them is to make sure that schools have the resources they need to function. The current level of state and federal spending on schools is atrociously low. I am not afraid to have an educated public, and I am not afraid to invest in educating them.
Vote for Nato if you want to live in a world that you'd be proud to hand on to your children. Personally, I don't know if I am ever going to have kids, because I don't know what kind of world we can leave for them. We OWE the next generation a planet that is not empty of resources, a planet that can support their life. As president, I will work to create that world, so hopefully one day I can be confident that today's children will not suffer from today's short-sighted policies.
Vote for Nato if you believe this country has the potential to be a just world leader. Vote for me if you want to protect your rights as much as I want to protect them. And vote for me if you want to be proud of your country again.
My opponents will say I am too young. To that, I'll tell them that I'm not actually running for election until 2020, after I reach the legal age limit to even try.
Meanwhile, you will vote Nato because you want to live in a country that is always getting better, a place where you can raise a family how you please, and be respected by your neighbors who are different than you are. You will live in a great country, and it will be a country that will stay great for the next century.
Thank you and goodnight.
Hey guys, I've got a thousand posts! You are welcome to ask about any issue and I'll see what I can come up with for a position.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I'm just wondering how my vote for president will affect whether my neighbors respect me or not. I know that around my neighborhood, I keep getting my political signs torn off my lawn ...
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
I didn't say you'd be respected by high schoolers who have access to their parents' cars late at night...
Edit: I don't think anybody should have a sign torn off of their own lawn no matter what it says. That isn't a mature protest at all. I want to live in a country where people can say what they want and support whomever they want. If I ever were president, I would hold the government accountable for that. If leaders set the standard for free speech, others will follow.
Here's an interesting anecdote that relates somehow:
Last fall, Howard Dean came to my campus to campaign for Democrats locally and nationally. During the rally, many people carried signs with varying positions hastily magic markered on.
One group of campus Republicans were infiltrated by a young man with a huge sign equating Bush with Hitler and Republicans with fascists. In front of the sign, several campus Republicans fought back by holding their own sign up in front of the Democrat's. Their sign read "Free speech isn't just for liberals."
[ April 29, 2005, 12:08 AM: Message edited by: Nato ]
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Just remind them that NATO has some pretty big guns.... Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
No, it's adults taking my political signs. They're very selective. they'll leave my signs for Republicans. They only take down the signs for Democrats. What self-respecting teenager would be so selective?
Meanwhile, I must take deep offense at your stereotyping fast-food sellers as "minority" persons. I have been given cold food and improperly filled orders by persons of every race and national origin, except (so far) Tahitian. Including a lot of majoritista white people.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
Kwea, I wouldn't want NATO in charge of America just like the rest of you.
But Nato's different. I've only personally fired NERF weapons and the occasional Supersoaker.
Edit: to Kwea
And that's not to say that I wouldn't be tough...
Hey, Sudan! You wanna arm-wrestle?
[ April 29, 2005, 12:15 AM: Message edited by: Nato ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Got my vote... Can I run for Vice president? Or, for the person who is behind the scenes who doesn't get seen on camera but has a lot of power anyway?
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
quote:No, it's adults taking my political signs. They're very selective. they'll leave my signs for Republicans. They only take down the signs for Democrats. What self-respecting teenager would be so selective?
I know several self respecting teenagers who would be so selective, just the opposite way.
*sorry if that was meant as sarcasm, my brain stops functioning finals week*
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
[For Syn:]
That's not Vice President, I think you're thinking of Chief of Staff.
Hobbes
[ April 29, 2005, 12:18 AM: Message edited by: Hobbes ]
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:No, it's adults taking my political signs. They're very selective. they'll leave my signs for Republicans. They only take down the signs for Democrats. What self-respecting teenager would be so selective?
I don't dig that at all.
quote:Meanwhile, I must take deep offense at your stereotyping fast-food sellers as "minority" persons. I have been given cold food and improperly filled orders by persons of every race and national origin, except (so far) Tahitian. Including a lot of majoritista white people.
I know plenty more white people who have worked in fast food joints than minority persons, although my point was that many people who are not white are on very low incomes. I support helping these people get a solid education, with preference not based on race but on income.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote: No, it's adults taking my political signs. They're very selective. they'll leave my signs for Republicans. They only take down the signs for Democrats. What self-respecting teenager would be so selective?
We had the same thing happen in a local election. The school was going to install lights at the football field so that they could have night games. Some of the neighbors(around 30% or so) were opposed to this and were very vocal about it. There was an advisory refurendum about this on the ballot, so a lot of people in the area put up signs supporting the lights. Soon after they were put up, someone went around, pulled up the signs from people's lawns, and left them in the middle of the football field. These were the same people who had, during villiage council meetings, called us immature hooligans. In the end, though, it didn't even matter. The villiage council didn't allow them to be put in (despite zoning commission approval) because it turned out that they had been planning to build a large "sports complex" at the local college. So of course they tell us that we can't have lights, but can instead play a couple of games a year at this new stadium. I sometimes wonder if someone was getting kickbacks from this thing.
Of course, that gets away from the original point, which was that adults can be every bit as immature as teenagers are.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
quote:Got my vote... Can I run for Vice president? Or, for the person who is behind the scenes who doesn't get seen on camera but has a lot of power anyway?
You want me to appoint you as Karl Rove? That's a pretty big step, Syn.. I don't even know your real name.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
*titter* Thought so, Vice Presidents are too visible and have to dress up and be paraded for all to see. I want to be the real power be hind the scenes
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
My mom displayed a bumper sticker on her minivan and a sign in her window for a democratic candidate one year.
A rock was thrown through the window, and someone walked 300 feet up her 70 degree incline of a driveway to key the F-word on her minivan. o_O
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Hey guys, I've got a thousand posts! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)