This race for delegates and nominations couldn’t be over soon enough if you ask me. A political election is both a huge civic duty and the strongest form of flame bait out there.

Candidates get torn a new one, that’s for sure. I don’t care so much about the scrutiny of these people — it kind of comes with the job. I’m sure something like 5 percent or less of it is actually deserved, but people will say ignorant things whether you like it or not.

I’m really more tired of arguing with other people about the candidates than getting exhausted watching various cable news networks. I’ll casually approach a situation, make a simple remark like, “Hey, did you see the election last night?” I don’t recommend you do this to someone unless you already know how they feel or can be sure that the aforementioned person is not secretly a long-winded fool. I’ve heard people talk about China nuking us, terrorist attacks reducing our society to ruins, degrading family-morals rotting our civilization from the core and the ramifications of socialized anything and how I am a bad person for thinking anything different.

I don’t like the GOP. Even the acronym is stupid to me. The recent FISA ad was a load of fear-mongering crap, and I fear I think too similar a criticism of much that comes from their collective mouth.

Is the war on terror important? I suppose I think so — but I guess maybe my idea of war has been glorified by video games and movies, and I thought finding some chumps hiding in caves or training confused youths in local buildings would be easier to pin down than the cost of $500 billion and 700,000 Iraqi people.

There’s plenty to be said in defense of all of those standpoints, though. The idea of China nuking us is sheer ignorance, but the rest might have some slight grain of feasibility. I think it was Ben Franklin who was noted with a famous quote, “Those who are willing to sacrifice essential freedom for security deserve neither.” Maybe that’s a little bit optimistic in the eyes of some, but I think that’s kind of the leg our country stands on, and so I value freedoms over pretty much anything. If retaining our rights to privacy means that once every 500 years, some sort of terrorist attack happens, I would rather that than governments granting immunity to companies that carry out wiretaps. I would rather that than being able to be detained without a trial and be held indefinitely in a war prison that several nations have asked to have removed due to its insidious nature.

Aren’t we supposed to be a beacon of something?

We’ve gone down a rather dark path in the last several years. Imagine a guy who gets lost on his way somewhere and doesn’t really know where to go, but insists that we keep going that way because he’s pretty sure he knows where we’ll end up — that’s kind of what has happened to our country. Fear and sheer power are supposed to be the tools of a tyrant; I figure our country can operate without them.

Ron Soltys voted; did you? Discuss the election with him at [email protected].