After two years of lurking in the shadows of letters to the editor, I have risen to the ranks of part-time pundits. I am not sure if my promotion is an accomplishment or a death wish, but I intend to enjoy fully the ire, anguish and contempt my opinions will induce upon the entire campus. And so, my first full length column will give everyone some background into my megalomania.

I am almost a libertarian. I take great umbrage to being called liberal or conservative. I am a loyal smoker and drinker and a proud member of the National Rifle Association. My arch enemies include the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Prohibition Party, the Green Party and other socialists, the anti-smoking movement, the Brady Bunch, hippies, political correctness, taxes, Kim Gandy and other amazons, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and other activist judges, the ACLU, pork spending and other government waste, dumb laws, pop bimbos, rap …

While I have always had an academic interest in politics, I did not become passionate until I accidentally discovered Walter Williams, Bill O’Reilly and the divinely beautiful and divinely brilliant Ann Coulter. I started with Peter Jennings, but he is too boring. I like to yell at the TV as if I am watching sports, for, notwithstanding its seriousness, politics really is a game.

How fondly I remember Election 2000. George W. Bush was a second generation career politician who said we wanted to reduce the size of government and immediately listed 20 dozen programs for which he wanted to increase spending. Due to this idiocy, I obviously voted for Al Gore. I gave him a write-in vote for Hamilton County Coroner because it takes a stiff to know a stiff. To be serious, Gore was another second generation career politician. He believed in gun control and income redistribution. As for the presidency, I voted for Harry Browne of the Libertarian Party. But who could forget the recount mess? After the one mandatory recount affirmed Bush’s victory, Gore filed frivolous lawsuits hoping that some miracle would change the outcome. The only worthwhile event was the Snickers commercial.

Thankfully, Election 2004 was not quite so ridiculous. Bush, in spite of Sept. 11, failed to secure our borders, failed to secure our airlines and failed to improve the CIA. John Kerry was a gigolo who needed the $400,000 per year salary because his rich heiress wife took away his allowance. To be serious, Kerry had the same personality and opinions as Gore as if he were a clone. (Insert conspiracy theory here.) As a result of Sept. 11, I could no longer tolerate the Libertarian Party’s weak position on border security; therefore, I voted for Mike Petrouka of the Constitution Party.

If you are not already pissed off, your day will come. As I conquer issues such as smokers’ rights, beer purity, annoying guys and maybe a conspiracy theory, I promise that everyone will hate at least one of my columns. I make this promise because people must face challenges to their beliefs in order to truly understand themselves.

Don Norvell is a physics graduate assistant and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].