Play the State of the Union Drinking Game!
By Peter Suderman
In theory, the State of the Union provides the president with the opportunity to address the nation, looking forward to the challenges ahead and reflecting on the year behind. But since that's so boring that I could barely type it out without falling into an earnestness-induced stupor, let's talk about the real reason we all care about the State of the Union: drinking games! Especially those that give SOTU-watchers the opportunity to look forward to the broken promises ahead and reflect on the year of gaffes, blame-shifting, and nonsense behind. Properly conducted, by the time the speech is over, you'll be roughly as coherent as a Ted Stevens speech about the Internet.
So watch carefully, then take a drink, and check the link, any time the president...
-- falsely references "false choices."
-- says "there are those who like to say."
-- lies about health care.
-- credits the stimulus for economic recovery (double shot if he confidently asserts that it will continue).
-- claims to have rid Washington of special interests.
-- blames Bush for policies he's perpetuated (try the war, spending, and Guantanamo for starters).
Feel free to drink in between, too, if you're so inclined. And be sure to follow along here at Hit & Run as Reason's editors live-blog the speech.
Disclaimer! Reason endorses drinking responsibly; how else will you know if the president is trying to pull one over on you?
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In the western world we reach out to the rest of the world to offer Democracy which we believe to be the ultimate form of government and in a pure form should look like "government of the people, for the people and by the people".
The sponsored idea is that this should make for a better country, a better life and hopes for a better world.
The founding Fathers saw a vision of more than one political view or opinions working together for achieving the best outcome for to benefit to the citizens and tor the nation.
Today it has strayed maybe irrecoverably away from that hope and model into a world of transparent pretentiousness. Transparent that is to everyone other than ourselves.
We pretend to observe that the two parties are working together for the better of the people. We blame the opposition party for not making the effort work with the party in power, or we declare the opposite and say that the party in power refuses to extend toward the opposition to include them in the decision making process.
Underneath we all know but won't admit that it's all about the next election and not the citizens or welfare of the nation. If there were to be any successes by the President in power, which would equal success to the nation, Chances are, that president would be re elected along with that government be it Republican or be it Democrat. The opposition finds that it can not care about the nation or citizens but must make every effort to fault, sabotage, and undermine any plan or endeavor in order to secure governmental failure regardless of how much the endeavor might have benefited the nation or multitudes within the nation. Failures of the existing government would mean the probable swearing of the opposition party come the next election. At a time of financial struggle, unemployment , loss of homes and a need for hope, we all have a need for something significant to to happen. A process which is intended to break down, bog down, and come to little for any good out come is a goat show and shameful to the rest of the world. People in this part of the world become less trusting of the governing system and the silly games with each passing year and for just reasons.
Being in denial, we criticize nations like Pakistan or others with a different type of government where officials are bough off with money to govern in a specific fashion to overlook or favor certain factions within the country. We call this CORRUPTION.
Here we have lobbyists representing large business, maybe the pharmaceutical industry, or banking, or some other, spending money to buy off officials in terms of house votes, senate votes or supreme court decisions to represent greed where money looks after money, and buying off supports the continuance of satisfying greed. In-spite of our being in denial, the rest of the world calls this CORRUPTION.
We have a supreme court system which was put in place to uphold the law in terms of a best and final judgment to a pending case. We now see the supreme court judges being allowed to create law instead upholding legislated law that represents the people, and going so far as to overthrow legislated law. Is lobbying and special interest buy offs part of this scenario as well?
Is this model that we offer? The better governing alternative? Are we in denial, blind or just plain of our minds? It's all totally transparent to those around us.
I really hope that we have a future that looks way more like the pure and original intent to those who Fathered the Land of The Brave and the Free. If not, has values void greed through social entropy brought us to the peak to having us starting down the lagging slope?
Me! :- )
All that follows from the fact that people wanna win.
So...I'm not sure how we're going to change that any time soon.
I can't engage in this activity; I'd be ethanol-ly challenged before the first 3 minutes were up.