Point, Click, Delete

The most annoying thing in today’s online world is spam. It shows up in the form of everything from “Russian women are waiting to meet you” to “hot stock tips” to some poor schlep who was robbed and left standing naked down to their skivvies and socks but was miraculously able to reach out to you and about five million other people in hopes that some dullards would send them money. And then, of course, there is the ever familiar entreaty from Umus B. Krayzee living in some podunk, third-world cesspool who just happens to have 150 bazillion Euros they need you to help them get out of their country for which they will pay you half if only you will help them smuggle out the money. But, as any reasonable person would expect, there are expenses associated with such skulduggery that they need you to forward money to cover. (Sarcasm obviously intended.)

Look, you may laugh, but we all know it’s true because we’ve seen them many times over. Not only do we not fall for the scams but after a very short while we become annoyed enough that we do not even read them, we just click delete. And if you are anything like me you derive a sense of pleasure when you highlight, point, and click delete at the collection in your spam box each morning. What’s more satisfactory, second to not getting them at all, is that if we delete spam from those sources enough times they stop sending them to us. Of course, different ones start to arrive, but for the most part by deleting them without opening and with a good spam filter said spam is minimized. The bottom line is that you know crapola when you see it even if you’ve not seen that particular spam before.

Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about annoying spam and the need to delete it. It’s because spam is an attempt to mislead us, and it doesn’t take a degree in applied mathematics from MIT to recognize it’s gar-bage.

And yet time after time the very same people who can spot spam on their computers, even if it isn’t in their spam box, readily accept the equivalent of spam from politicians. Politicians are like spam in that not only do they make absurdly ridiculous assertions, but they repeat them ad nauseum as long as they work. And when they stop working they stop using it for a period of time reintroducing it when they think you’ve forgotten it was a lie when they said it before.

My point is that if we’re smart enough to not fall for spam, how in heaven’s name are we not smart enough to not fall for the spam, i.e., lies, of politicians? Spammers have one goal in mind, and one only, and that is to deceive clueless and/or unsuspecting people to make their hustle worth the while financially. Politicians likewise have one goal in mind and that is to con us into believing they give a rat’s tail about you and me.

My friend and I were talking last week about that very thing. We found it incredulous that seemingly sane people, who refuse to be fooled by the proverbial used car salesmen and who realize that buy-one-get-one-free is no bargain when the price on the first item still has you paying more than you would pay for the exact same thing that isn’t in a fancy wrapper — but are blissfully suckered by abysmally, incoherent politicians telling us they know what is best for us.

Politicians are liars by profession. They are told by their handlers that they cannot be honest about their true convictions on this, that, or the other. I understand that. I don’t accept it, but I understand it, which is why I hold so many of them in the lowest of esteem.

I’m speaking specifically to those who consider themselves conservatives and tangentially to all others who have the capacity to grasp truth when it is presented to them. We are hearing the equivalent of one piece of spam after another pursuant to the so-called government shutdown and the impending battle over the debt-ceiling.

And, as we approach the 2014 off-year elections, the drone of lying pontificates will increase exponentially. The reason is that politicians know they can say and do whatever they want because, in the final analysis, much of the American public is scared of the boogeymen Democrats to the point of soiling their shorts. Which means all that Republicans have to do is tell the crowds if you don’t vote for them an evil Democrat will win, and the voters will hold their noses and reelect them. Voters will overlook falsehoods that should be glaringly transpicuous.

[adsanity id=9292 align=aligncenter /]People, I want to give us credit for being smarter than that. But to be honest I’m forced to question if my confidence is not misplaced. How on earth do sane people reelect John McCain, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Jeff Sessions, Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch — oh hell, let me put it this way — how on earth do people reelect 97 percent of these treasonous miscreants? It’s easy to ponder with incredulity how sane people could reelect Obama. But when that circumspection is turned around toward us we must answer the question, “If we care so much about our country and the direction it is going why do we commit the same abhorrent atrocities every election by rewarding failed, so-called conservative Republicans with reelection?”

Isn’t it about time we started treating those who are selling us out the same way we treat spam? We get rid of spam without a moment’s thought or hesitation. It’s time we got rid of those who are lying to us and scamming us to our faces — just as we do spam.[adsanity id=8405 align=alignright /]