I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [28]
Take a good look at our leadership if you don’t believe me. You really think these people are adults? Our leaders don’t lead. They spend most of their time running for office, not coming up with good ideas to help us live better lives. They say they have to do it because that’s what our election system forces them to do. They say they have no choice. Well, Merry Fucking Christmas, they’re wrong. The system works when our elected officials do the job that they were sent to Washington—and to the state capitols and city halls all over the country—to do, which is to lead by example. That means they try to figure out through intelligent compromise and negotiation with the loyal fuck opposition how to solve problems so that each side has a stake in the solution to the problem. The political party that is in power gets a little more say in the wording of whatever the bill or the law is, that’s all. It’s really pretty simple. It’s why we have elections, after all.
What did these idiots we elected do in student government? Spend their time masturbating?
Telling us what you are going to do when you are in power and actually doing it are two different things. And the idiots in office don’t seem to understand that anymore. It’s like when I think I wrote an e-mail and then I check my e-mail queue and realize I didn’t. Just because I had the thought doesn’t mean I actually did anything about it. These people don’t seem to understand that if they actually accomplished stuff while they were in office, the people they represent—that’s you and me—might vote for them again. That’s the way it used to be.
As a result of running all the time, these douche bags keep their tongues firmly up the asses of whatever corporations or organizations might throw them a buck or two. Hence they can only pay us lip service, because their tongue is somewhere else. And so we get nowhere.
They make things up and call these made-up things “facts” and use them to support whatever bogus idea they are shouting about, and none of them are mature enough to know what our country’s best interests are. They know we have “best interests,” they just don’t have the intellectual curiosity and emotional courage to figure out what they are and then work toward achieving them.
Good fuck luck.
It’s Christmas, for God’s sake, I’ve got to get myself back on track here. You can’t show up on Christmas spitting venom.
I ask my driver where he is from.
“Kyrgyzstan.”
“Wow. I’ve been there. Well, not exactly there. To our Air Force base. Sadly, I didn’t know it was a country till I went there. Sorry.”
“No one here does. You a soldier?”
“No.”
“You lucky. I was a soldier.”
“What brought you here?”
“Freedom. Maybe better life. Two cousins.”
“What did you do back home?”
“I was mechanical engineer. Now must learn gooder English for job.”
“Better English.”
“Yes.”
“My dad was a mechanical engineer. I don’t know what you guys do, but I know it’s important.”
“I am Muslim. Not good.”
“It’s good. It doesn’t help, but it’s good.”
“You see.”
“I see.”
Great. My cabdriver is a mechanical engineer. You’d think we would need him out there, mechanically engineering whatever needs to be engineered instead of squiring me around town. And I have no doubt that with his knowledge and problem-solving ability we would eventually find the key to achieving energy independence. Oh, well.
What is the matter with us? Jesus, here’s this cabdriver who had to get here from Kyrgyzstan—which is a fucking haul, trust me, and might as well be in another solar system—because we were the beacon of freedom shining out there for all to see. We’ve got freedom, all right, but we still don’t know what to make of it. We like to talk about how good it is but in the end it scares us, because we aren’t adult enough to handle it. With his newfound