A pet peeve

Okay … many of you that read the ramblings here already know me and know that I work in a film/video post-production facility doing audio sync work on films, videos, and commercials. You also know that this means that during a political year (which seems to be all of them lately) that means I work on a lot of political commercials for various candidates of both major parties from around the country.

The result of this is two fold …. Firstly, it tends to make me very cynical and jaded in terms of politics … I really HAVE heard it all. Secondly, it tends to make me fairly politically aware as I hear various issues from various angles. (When they bother to talk about the issues that is….)

I have, over the years I’ve been doing this (this November will make 11 …. Man I’m getting old), developed a few pet peeves in regards to political commercials. (These are quite aside from the generic peeve of ‘mud slinging’ and the spin off ‘mud shielding’ (the act of making a commercial that boils down to nothing more than complaining that the opponent is slinging mud … ))

Several of these center around using vapid catch phrases that have broad appeal but no real substance, but none of which irritate me more than ‘We need a <insert political office> that knows how to create good paying jobs.’

Sounds great doesn’t it? I mean everyone wants more good paying jobs out there don’t they? Of course they do … obviously no one could object to that stance, and better yet the opponent can’t counter it.

Of course, what they’re really saying is ‘we need a politician that knows how to manipulate the tax code in order to attract big business by soaking the tax payer.’

You see … the government, local, state, or federal, doesn’t create jobs unless it expands an existing social program and/or starts new ones … and those aren’t the jobs the candidates are talking about. They’re talking about private enterprise hiring more people for more money … and the ONLY way that’s going to happen is if said private enterprises make more money. And the only ways the government can get those companies to make more money are tax breaks, or other incentives (such as building the company a new building, acquiring the land for the companies to expand on via eminent domain, to name a few that are generally used) … in other words spend the money collected from the taxpayers.

Now I’ll admit that there are worse things that the government spends tax payer money on … but this is NOT the job of the government. But it’s a job that the government WANTS to do … and can you guess why? It’s simple really … in fact most of what politicians do can be traced back to this motive eventually.

They want power and tax money = power. Why are they willing to give X Corp a huge tax break to move in? Because X Corp will hire Y employees at a higher pay than these people are getting now … which means the government will collect more taxes from the taxpayers. (And since X Corp would only be passing the cost of their taxes on to the consumers anyway, the government is just cutting out the middle man in the process…..)

The fact of the matter is that the candidate in question probably isn’t thinking that far down the road really … they’re just throwing out a line to get you to nod your head and go ‘yeah, that’s what we need’ because they’re relying on the fact that it’s a non-controversial stance and that the average voter isn’t going to take the time to engage their brain long enough to realize that the government doesn’t create jobs!

I’d tell you not to vote for any candidate that so blatantly plays on the stupidity of the voting public, but that would just mean that the informed and intelligent voters wouldn’t vote for anyone and we’d get whoever swayed the most idiots to vote for them …

... Of course it could be argued that this is already the state of politics in America.

To the candidates: Don’t feed me a line of crap … tell me your plans to improve the economy. I know it’s a 30 second spot so put it up on the web and give me the web address. Oh … wait … I forgot … you don’t actually HAVE a plan, and the last thing you want is actual educated and informed voters…. Those types of voters actually THINK about things ….