Yeah, that's right... I'm bad!

There's a certain critter that crawls around the Fark.com political forums that I find more that a bit annoying.

No, it's not one of the dwindling number of Bush apologists that reside there. When it comes to Fark you can bet that nine times out of ten anybody bouncing into a forum making blatantly pro-Bush declarative that it's actually a Fark moderator trolling to stir things up and get page hits for the advertisers. True Bush dead-enders tend to congregate on LGF or Red State or Free Republic or some other such site where like-minded knuckle-draggers can find a sympathetic ear and a cheeto encrusted shoulder to cry on (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

The creature that drives me absolutely bonkers is the infamous Moderatus Fakus - fake moderate. During every discussion and regardless of the issue by the third post or so there will always be one of these little parasites poking into the thread and writing something along the lines of "Who cares? Both parties suck" or some other such inane comment intended to make the person who writes it appear above the political fray.

I have nothing against moderates. In fact; I consider myself to be center-left. What I do have a problem with are those that conflate being a moderate with an "all politicians suck" sentimentality. Yes, politicians are usually pretty shady characters and almost always narcissistic. Tell us something else we don't know, oh all-seeing one. Is the sky blue? Does the earth rotate around the sun? What other great wisdom can you bestow on us?

Add to that groups of politicians representing voters with like-minded views, let's call them political parties, and you have organizations that are going to be self-interested, clumsy and downright unattractive. So what? Can you name any organization put together by people that's perfect? There's no company or government, no church or union that doesn't have it's problems. Here's another great pearl of wisdom for you Mr. Moderate: people are imperfect. Any organization built and run by people will be imperfect by extension. It's the way we are.

You don't look clever, or smart or observant by pointing this out. "Politician's suck" doesn't make you John Swift. It doesn't even make you John Belushi. It makes you look whiny and annoying and afraid. Afraid that if you actually engage in the political debate you may be wrong about something.

Welcome to the human race.