When You Can't Laugh

There are times when my favorite remedy for depression is inapropriate. Funerals, are really bad times for laughter, although at mine, I hope someone remembers something funny that I said. When every branch of government falls into the hands of conservative influence, I can't really think of a joke that might be funny enough to stop me from feeling like weeping.

The lack of courage of the Democratic Party in voting to close the debate on Judge Alito is making me feel that I might never laugh again.

I can always make the joke about having perfect birth control, I'll never have to face an unwanted pregnancy. But for me, a child would not be an undue burden, I have all of the tools necessary to provide for a child, a good job, a stable partner, and good home, and great health insurance. My niece does not have those things yet. She's in her twenties, she's got a lot of things going for her, great education, a great job, but what if the man who provides the swimmer for that unborn child doesn't want to hang around to help with the actual life of the child? Women have so little control over the biological events in their lives, allowing them the big Veto seems just like common sense. While there are laws that are sometimes enforced to make men pay child support, there is no law stopping him from leaving his family to boink a twenty year old. An umbilical cord ties a woman to a child, but there is nothing to bind a man to his offspring.

Other things about the Alito confirmation that are not funny pertain to wierd laws about executive power in the government. I'm not a lawyer, but I totally get the reasons for separating Church and State, and having separate branches of government. There is no reason to have all three branches of government fall into the hands of men who have already proven themselves unable to even marshall the vast resources of government to save a person from drowning on the rooftop of a home in a state where poverty defines life and death. We are handing over the last branch of government to an Administration that lied to get us into a war, and was not even competant enough to win the illegal war.

Basically, we're fucked.

If you're hoping as I am that the Democrats will take back the House and Senate in November 2006, I'm here to tell you don't waste your energy. The Democrats just handed over your basic civil liberties to the Republicans without so much as a filibuster. Are the Democrats in on the great power give away? Did the people you support just give away your remaining rights as an individual?

This isn't the most horrible moment in American history. But it might just be the last chance we ever have for self determination.