For as long as I can remember, this country has gotten itself all worked up every four years or so trying to pick just the right person to be in charge of the executive branch. It’s always a mess, and it always turns out the same way: We elect a president, and everything goes to pot. And now I hear we’re going to have to go through this again! We just had a president, for Pete’s sake, and it looks like we’re going to repeat the same stupid mistake we’ve already made 43 times before, only for the sake of tradition.
Before we get sucked into another whole rigmarole about national parties narrowing down their primary fields to select a nominee they hope appeals to the broadest cross-section of Americans, it’s time to realize that the presidency itself is the real problem, and we need a change. Think about it. When have we ever not had a president? Never. Not since we ratified the Constitution and established ourselves as a democratic republic, anyway, and that’s more than enough time to see that presidents do America more harm than good.
Take all the worst periods in American history—Vietnam, the Great Depression, Prohibition. In every case, without fail, we have had a president as the head of state. Who has signed every single bad bill into law? A president. What about the president who got us into the Civil War? He was a president through and through, just like the rest of the presidents. The truth is, you look at every major crisis, flu epidemic, and time of civil strife, and who has been sitting in the Oval Office? A damn president.
I’m sorry, but these are just the simple facts...
They say that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Sounds an awful lot like what we’re doing choosing presidents to serve out terms of office, run the federal government, and act as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, over and over and over and over again. We’re just going through this charade because we think we have to, but we really don’t. Last time I checked, my garbage was getting picked up every Tuesday and Thursday, I had fresh running water, and my telephone was working perfectly, all without the highest elected official in the land even raising a finger. This country practically runs itself!...
Read the rest of the article here.
It looks like the Onion has stepped out of the realm of satire and into the world of realism.
