Hey kids! It’s Leo Festag, John’s upstairs neighbor. You might remember me from my columns on the artistic merits of computer-graphics’ generated child porn or the existential value of patricide. Anyhow, John and I were drinking the other night, into the wee hours of the morning. Around 5 a.m. or so, I slipped a mickey into his drink. He’s been passed out for about a day and a half now. Meanwhile, I’m in an amphetamine-induced frenzy, so I decided I’d write my own column.To support my crack habit, I pull the tin cans out of garbage cans. You’ve probably seen me around south campus pushing around a shopping cart, sweat pants around my butt, surrounded by a mysterious, obfuscating cloud of vermin. It’s my job and I love it.Anyway, going through campus trash, sometimes I find stuff that’s either interesting, funny or disturbing. Sometimes all three. Like the other day: I found this paper about Jerry Falwell, a personal hero of mine. You probably remember how he saved us all from the gay Teletubbie threat a while back. Well, apparently he’s going to save us from some other cartoon characters that are gay and would rather that we, the fine people of this country, didn’t know.For instance, take Fred Flintstone: This cat seems pretty butch. But his pals call him “Twinkle-Toes.” Bugs Bunny sometimes dresses up like a girl. The Pink Panther is pink, for God’s sake! People need to know about stuff like that or before we know it we’ll all be gay!I got to thinking more about the Christian Right. Those are the people you might have heard John call zealots, fascists or even inbred idiots. But I know better. They’ve got some real good, all-American ideas. One of my favorites is the way they have made some school systems give equal time in these so-called classrooms to the Christian model of creationism, alongside evolutionary biology. Real common-sense stuff.The way they go about making sure everyone accepts the Love and the Truth that is Jesus Christ is real neat. They get involved in mainstream politics, despite the fact that a lot of “rational” people think the Christian Right is filled with dangerous extremists. Not like weed-smoking peacenik hippie freaks. They think the best way to enact what they call a positive change is to meet in a big group, carry big posters and scream catchy slogans in unison.John was saying a while ago that a lot of those people that stage all those protests have some pretty good ideas, it’s just a shame that they claim to be so “alienated” by mainstream politics. If in addition to going out and doing protests and such, these people took the time to vote he said “that a more positive change might be more quickly enacted.” Boy howdy, sometimes John really pisses me off.Especially if he’s right. Across the country, the Christian Right has entered every level of politics – from state and even national elections – to local school boards. Since all of us right-thinking right-wingers vote, we have the greatest impact on policy decisions. It scares me to think what would happen if all those “lefties” learned a little bit about political candidates and then voted accordingly.Jeez, innovative leaders who take jobs overseas and exploit loopholes in environmental regulations might never have been elected. Imagine what would happen to our country’s GNP. We might get pansies in office who wouldn’t bomb anyone who disagrees with us. The whole world would think we were wimps.It’s all good though. Most people, especially on campus, who say they think the government is flawed don’t vote. As long as this trend continues America will remain the great country it has always been.
John Roszkowski is a sophomore sociology major from Stow, Ohio.