Like Sheep to the Slaughter

Well, the 2012 Mr. President Contest is officially underway. As I intend to view this charade with utter disgust and cynicism, I can’t give you the inside scoop on anything. Haven’t watched a debate, couldn’t tell you what any of these clowns are pretending to “stand for” this time around.

But, I did catch this. During an exit interview at one of the primaries, a reporter asked a voter, “Who are you supporting?” “Candidate X”, she replied. “Why”, the reporter asked. “Well I didn’t know much about him, but he won today”.

Translation: “I have no idea who this guy is, or what he claims he’ll do if elected, or if he just mowed down everyone on his cul-de-sac with a chainsaw, but a lot of people like him, so I’m going to vote for him”.

And there - in a nutshell - is the single biggest problem with our society: We have become sheep.

Yep, mindless, gullible sheep, with our respective sheep snouts shoved up the anal cleavage of the sheep in front of us, blindly following with no thought as to where we‘re going, or why.

Our sheep-like nature isn’t limited to politics. Oh no, we’ll follow anyone, if we think enough other sheep are. Some athlete pitches this or that brand of deodorant or beef jerky, and sales soar. Some chuckle-head reality TV star is seen carrying a tie-dyed purse, and the shelves empty. Face it, we’re sheep. And - we don’t even attempt to hide it.

I’m not even suggesting this is new. We’ve actually been sheep for some time now. During the 1950’s, Buffalo Bob Smith hosted a very popular TV show called Howdy Doody, who was actually a puppet. Bob wore a cowboy outfit - sort of, and guess what? Sales of cowboy outfits soared. In the early 1960’s, the Beatles took America by storm, and suddenly everything British was in vogue. We’ve been sheep for decades.

If I were very cynical, I might suggest that it’s no accident we’ve lost our ability to think for ourselves. I might suggest that we’ve been conditioned since pre-school to be sheep. After all, a society of sheep - no matter how hackneyed and deserving of ridicule - is a lot easier to control than a society of free-thinkers who will make informed, educated decisions, and demand substance instead of superficiality, results instead of rhetoric.

In a few months, we will elect someone to be our nation’s leader, at a time of deep crisis, probably far more dire than any of us can comprehend. We can choose based on tweets, and image and sound bites. Or we can go to the polls and cast a vote for whomever we think will cause the least amount of damage over the next four years. Or, we can rise up, each in our own way, each in our own voice, and proclaim:

I refuse to be a sheep, I will not be a party to this mockery, and I want my country back.

Now.