Think again if you think there’s no point for you to vote in this election. If a third of the population thinks, “What am I gonna do about it? Let everyone else vote,” a third of the population doesn’t vote. A third of the population watches flood tides coming toward town and lets everyone else build the dam.

There are flood tides coming for America. Government is the dam. Put too much of a bad thing behind a dam and it’s going to flood. Mitt Romney is too much of a bad thing. He’s that awful cup of coffee they stuck you with at the gas station. He’s the morning you planned on three hours before work, missed your alarm, and woke up 15 minutes before work.

Barack Obama hasn’t been the savior many of his supporters expected, but then he’s a good guy who was blown to Lincolnesque proportions. He had no where to go but down. He hasn’t shown the integrity many people have stopped believing in in an American president – I don’t think a great president would support using drones – but he’s a heck of a lot more good than he is bad. He hasn’t been obsessive with the economy, as many of us would like, but he’s been dedicated, and it shows.

The idea that any plan will quickly heal the economy, like taking a couple pills and kissing the migraine goodbye, is fantastic, in the classic sense of the word: it’s a fantasy. It’s more like running miles after waking up with a hangover: it takes patience, and once it’s done, it’ll be a gradual recovery. That’s happening in our economy.

But this election’s about something other than which candidate we like more. It’s about balance. There’s a brutal tilt toward the Radical Right in Washington. Not true Republicans, but wildly nutty crusaders who believe God speaks to them (Michele Bachmann at the Living World Church in May). They are so far to the Right that no one on the Left can morally agree with them. We need moderate Republicans, moderate Democrats. We need balance. The Radical Right is bouncing on the governmental see-saw, whacking the Democrats on the other side in the nuts.

Five of the current U.S. Supreme Court Justices are Republican appointees. Four are Democrat appointees. The two longest-serving Democratic appointees have been Supreme Court Justices since 1993 and 1994 respectively. The two longest-serving Republican appointees have been Supreme Court Justices since 1986 and 1988 respectively. Two Democrats were appointed by President Clinton, two by President Obama. One Republican was appointed by President Reagan, one by President Bush the First, and the other three by George Dubya Bush, during whose administration the Radical Right rose to power.

Supreme Court Justices serve until death do them part, or they decide to retire, which they often decide to do mere moments before their death. We are stuck in a time of 5-4 decisions that feel like the 6’4” kid just spiked the birdie over the badminton net.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee is the worst of these, a decision as awful as any in U.S. judicial history. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, hear them rolling and moaning in agony in the richest depth of soil on which our country is founded. Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson is has taken the court decision into the bathroom, and we don’t expect to see him for a good 20 minutes.

The Citizens United ruling “prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions.” Its basic idea is that corporations have the same rights as we do, which can be like the Supreme Court deciding that the Imperial Empire has the same rights as Luke Skywalker.

Look out Roe v. Wade. That was the Supreme Court case in which it was decided that a woman’s right to abortion is protected under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. It only matters so much whether you like abortion, if anybody “likes” abortion. Who in their right mind would tell a woman who’s just been raped that she can’t stop the rapist’s seed from growing within her?

Romney might not overturn Roe v. Wade. But he’s said he “believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade” — according to his official website.

The answer to these problems isn’t a Democrat-run government or a Republican-run government, but a united government. That won’t happen so long as there’s a tilt. The only person who tilts more than Mitt Romney is a yoga instructor, and only trees in the breeze are similarly flaccid in their tilt. Get thee to a voting booth.