As Woody Allen said, the heart wants what it wants. So, why are you here?

Not every expression means something, right?

Has the expression "all politics are local" finally become a completely useless expression? Can people stop saying it now? I understand the theory of how every bit of government only affects people on an individual, one-transaction-at-a-time level, and all management is done by local officials - police, etc. - but it's still complete nonsense now, right?

I pay taxes which are taken out of my check electronically, and the check itself is deposited into my bank, a national chain (WaMu), which was recently bought out by an even larger national chain (Chase). When I do my tax form at the end of the year, I do it online as well, because I do everything online. I move to another area of the country for a week, absolutely nothing at all changes. My life is fully portable, because it's all tied into the grid.

The massive, massive majority of people have no idea of the names of the people who are their selectman. A huge percentage of those also do not know their mayor, or their congressman, or their governor, or their senator. Our only concerns are fully national - we know the president, we know national issues: the war, immigration, gay marriage, and so on. The issues that are fully local, economic ones, the debate on them is always a national one. Even a state as proudly self-reliant as Texas fails to even pretend to try to fix any of the problems. Anything of any importance is decided on a national level.

So why pretend it's any different?

For the record, my congressman is Kevin Brady, my governor is the tiresome Rick Perry, my senators are John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and my town is in flux over who is in charge until we incorporate in a couple of years.

posted by Ben Wyman @ 11:59 PM