Vegetables And Voting

As a kid growing up, I certainly had my share of greens. Growing up, there always seemed to be this huge pro-veggie movement and in light of my parents creativity in marketing the many benefits of going green on the diet, children are intrinsically wired to loathe every ounce of leaf that touches their dinnertime palette. Consider more the many myths surrounding the world of vegetables; the lies about vegetables that continually get passed down from generation to generation like that Christmastime fruit cake that no one seems to want to eat. My mother advertised them as a key to overwhelming prosperity (maybe that's where I went wrong). My grandmother invoked fear as she boldly suggested that a lack of carrots in my diet would inevitably lead to blindness (I do wear glasses). Then of course, one was not allowed to forget the inseparable relationship between spinach and immeasurable strength because of the early Saturday morning rendezvous with Popeye on the tube. Through much testing, I have concluded that an increase spinach intake does NOT in fact result in steroid-like growth of the biceps as Popeye has successfully misled the prepubescent Gen X'ers to believe.

What I find most ironic in their ploy to more or less force me in to going green was in the systematic means that they used to progress me from the soft stuff to the much less desirable but more beneficial hard stuff. Means that more closely resembled a crack deal of sorts from "New Jack City" than a cheesy song and dance from "VeggieTales". In the beginning, they first introduced me to the gateway greens - the easy stuff like green beans, broccoli, lima beans and peas. Among others, this was the stuff that my mother used to unsuccessfully convince me that going green on the diet wasn't all that bad. "You better eat your broccoli, it tastes soooo good and is good for you too," almost as if she was more or less trying to convince herself. On occasion, a dab of butter and a few teaspoons of sugar were used in vain, an attempt to mask the detestable taste of unseasoned nutrition. After a slow phase-in period, the mythical man saw it necessary to progress me to the hard stuff. Serious greens like artichokes, asparagus, spinach and cauliflower (an albino green); as if anything containing the word "choke" should ever have a place in one's diet. This hard stuff was serious business and should never be attempted without attentive adult supervision and a good EKG monitor.

Truthfully, I must applaud my parents strategy in pushing the pro-veggie propaganda. You might deny their methods but you couldn't deny the results; I did in fact eat them. Well, sometimes I ate them but others I raised serious table side hell, but I still ate them. Yes indeed, I ate them and I did so using a technique that has been passed down through ages of anti-veggie youngsters, a method that while never discussed seems to find its way in to the minds and practices of children worldwide, a method that carries no bias towards race, sex, or national origin, a method known as the 'hold your nose and drop it in method'. The practice involved slightly tilting the head backwards while simultaneously raising a fork full of green to the mouth with the more dominant hand while closing off the nostrils with the less dominant hand. The result was a loss of smelling senses, lowered gag reflexes, dulled taste buds and a successful round of undesired food ingestion. Please repeat process until adult-approved level of consumption has been realized. Note that this practice did absolutely nothing to alleviate the mordant taste of vegetables but it did in fact make vegetable intake considerably more bearable.

To this day, if asked to choose my favorite vegetable I can only acknowledge vegetables that I can tolerate but there are none that are worthy of calling my own. Little did I know that my childhood experience with vegetables would prepare me for an even more challenging decision, a decision that is every bit as important to me at twenty-eight as eating (or not eating) vegetables was when I was eight, the decision of whom to cast my vote for in the 2008 presidential election. Voting to me has always been a cinch at the poll, geometrically speaking, a straight line on the republican side was a guaranteed ticket for this home grown Texas boy. What is of most importance to me in a presidential candidate is the value system within that candidate. Wholly, what they stand for in core traditional values is absolutely, unquestionably the most important issue behind earning my vote. Even as a mostly poor college student carrying Sallie Mae on my shoulders and working through college, I cast a vote pro-big business and anti-me to uphold a value system that was inevitably snowballing in to oblivion.

A few months ago, my pastor made a comment in the midst of a sermon that resonated with me. Something that I had thought a great deal about but never could quite summarize it as beautifully as he did, but in his wisdom he managed to sum it up in a few good words. He was discussing the trends of the world and historically compared the cultural trends between Britain and the United States. He explained how cultural changes in Britain typically take hold in their culture and then begin seeding in the United States, only to spread and ultimately permanently change our culture as well. From coffee shops to social rights, one would be hard pressed to build a case against those claims. He then mentioned that Britain is now a post-Christian society and given the trends he surmised that it was only a matter of time before the United States wholly followed suit. Take in to account the aggressive movement for change in non-traditional values in America and the fact that not one day goes by where someone isn't offended by something and ultimately, a positive change in favor of that party or person inevitably will wind up offending someone else and you're riding a British bus, down Route 66, through the heart of America.

What is likely even more evidence of this moving trend is the lack of support for a truly conservative candidate. Mike Huckabee, currently MY only legitimate choice finds himself so far to the right that he cannot even see his "Republican" counterpart John McCain. McCain claims right winged affiliation while honoring left sided values; a prime example of a political paradox and likely a perfect recipe for a Presidential candidate in a new-age America. Given the current position of the presidential race, J-Mac, who is currently the front runner has vote appeal to a massive audience as he wears his loose fitting "Republican" badge while broadcasting support for pro-liberal core values. Even more, if he wins the Republican ticket, he garners the votes of conservatives left without a real republican candidate. More or less, real conservatives will be forced to choose between the lesser of the evils and will cast their votes to McCain in submission, not in support. Soon-to-be-gone is the entire democratic party, falling off of the left side of the political map into a vat of socialism marked by an image of Karl Marx leading the donkeys to the slaughterhouse. Shifting to the left is the newly formed "Republican" party, led by their left-brained, liberal crusader John McCain, intelligently able to cloak his stance on key social issues behind the herd of elephants asleep at the zoo. Remaining is a large number of traditionalists who fight with passion to elevate the Huckster to #1 status as if they were the Spartans at Thermopylae. The difference being that it will take more than three hundred to win this battle.

So twenty years later, I sit faced with another life changing decision. This time, I'm standing in a ballot booth, eyeing the cards with my chad poker in hand, slowly studying the column of demo-socialists on one side and republi-liberals on the other. Faced with the stamp of Americana on my heart, self-obligated to make my choice I tilt my head back, hold my nose, punch my card and pull the lever.

I think I'd rather eat a salad.