If you pay close attention to the news, the commercials during the news, newspapers, bumperstickers, tee shirts, your mail, can read, or exist, you may have heard about the upcoming election between Rock and Paper. Another election, you say? Was there not just an election roughly three years and fifty-one weeks ago? Well friend, your ability to gauge the passage of time is strangely precise. There was indeed an election not four years ago. Past elections though, while admirable, were meaningless in the face of this election. Bush vs. Gore? Inconsequential. Reagan vs. Carter? LBJ vs. Goldwater? These were the elections of children.

Even Lincoln besting Douglas in 1860, and the ensuing abolition of slavery and Civil War, in present context was as significant as Randy winning America’s Got Talent. We needn’t look only to American politics for comparison: the breakup of the Soviet Union, the French Revolution, ancient Athenian democracy. Yawn! The only contest of near importance was the landmark decision of Homo Erectus v. Homo Sapiens, running on the platforms of whether or not to leave the cave.

Left: “We’ve come too far to go back to the policies that drove us into this cave to begin with!”
Right: “My opponent calls eating bugs and pooping in the corner progress. I call it the status quo!”

Forget the past; the next 100 elections will wish they were this election. If there even are still elections after this one! According to various sources, we are choosing between a Communist Muslim hellbent on turning America into Europe, and a power-hungry, Social Darwinist, cult member who wants to turn poor people into Soylent Green. We’re talking, of course, about Rock verses Paper. Let’s peer for a moment four years into the future were each of these candidates to succeed, as assumed by their opponents.

Were Paper to be elected, four years from now…
Corporations have fully evolved into people, walking and talking, interbreeding with humans, running for public office. Our wars on terror, drugs, Islam, China, teachers, and women’s vaginas have been raging for years. The government is now just an antiquated moniker for that guy Sal that sweeps and mops the empty Capital building. Roads and bridges are the only public works still intact. Beneath them live the mole people known as The 99%. They’ve been driven underground by exorbitant above-ground prices and Global Melting, which has superseded Warming. The bloodthirsty Free Market often storms down the hillside to collect its sacrificial mole child out gathering water.

Were Rock to be elected, four years from now…
Every citizen is employed by the government. You arrive each morning to your local post office at 11:15 sharp, receive your uniform coveralls, and are assigned a task. One day you might be a plumber, the next day a brain surgeon. During your three hour lunch break, you receive an allotted amount of slop. Abortion is On Demand—indeed, with the On Demand menu of your home television, you may choose conveniently between your favorite shows and movies or an abortion. Through redistribution, the rich are now the poor, which makes the poor rich, and thus subject to re-redistribution. The only legal form of marriage is gay marriage. We’ve taken the upper hand in our war on Christmas with the assassination of Rudolph, Santa’s propaganda minister.

Left: Rock’s Orwellian inspiration for the future.  Right: Paper’s self-reliant vision.

Clearly there’s much at stake. But if you’re one of those skeptical types, here’s a substantiated example from a transcript of the last debate:

Paper: Cuts, Five Point Plan, 7 trillion, jobs!

Rock: Jobs?! America! 2 trillion, taxes, bailout.

Paper: (scoffs) Bailout, bankrupt! $1560 per family!

Rock: Not true, Paper! 20 million, 40, $65, Medicare. Horses and bayonets.

Paper: Yeah sure, 25, 30, Yahtzee! Binders of women, 2000, studies have shown.

Rock: Jerk.

Paper: Dick.

Could it be any more straightforward?

With this election winding down, we really should start focusing on the next one, ways to improve it. Chiefly, making it longer. Your next campaign should begin the moment you’re elected. What’s with elected officials doing office work? Grab a microphone! Also, if these candidates want real exposure, there needs to be more money involved. Citizens United and allowing Super-PAC donors to remain anonymous was a good start, but what’s with people talking about spending limits? Limits? There should be spending minimums for running! If your campaign can’t raise at least a billion dollars from the people and entities you’ll be indebted to, how do we know you have broad support? How do you expect to have the best logo, catchphrase, PR team, laser hair removal, megabus decal, or advertisements?

And how about the ads? Why so positive? We need to know that if we choose poorly, it could lead to the deaths of our children. Hey, if you don’t say it, your opponent will. So if you love alive children, support your candidate with furious zeal, hang on their every word, believe they’re altruistic, that they’re doing this for you, be disgusted with the ignorance of the other side, be driven from your neighbors, friends, relatives, let them tear us apart, red and blue, Rock or Paper.