No More Free Ride

You know, being a Seattle taxpayer can feel a lot like being a crack whore.

You get fucked, fucked, and fucked again, and when you are laying there, orifice bleeding — your pimp slaps you across the face because you didn’t get fucked enough. Hell, I would go so far as to say that being a Seattle taxpayer is worse than being a crack whore, because we don’t even get any goddamn crack.

What has my panties in a wad today?

I’ll tell you …

Yesterday, King County Executive Dow Constantine managed to push through the $20 car tab hike without a public vote, and how did he do it?

By trading away the Ride-Free Zone to two Republicans. If there is one thing Republicans won’t stand for, it’s poor people getting free anything, and by God, Drew would rather make a deal with them rather than let democracy work.

Ironically, or perhaps hysterically, after bypassing the voters, Constantine said, and I quote:

“The people of King County voted with their feet, and they overwhelmingly turned out to tell us to save Metro Transit and keep bus service on the street. They have been heard.”

That’s right, after selling out the Ride-Free Zone so that the people of King County would not have a vote, Constantine saddled up to the lapdog media and declared that we had “been heard”.

You know, I used to be smart. Sort of. Back in elementary school, my grades were so bad that they thought I was retarded. To figure out just how retarded I was, they gave me an IQ test and I scored 151. They realized that instead of being stupid, I was just bored, and I was bumped around grades and classes. Years later, I was given another test, and received the same score.

IQ peaks at age 26, however, at which point it declines.

This means that I no longer have an IQ of 151. Today, here and now, I may very well be retarded.

That being said, I cannot imagine ever … EVER being stupid and gullible enough to elect people like Sally Clark and Dow Constantine to public office. For Christ’s sake, the man just pissed in your face and told you it was raining. He handed you a pile of shit and called it chocolate cake. He stole your vote, and told you that you were heard, and nobody in your bubble-headed, “I love the sun!”, local media even thought to challenge the assertion.

Why?

Because they think you’re so fucking stupid that you won’t even notice the double-talk. And, most likely, you won’t.

Jesus Leaping Christ on a trampoline, you can’t all be this stupid. Please, tell me, tell me that you’re not this stupid. Lie to me if you have to. I just need to hear it. You might just save my life. I need to know that the mother-ship didn’t abandon me on the great idiot rock near the sun.

In any event, come October 2012, the Downtown Ride-Free Zone will be phased out. Since I use the Ride-Free Zone multiple times per week, this sucks. Since I pay taxes, including car tab fees, I never really rode for “free” in the first place. It always cost me. Now it will cost me more.

In addition to the Ride-Free elimination, I will now be forced to pay an additional $20 for the privilege of having to pay to ride 5 blocks while keeping an extra vehicle off of crowded Downtown streets. Thanks, Dow, you fucking FUCK.

You know what’s really sad about all of this?

I supported the $20 fee. As recently as last week, I was a wholehearted supporter of the fee, and I was ready to vote for it, and campaign for it’s passage.

This theft of my vote, and theft of your vote, however, has turned me 180 degrees against the thing. Asking me is one thing, forcing me is another. The rest of you don’t give a flying monkey shit about the distinction, but it’s important.

If you give up your vote on the things you support, you’ll soon find that you have no vote on the things you oppose.

And so it is.

The death of democracy in the USA continues unabated.

Don’t worry, though, the Mariners play this weekend.

Bread and circuses, motherfuckers.