The Importance of the Right of Free Association : Defending ourselves from the Shithead Hypothesis

Meet the ShitheadsOK here is the soon to be tremendously famous Shithead Hypothesis or The Simple Shithead Hypothesis for short:

“There are 3 groups of people in life 

      1. The largest are those we don’t know, then 

      2. The people we like, and finally 

      3. The people we’ve decided are shitheads.”  

You might come up with “friendlier” terms but in the end it’s really the same groupings….

The hypothesis came to mind when a very good friend asked me what could I do to make our current political system work better.  You’re probably wondering the same thing I was at the time what the hell does my thought have to do with the question?  Well, having “Madman” in my title you should expect some less than direct thinking.

The Shithead Hypothesis quickly turns into a problem when we get lazy and bucket people we don’t know as shitheads just because they are associated with a given group.  I mean what could go wrong assuming all people in a group are shitheads?  Don’t get me wrong there are some groups who truly support horrific ideas, e.g. hurting people, killing people, .…  But I’m talking about political parties here, not Boko Haram, the Aryan Brotherhood or NAMBLA.  And yeah parties are not in the same league! I mean don’t be a shithead…

Yet rhetoric, noise and money is aimed behind these artificial teams called political parties specially to make us think the “other side” is just a seeming pile of shitheads.  The sad things these teams are simply groups of Americans that would like to make life better but they see different problems and approaches.  Yeah that person you don’t know and can’t stand because of what “team” they’re on is trying to make your life better. But, since they’re shitheads we don’t listen to them at all.  In fact it is very effective to get an idea dismissed simply by associating it with the “shitheads”…

Ok great I see how this is a problem…  But Madman what is a step toward a solution?  Funny you should ask that (ok in my head you asked).  One of the main reasons this crazy rhetoric and division works is we divide people into political parties.  That is as far as our auspicious government is concerned you can only officially register with one party.  This forces people to choose a team (or not play at all).  However as Americans we all have the right to freely associate any and all groups we want at least those groups that will have us. And if we joined multiple parties we’re likely to understand they’re just groups of Americans rather than the worst shitheads ever.

So the solution? We need to sue states that do not allow us to register in multiple parties.  This won’t end political parties, just make us all more motivated o listen to each other a little bit more. Parties are of course allowed to reject people if they want to, but states simply need to respect our right to participate in any and as many parties as we want!

A Madman has spoken….

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