And Now It’s Time to Politicize the Olympics…

The fun thing about being a political junkie is having the special (or not-so special) ability to see the hidden political side of just about everything. Every headline, every news story, every major social gathering, special occasion, box office hit, and tune on the radio – suddenly becomes a discussion, say, on the dangers of the surveillance state, the moral degeneracy of modern culture, whether more or fewer armed citizens would have prevented a senseless massacre, which side of a contentious civil war is on the right side of history, whether or not the worship of this or that historical idol on some commemoration of his accomplishments is actually worth all the hype, and how politicians and bureaucrats might be the source, not the solution, to traffic jams, delays at the airport, international terrorism, economic strife, or the overpopulation of carnivorous canines.

Whenever somebody quips, “There ought to be a law against it!” you can butt in and reply with your own snide remark about how a) there are already a million of them on the books specifically addressing the alleged “evil” the person thinks can be corrected through countercyclical government intervention or b) how any proposed remedy would actually make things worse.

And yes, they’ve even found a way to politicize the Olympics.

How the Capital Gains and Dividends Tax Hike Will Make the Economy Go Boom-Boom

Oh, boy. All that shattering of bank windows and terrorizing of family-owned food carts – damn teenagers, building up their work ethic and getting a head start on life! – has finally paid off for Occupy Wall Street. (Not to mention all the pissing on the sidewalk and blocking street traffic. Your starving babies will have to wait. We have to do our zombie dances and scream in that mustached, network dude’s face for no apparent reason.) It’s just not fair, they seem to think, that folks like Steve Jobs stuffed their pockets by, you know – working 18 hours a day, breaking a sweat, taking risks with their own capital, and providing us with software, digital marvels, and handheld talky-gizmos which have only, like, revolutionized the way we share information, communicate, and do business. Bleh.

So what if our lives are so much easier, now that we don’t have to kill so many trees or ship 1000-page piles of paper all over the place? So what if we’re not dragging around our personal computers in bags of equipment that weigh more than a sack of rocks, now that they’re so much more compact and slim? So what if I don’t have to listen to Grandma’s polka music when I’m riding in the backseat of her Buick, now that thousands of tunes fit neatly in my own pants pocket? It doesn’t matter because he had more stuff than I did, and I want it, and I’m jealous, and – wahhhhh. I hate my life.

So, President “You Didn’t Build That Business” Obama is hiking the tax on capital gains to show those money-grubbing, good-for-nothing architects of civilization what’s for.