Stop Paying Attention

A couple days ago, one-time rocker Ted Nugent was speaking at a gathering for the National Rifle Association. During his remarks, Nugent made some comments in which he said President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are criminals and then compared the NRA to "Braveheart" (maybe not the best week to reference Mel Gibson, but that's another post) saying they had to ride into Washington and cut the heads off Democrats. Charming. Almost immediately Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was forced to distance himself from Nugent by disavowing his comments. This is exactly the kind of unnecessary gesture which makes me hate politics. All that does is give the man credence when he shouldn't have any. Honestly, what sane person thinks that Ted Nugent has anything to do with Mitt Romney or his campaign? I'm willing to bet the two have never even met and beyond both being Republicans, I would imagine they wouldn't have much to chat about, so why are people associating them? There are stupid people saying stupid things on both sides of the aisle and it is idiotic to expect the leader of the respective political parties to have to answer for every insane thing which is said by people who probably don't share anything  in common beyond the same tax bracket.

Inflammatory speeches are what happen when you put a microphone in front of someone who doesn't have anything smart to say and Nugent doesn't strike me as a deep thinker. It is one thing when members of Romney's campaign or Obama's administration make remarks which are ignorant, but you should almost expect them from people like Nugent. Now, for their part the Secret Service has said they intend to treat the threats seriously (probably because is it well-documented that Nugent has a personal arsenal in his basement) and will investigate Nugent thoroughly. I hope they find enough to stick his ass in jail. Not because I dislike Ted Nugent (Although I remain mystified how he still has a career considering he only produced three good songs in his lifetime and none since 1990. I wonder if he has ever had the balls to open with "Catch Scratch Fever", knowing 98% of the audience plans to leave once they hear it?), but because maybe some extended jail time will finally teach quasi-celebrities to shut the hell up when it comes to politics because they have no idea what they are talking about.

There are many things in politics which are useless, but the most useless of them all might very well be the celebrity endorsement. I will never understand who these endorsements are supposed to help sway, because if you voted for Obama simply because someone like Sean Penn told you to than I'd rather you just stayed home on Election Day. They don't live in the same world as you or I and as such what they think would help the country probably doesn't matter. But what's even worse about these celebrities is that they don't know they are stupid. Just last week I wrote how James Cameron's enthusiasm for the Titanic wreck site does not suddenly make him a naval engineer. Well, the same thing applies here. Just because someone like Ted Nugent owns many guns and likes to talk about the the Second Amendment, that does not make him a Constitutional Scholar. Not to mention, because these people are entertainers who are used to trying to sell people something, they are only telling you half-truths. I remember when P. Diddy was encouraging people to register to vote before the 2008 election. Well, that was only half a statement. Remember, celebrities only want you to get out and 'Rock The Vote" as long as you plan to vote for the same person as them.

It is entirely possible that these kind of politically-incorrect comments are nothing more than stunts designed to get a fading star back into the spotlight and sell a few more records. There are undoubtedly a few morons out there who are only too happy to buy albums based on the artist's political beliefs. But, that actually makes it worse because you never know what mentally unbalanced person could be listening and taking the message to heart. I thought after the political shootings in Arizona we had all agreed to take the rhetoric down a notch, but that restraint appears to have faded away. Instead it is going to fall to the 24-hour cable news networks to stop putting these people on the air. I know they have a ton of air time to fill, but that doesn't mean they should forgo getting off their asses to do some reporting and instead opt to invite the lead singer from White Snake in to comment about unrest in Syria. It may make people actually respect them, rather than make them seem like the jokes they currently appear to be.

We'll probably never know who was the first person to convince an actor or singer that they should get up and voice their opinion on who Americans should be voting for, but that person has done more damage than they will ever know. Because these people already possess inflated egos about how important the unimportant jobs they have actually are, the last thing you want to do is inflate them further by telling them they should comment about world affairs. It is bad enough when actors trying singing, singers try acting and athletes try to do anything but play sports, but to suddenly think you know more than the people who have spent their entire careers in politics is not only crazy, it's insulting to our intelligence. So in the future, the next time some country musician compares Obama to Hitler or Alec Baldwin talks about moving to Canada should Mitt Romney win, rather than running to politicians and asking them to disavow the comments or make a cut-and-paste speech about that person not speaking for the administration, let's all agree to ignore them instead. Words carry a lot less meaning when no one listens to them.