Consensual Political Intercourse

by Mark E. Smith

Ever get the feeling that your government is screwing you? Legally, of course, that's something that it
is not allowed to do unless you give your consent. Without your consent it isn't a consensual
relationship and becomes rape. So my question is, did you give your consent or not?

"Of course not," my friends tell me indignantly. "Why would we consent to having our own jobs
outsourced, our homes repossessed, our children's futures mortgaged to pay for wars based on lies, and
allowing big corporations to poison our food?"

"I don't know why you'd consent to things like that," I tell them, "but I'm not so much concerned about
your reasoning – I just want to know if you did or did not give your consent."

"No!" they answer angrily. "We did not consent!"

And I hear their echoes everywhere I go.

"We did not consent!" shout the peace activists.

"We did not consent!" scream the 9/11 Truthers.

"We did not consent!" holler the downsized and repossessed, young and old.

I hear them, but I'm not sure I'm buying it. If they didn't consent, how could things like this have
happened? What if they actually had consented but are now ashamed of it and are trying to frame a
perfectly innocent government for rape?

Now I'm not talking about implied consent, I'm talking about affirmative consent. Not just the failure to
resist or to say no, but the act of saying, "Yes! I want it! Screw me! Take me for everything I've got! I'm
yours!"

You see, our government may be aggressive abroad, but here at home it is not a rapist. It always asks
you clearly and politely if you want to be screwed. And the process in which it asks is called the
electoral system. Every four years our government asks us if we want to be screwed, and every four
years we say yes. It even holds off-year elections every two years, and in most places citizens are asked
to give their consent, at least to being screwed by state and local government, every year or several
times a year.

"But we didn't say yes," people tell me. "We voted no!"

Ah, but we have secret vote counting in this country, so how can you prove that you said no? When
votes are counted in secret is it the same as when intercourse takes place behind closed doors. It's your
word against theirs and they say that you said yes.

"No," they tell me, "it so happens that the whole thing was caught on videotape and we can prove that
we said no." And sure enough, there are CD ROMS with the poll tapes, the register books, and the
actual ballots, proving that the citizens did not consent. But alas, the statute of limitations has run out
and it is much too late to file charges now. "Why didn't you bring this evidence forward at the time?" I
ask.
"Because it was withheld from us," they whine. "The government wouldn't let us have the proof until
we'd spent years in court forcing them to release the records."

"You're telling me," I say, "that you had a few drinks with them, went up to their room, they asked you
politely if you wanted to get screwed, and you said no, clearly and distinctly, but that they raped you
anyway, and that when you tried to get the tapes to prove it, they wouldn't give them to you until it was
too late for you to file charges?"

"Uh," they respond, "we thought that as long as there was a verifiable record of what happened, it
would be perfectly safe."

If I hadn't seen the evidence with my own eyes, I don't think I'd believe that there had been any rape.
People that dumb are so easily seduced that it isn't usually necessary to rape them. But I have seen the
evidence and they were indeed raped.

In 2000 the people clearly said no, but the Supreme Court didn't consider the evidence (the vote count,
the illegal voter purges, the voter suppression, and the rigged ballots and voting machines) to be
admissible, so an unelected President was installed against the express will of the people. That's rape.
But by the time the government released the evidence, it was too late to do anything about it.

In 2004 the people again clearly said no, but this time the government had become so adept at
withholding the evidence that Supreme Court intervention wasn't necessary. Once again the evidence
was withheld and the unelected President was installed for a second term. And once again by the time
the people were able to prove they'd been raped, the statute of limitations had run out and the damage
could not be repaired..

So now we are approaching the 2008 election. The same crooked elections officials are in control. The
same secret vote counting machines will be used. Once more the government will ask you politely if
you want to get screwed, and once more you will shmooze with them, have a few drinks together, and
then go into their voting booth and say no. And once again you are going to get raped and be unable to
prove it until it is much too late to do anything about it.

And yet people still berate me when I suggest that they not go to the polls this time.

"If we don't vote, we can't complain," they say.

What good does complaining do?

"If we don't vote, the bad guys will win," they tell me.

Did the good guys win when they did vote?

"It's our civic duty and responsibility to vote," they claim.

In rigged elections with secret vote counts? Give me a break!

"This time it might be different," they say.

Well, the first time somebody tells me that they've been raped, I'm inclined to give them the benefit of
the doubt. But I will ask how it happened and if it seems to me that they were engaging in risky
behavior, I'll suggest that they be more careful in the future.
The second time that somebody tells me they've been raped, and they explain that it happened in the
exact same way because they ignored my advice, I begin to feel that they are at least partially to blame
themselves.

But when it happens a third time, I have no more sympathy. Unless you enjoyed it the first two times,
you wouldn't allow it to happen a third time. That's not rape – that's consensual political intercourse, so
don't come crying to me.

-----------------------
The Evidence:

Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election by Richard Hayes Phillips (Hardcover
with CD ROM, Canterbury Press, March 2008)

How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008 by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman (Paperback - Sep 21, 2005)

What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election by Bob
Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld, and Harvey Wasserman

Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld, and Harvey
Wasserman (Paperback - May 30, 2005)

Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count by Steve
Freeman and Joel Bleifuss (Paperback - Jun 19, 2006)

HACKED! High Tech Election Theft in America - 11 Experts Expose the Truth by Abbe Waldman
Delozier and Vickie Karp (Paperback - Sep 5, 2006)

Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 by Alan M. Dershowitz (Hardcover -
2001)

A Badly Flawed Election: Debating Bush V. Gore, the Supreme Court, and American Democracy by
Ronald Dworkin (Hardcover - Sep 2002)

Irreparable Harm: The U.S. Supreme Court and The Decision That Made George W. Bush President by
Renata Adler (Paperback - Jul 2004)

Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform by Mark Crispin Miller (Paperback - Jun 2007)

Loser Take All: Election Fraud and The Subversion of Democracy, 20002008 by Mark Crispin Miller
(Paperback - April 1, 2008)

Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, The Best Legal Whorehouse in Texas, The Scheme
to Steal Election '08, No Child's Behind Left, and Other Investigations by Greg Palast (Paperback -
Apr, 2007)