I do n't know what it's like in other countries, but most American kids grow up being told they can be and do anything they want if they put their minds to it. This is usually marketed to parents and teachers as a roundly positive thing to teach children, even though it's really only half good. Sure, kids benefit from encouragement and it's generally a bad idea to fill a kid's head with limitations before they're ready to focus on personal strengths and self-improvement. Still, every adult knows that both DNA and social origin account for a lot of what a person will be able to do in life. It doesn't help that young Americans are surrounded by false cases of regular people achieving amazing things, especially in the realm of politics. After all, we're the society that regularly elects pro wrestlers, movie stars and foreign nationals to our legislative and occasionally executive bodies. A kid might grow up thinking, "Gee, if a cut-rate actor like Ronald Regan or a complete frat boy buffoon like G.W. Bush can get elected, surely I can as well." It's this type of thinking (and probably a little schizophrenia) that convinced Michael "Goodspaceguy" Nelson that he could grab one of Washington's seats in the US Senate.

Normally I wouldn't even pay attention to a guy with a goofy gimmick name who pretends he can be a senator, but when my voter's pamphlet arrived in the mail I discovered Goodspaceguy was actually on the ballot. I've lived in Seattle long enough that I've come to expect this sort of chicanery in my everyday life, though this one is a little unsettling. Seattle's a live and let live city. It's the type of place where seeing a guy walk down the street in a three-piece suit made entirely of popcorn isn't even newsworthy. We like our weird people and we wish them well, but I question the likely hipster-driven motivation to put Goodspaceguy on the ballot. Okay, fine, let's laugh at the irony of a guy who has no business holding public office getting a certain percentage of the vote, but let's not be hasty. Goodspaceguy is, at best, a uninformed quasi-Libertarian who registers as a 7 on the 10-point Ron Paul Political Ridiculousness Scale. I'm not waving any banners for the status quo, but I also know that not all change is good.

I don't actually believe Goodspaceguy Nelson is going to even come close to winning. That's not my concern. What bothers me about this is that there's a two-pronged mean-spirited streak in Goodspaceguy's supposed base. On a larger scale, putting him on the ballot shows a pretty nihilistic take on the need for government reform. Of all the people who supported him enough to get him on the ticket, I sincerely doubt the majority of them did so because they genuinely believed in his vague platform of "un-sabotaging the economy" and building space colonies. It's more likely that they supported him because they thought it was funny and they didn't care enough about their government to put their energy behind a respectable candidate. On a smaller scale, it's just plain cruel to make this guy think he has a fighting chance. Humor is at its best when it's equalizing those who deserve to be taken down a few pegs. I'm not going to claim that I didn't get a chuckle out of Goodspaceguy's presence on the ballot, just that it's unnecessarily elaborate and damaging to put him on the ballot just for a quick laugh.