It's a District Map, Not Digital Bukake

So, its no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention but politics is more fucked up than ever. Our congress is currently known as the "do nothing congress" because they haven't done shit for a long time. Its fucking crazy. There are plenty of reasons for this, most of which involve douchebaggery of the highest degree. I want to talk about one subject that I think can take a decent chunk of the blame: Gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is the process in which the people who carve out congressional districts do so in order to make them more conservative or liberal. This helps reinforce incumbents of districts because they can cut the opposition out of their district entirely while including neighborhoods that are more supportive of the candidates ideology. In another equally shitty move parties can use gerrymandering to eliminate some of their opposition's power by splitting neighborhoods with the opposition's supporters into multiple other districts in which they will only make up a very small minority, and thus have their voice not heard. Its not like the gerrymanders are being sneaky about it either. The borders get really really fucked up.

That's the 12th district of North Carolina and its kind of bad, but it is far from the worst.

Illinois' 4th district looks like two districts, but it is not, its one, connected by a very tiny strip of land along a highway.

This shit is ridiculous, and it is helping to ruin our country. It might not seem like a big deal, just politicians being politicians or something like that, but that's wrong. This kind of gerrymandering eliminates the voices of people and forces politicians to be far more fanatical. You see, when you need to worry about pleasing your district in order to get reelected you need to do things your district will like. If you eliminate any real opposition you have you only need to represent certain ideals. This means that if you even attempt to compromise you are in danger of losing your district if a "more conservative" or "more liberal" candidate comes along at election time and points out that you don't hold as strong a view as theirs.

Our country was founded on the ideals of compromise. Ever hear of the great compromise? It is the reason that we have a bicameral congress, which allows us to reduce corruption (theoretically). By eliminating the voices of a state's constituents and forcing themselves into a fanatical position in which they are unable to do anything for anyone, They are crippling a process many of them claim to believe in just so that they can stay in a position of power. Fuck them. Also, gerrymandering is technically illegal, but those who do it use the vagueness of the laws (it is hard to define gerrymandering) against it to do it legally. Voter apathy/ignorance also plays a part in this but largely in that it makes gerrymandering easier. So, I shall reiterate: Fuck them.