David McElroy

If you’re a political junkie, you might actually be excited about seeing Barack Obama and Mitt Romney hold the joint media appearance tonight that we’ve been conditioned to call a debate. If you’re not a political junkie, you’ve probably been flooded with news stories and commentary that imply every good citizen ought to be watching.

Well, I won’t be watching. I didn’t watch any of the joint circus appearances during the GOP primaries and I haven’t watched the presidential and vice presidential debates so far. I’ve been told that I’m “uninformed” because I don’t watch these things, but I’m not terribly concerned. I won’t be watching. Here’s why.

First, I don’t believe in the majoritarian system, so why would I feel obliged to participate in this farce? I don’t believe in the moral legitimacy of a system that claims the right to control us, so why would I lend it my respect by paying attention?

Second, taking this farce seriously implies that there’s a real choice. There’s not. Yes, these two candidates have a few issues on which they disagree, but when it comes to the vast majority of issues — thing such as the legitimacy of government control over individuals, the acceptability of killing innocent civilians in countries that haven’t even attacked us and the legality of locking people up without trial if a president orders it — these guys are on the same page.

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When actress Stacey Dash posted an endorsement of Mitt Romney on Twitter last week, it should have been no big deal. But because Dash is a minority (black and Latino), she was attacked by other blacks for not supporting Barack Obama. The strong implication is that blacks have an obligation to stick together to support a fellow minority.

Dash’s experience prompted some articles asking whether it’s racist for blacks to support Obama in such high percentages, just because he’s black. (Here’s a conservative black woman writing about the issue.)

Is it racist for black to support Obama for being black? Well, duh. Of course it is. Is it racists for whites to oppose him because he’s black? Duh. Of course it is.

The photo above was taken Friday at a Romney rally in Ohio. A charitable interpretation of the shirt might be that the wearer just happens to support Romney for policy reasons, but the shirt is just a humorous attempt to show his support for his candidate, who happens to be white.

But does any sane and honest person believe that?

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Lower your expectations.

Now lower them again. Then accept the idea that you can overlook some serious artistic mediocrity in some areas. If you’ll numb your judgement in these ways before going to see “Atlas Shrugged Part II,” there’s a chance you can enjoy it. Or at least parts of it.

Some books don’t make good movies. That’s what I said last year when I reviewed “Atlas Shrugged Part I,” and I feel that way even more strongly after watching “Part II” Friday afternoon.

If you’re a fan of the book — and you can see this movie as a paint-by-numbers adaptation of it — you’ll probably enjoy the movie. If you actually liked last year’s “Part I” (you know who you are), you’ll like this one just fine. But if you don’t already know and love the book, this movie will probably put you to sleep and make you curse whoever dragged you to the theatre to see it.

And that’s the bottom line. How much you enjoy this movie depends on the degree to which you’ll overlook its many flaws and grade it on a curve. It’s not a good film, but you can still enjoy parts of it if you lower expectations enough.

As a book, Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” is flawed, which should be apparent even to people (such as me) who love it. It’s not so much a novel as it’s a polemic. The characters don’t have depth. They’re simply two-dimensional representations of ideas that Rand moves around in order to make points. The good guys are completely good. The bad guys are completely evil. There are very few characters in the middle, and those few are portrayed as weak. There’s no character development.

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