I have seen right and left wing posts maligning each other. I have watched the circus they call debates. We haven’t even gotten to the campaign ad season and I am already gagging. It is Trump versus Carson…hell Trump versus everyone, the fiasco that is Hillary, Huckabee, Cruz…oh just pick and plug in a name. Part soap opera, part demolition derby. It would be hilarious if they weren’t playing with my life. It reminds me of a really bad athletic event, especially since each party and their supporters are trying to outscore the other without saying anything of substance. It’s awful because there are no rules it would seem. I have a great idea. Let’s make the election process like an athletic event…no, WE WILL make it an athletic event!

First, we need to pick an event that all of the politicians are good at. Lying or talking all day without saying anything is not a spectator sport. Maybe we should pick an event that they are equally bad at. Something like Australian Rules football…no, we need a game that is or was played closer to home…say …ULLAMALIZTLI! Never heard of it? Can’t pronounce it? Perfect! I would say none of our politicians have heard of it either.

Ullamaliztli is the ancient Aztec game that combined basketball,soccer, football, religion, politics and human sacrifice. I LIKE IT! One would really have to believe in his or her party’s platform to risk having their heart, still beating, ripped from their chest and presented for inspection to the gods. I am liking it even more and I am not usually this bloodthirsty. Wait, there may be a problem. Does Donald Trump even have a heart? Maybe we can get Dr. Carson to try to detect one…WITH AN OBSIDIAN KNIFE! Team members could be picked from the most ardent party members in the Senate or House. The winning team would have the right to put their president into office. There should also be a lobbyist or two on each team, picked at random. Since there is human sacrifice involved, we should get rid of that pesky log jam that both parties hold against the other.

Played on a sunken court with a one-hundred to two-hundred foot rock floor, it had eight to eleven-foot high walls that sloped down to the court floor. Walls…I’m having a vision of prison walls, but while Republicans think Hillary should be in prison for her emails, it’s not that kind of wall. Surrounding the court was a seating area where spectators gambled on the outcome. Skulls of sacrificed coaches and teams surrounded the spectator area and looked down on the contestants. Nice motivational tool and right down Hillary’s alley, I would think.

The goal of the game was to put a nine-pound rubber ball through a stone ring hung vertically and located at mid-court. Sounds easy except for the part about not touching the ball with your hands or letting it hit the ground. The game ended when the ball was put through the stone ring – a feat that sometimes took a day or two of continuous play to accomplish. The game was violent, leaving the contestants bruised and bloodied. I can’t help but visualize The Donald running down the court, the wind blowing through his comb-over, getting cross-body blocked by Hilary Clinton or vice versa. Bernie and Ben are way too soft-spoken to get into each other’s grill. That would not work, I guess, because as front runners, they would have to be the coaches. Okay, Pelosi and Boehner, or his replacement, could body block each other. The upside is that somebody is going to lose their heart…if, in fact, they have one to begin with.

The original game was both political and religious in nature. Wars between Aztec cities were known to occur over outcomes. In one instance a winning king was presented a victory garland with a choking cord inside. He was assassinated on the spot.

Again I feel a bit bloodthirsty but the best part of the closing ceremonies would be the religious sacrifice of the losing presidential candidate… I mean the losing coach and possibly the entire team. If incompetence is not a virtue, it would be the entire team. Stewed to the gills on drugs, the losing coach would be held down, chest split open and his still beating heart would be cut from his chest and shown to the gods. The Aztecs believed that if a sacrifice was not made the Sun would not rise the following morning. In today’s political climate, the “Sun” shines very darkly. Could the sacrifices take the place of term limits? In some accounts it might have even been the winning coach who was sacrificed, but who cares as long as “elbows to the teeth” replace the campaign process. Broadcasted live and in living color “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” would have new meanings as the Supreme Court Judges, dressed in black robes and masks, carried out the sacrifice.

Okay, I don’t want Homeland Security or the Secret Service to come calling. I am really just a harmless old coot who is fed up with our political process that is being played out like a cock fight between old moth-eaten hens with no brains…I mean heads. Or if it were football, the game that is our present political system would take twenty-five plays to score…against air. WAIT…BEER SOFTBALL OR BETTER YET, LIQUER SOFTBALL. That might be as funny as the candidates themselves….