Thoughts on This Coming Election

“Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,   

      By the livin’ Gawd that made you,

   You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”  

Ending of Gunga Din, a poem by Rudyard Kipling

 

As happens in our country every other year, we are entering into a time of transition. We citizens are given our chance to affect the Republic and the country for which it stands. For most of my adult life this was a social obligation I took seriously, but with little concern over the future of the nation. This century, that has all changed.

We began the century with a contested election where Florida became the battleground and the state became notorious for its “hanging chads.” We moved on to 9/11 when Arab/Islamic terrorists killed or injured almost 9,000 innocent citizens who sought only to live through that day. Of course, this led to a war that took us 20 years to end in something far from victory.

We transitioned from a President who followed in his Father’s footsteps and was aided by a Washington insider, to a historic first in the election of an African-American, to a New York real estate mogul, and finally a man who can’t really be sure how he was elected.  Through those years we’ve expanded our global communication network so now everyone like me has a voice and is able to express his appreciation, or outrage. Usually, it is outrage.  We have an entire generation who seems to spend their life expressing their outrage.

Along the way, those who I thought could be bridge-builders chose not to. Those who seemed to lack the experience necessary to run the nation did so with mixed results. Finally, those who’ve spent their entire adult lives as elected officials have been both unable and unwilling to pass the jobs along to the next generation.

For the past two years one party has had control of two of the three branches of government, yet their focus seems to be on building a future few can afford, or on condemning the sins of the past. The party that claims it is inclusive and wants to protect women can’t define what a woman is. Its political elite seem to spend more time in mock protest than in actually doing the peoples work.

The loyal opposition is fractured by those who believe it’s time to be as crass as the former President, those who want to “go along to get along” and those who want to place the historical core values of the nation back on center stage. Which brings up the real question we will decide on this upcoming election.

What are the core values we as a nation really want?  

a) Do we want to keep the “rule of law?”  If so, we seem to have work to do. It is obvious our younger generation has abandoned this idea for the idea of mob rule, and politically correct thinking as the standard of behaviour.  Our law enforcement and legal institutions seem to turn a blind eye on some crimes while vilifying those who don’t conform to the desired standard. I cite as an example the Attorney General’s commitment to identify as domestic terrorists those who protest at school boards which have agendas of their own, while ignoring the protests of those who are attempting to terrorize the conservative justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Or we can look at the district attorneys in Manhattan or Los Angeles who have implemented what their opponents call a “catch and release” where violent offenders are released almost immediately back into society while those who may have defended themselves are held pending a decision on prosecution (Jose Alba, NYC bodega clerk).

We can argue the “rule of law” has never been universally or fairly applied (e.g. African-Americans) but just because we suffer from the failures of our past, is that a reason to abandon the concept that ALL are equal under the law? We should work every day to ensure equal treatment of all accused, but when politics becomes a variable for those charged with doing the work of enforcement and judgement does the foundation of our society stand?

b) Akin to the first point, I ask does the Constitution still have value? With the decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Medical Center, the SCOTUS overturned a judicial decision which had stood for fifty years.  Those who support abortion were and remain outraged over this decision, while those who would end abortion if they could, are overjoyed. If you look at the history of the U.S. Constitution we have 27 amendments, the first 10 came almost immediately after the Constitution was ratified and the first government established. The remaining 17 came in drips and drabs but usually only took a year or so to ratify. Except of course the 27^thwhich took almost 203 years.  

The Congress had fifty years to codify the decision of seven old white men in robes (to use the modern terms of condemnation), but chose not to.  The current court decided the original decision erred in its justification of the due process clause of the 14^th amendment and returned the right of determination to the political side of government. Since the rights of abortion were not inherent in the Constitution and Congress had not amended it to claim that right from the states the court returned it to the states and their citizens.

Now Congress is trying to figure out what they can do, and activist politicians are staging political theater to show their disdain for this check and balance of our government.  They are threatening to “pack the court” and the opposition is outraged over this idea.  If we were actually able to speak to each other and format compromises like we used to do, then there probably are some legitimate reasons for actually expanding the court from nine to eleven, or maybe even thirteen.  Unfortunately, in today’s world that is a non-starter.

Unrelated, except for the traditional for/against opposition, is the ideal of the Second Amendment. Both sides have their emotional talking points and neither side has any desire to listen or understand the reasoning of the opposition.  Those who think the volume of guns is the root cause would abandon the Second Amendment to restrict those guns.  Those who think the amendment is there to protect the rights of the citizen against an abusive government feel equally strongly about its protection.  Of course, the emotional demands mean we really will never explore to find an actual root cause of mass shootings, i.e. what is in the head of those who choose violence in this form and how did it get there?  By the way, it is interesting the government has never released the finding of the largest mass shooting in recent memory, the killings in Las Vegas in 2017.  I wonder why?

c) Do we want the perception of safety or the perception of freedom? As a human we will never actually be completely safe or completely free. Life is a dangerous place, and within a society we must often choose what freedoms we will sacrifice to make society function. This was one of the great debates of our founders as the wrestled with forming a government that would establish us as a nation, while maintaining the maximum number of rights and freedoms for its citizens.  Along the way we’ve increasingly imposed sanctions of individual freedoms, but we are now reaching a point where we will decide if enough is enough or do we want more?

The Democratic party seems to favor the illusion of safety over individual freedom.  They will spy on us to ensure those right-wing extremists are kept in check. While the Republican party offers the illusion of individual freedom, supposedly protecting individual freedoms, unfortunately I see little from them about actually reducing the amount of government available to spy on us, or control our lives. I believe many in my generation have come to value individual freedom from government mandated safety, but that is a very close call.  The younger generations all seem like they want more government to provide more safety as well as all the safeguards for poor life decisions.

That about sums up what I think are the big three issues I’ll be thinking about when I go into the polls this November.  I hope we make wise choices, for if we don’t at some point, we will see the end of the nation-state we call home.

 

Random Thoughts

We’ve just had a weird election where the rules changed in the middle of the extended campaign creating an appearance of partisan fraud, and the President is on social media making his case (rather poorly in my opinion).  Ultimately, the courts will at some point probably side with the various states that the certification of results is a state issue and that is all that counts.  Will this undermine the next President’s administration?  In the wise words of Bugs Bunny, “hmmm, could be.”  But with an adoring press and social media probably not.

This got me to thinking about the road we’ve traveled to this point.  Elections have always been a contentious thing with good and bad winners, or good and bad losers.  I don’t think John Adams was particularly enamored with his job after coming in second to George Washington, and not too long after that the election of the Vice President became linked to the election of the President.

In the early, to mid-nineteenth century the South would routinely threaten to leave the union unless their favored Democrat (or Democrat-Republican) was elected.  With the election of Abraham Lincoln, they made good on their threat. I guess this would be the ultimate example of “delegitimizing” a Presidency.  After the war, the winners got the spoils and there was a period where only Republicans were elected followed by a relatively even period of swapping where both parties traded power back and forth.  At least until Franklin Roosevelt felt it was his destiny to save the nation and held onto the office for four terms (he died in office or it might have been five terms). 

After the latest of the World Wars (2^nd for those keeping track), both parties were made up of liberals, moderates, and conservative, but with the advent of President Johnson’s “Great Society,” and the recognition of the overt racism still plaguing America that began to shift as the parties seemed to abandon an inclusive approach to appeal to specific population segments.  I often wonder if the creation of the Presidential primary system did this?  For me, it is kind of a chicken and egg question.  Did the primaries create the power of political activists or did the activists lead to the creation of the primaries?

What I’ve seen in my lifetime, the role of the President has gone from an astute politician/administrator, seeking to protect the country from its outside enemies, while working towards what he viewed as best for the nation (meaning he would work with the opposition when he could convince enough members of the other side it was in both parties interest) to the point where we are at today where each party believes only they have the nation's interest at heart and they need to control the entire government so they don’t have to work with those “other guys,” or if they don’t have the entire government they have enough to stop “those other guys” from doing all sorts of bad things.

We as a society, thanks to the internet and social media, have pushed that relationship with mass movements to legitimize or delegitimize both parties and their candidates.  For brevity let's only go back to the very end of the last century where the Florida election held up the concession of Al Gore until the Supreme Court ruled in GW’s (Bush the younger) favor. I think he would have remained a challenged President by the losers if 9/11 hadn’t united the nation at least for the next several years.

In 2009 when Barrack Obama was sworn in – those who didn’t like him spent years on the conspiracy trail claiming he wasn’t really a natural-born citizen and in so doing sowed the seeds of dissent.  The fact he came out of almost nowhere to win the Democratic Party’s nomination and all his records were sealed only added fuel to the conspiracy fire.  For the eight years of his Presidency, the press seemed to find a lot of things to investigate, but those questions weren’t high on their list of things to wonder about.

Then we come to 2016.  A year when both the major parties find as their “best choice” candidates, people who carried as much excess baggage as Jacob Marley[1].  When the anointed Democratic woman lost, the left went wild.  We had women marching where the women wore “pussy hats” to demonstrate their mature response to the loss.  We had street riots where stores were vandalized to demonstrate the principled response to what was clearly a stolen election.  Then there were the never-ending investigations of the Trump campaign and principles associated with the campaign.  The evidence now strongly suggests many of these activities were begun by the previous administration which had, in its words, “a scandal-free administration.”

I’m just guessing here but I assume two things.  First, President Trump will be unsuccessful in his appeals since the Federal Courts are hesitant to step into something that is really a state issue.  (The Dominion Servers issue might be a federal issue which the court could address under the Commerce clause but that seems unlikely to me.)  The second is the media will return to its preferred role of quiet partnership with the DNC where its sole role is to protect the Democratic incumbent whoever he or she might be.

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[1] Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”

How Do We Know Who to Trust?

We are in a time where we’ve seen the obvious political agendas of the news outlets and where opinion is offered as fact. How then do we know whether or not we can trust the results of the election?  Each side will make its claims, each side will say the other is lying, and each side will find fault with something about the election.

In the past, we looked at politicians as trustworthy public servants.  Can the same be said today?  We’ve had four years of the vilification of the President so can we trust him?  Then again, we had eight years of the celebration of a President who claimed his administration was “scandal free.”  Unfortunately, even the smallest amount of research shows that is a pure fabrication.  If we consider President Obama’s time we see:  A gun running scandal that led to the death of a federal agent.  An IRS targeting scandal that called into question the impartiality of the IRS approval tax of free status when it came to requests from conservative organizations.  The unexpected withdrawal of forces from Iraq that led to the creation of ISIS.  The claims  the Islamic riots in Egypt and the over throw of Libyan’s dictator were due to some minor YouTube video.  The failure to help the Ambassador in Libya when he was attacked by violent mobs.  The dispersal of Kaddafi’s stockpiles of weapons after he was overthrown.  How about the cages he built to house children at the southern border?  The list could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.

These same observations can be made of Representatives, Senators, Governors, State officials, and so on down to the lowliest bureaucrats.  How many politicians have enriched themselves and their families while claiming to make life better for their constituents?

So, now we come to the question, who can we trust to reassure us that our vote was counted and the election was fairly run and the results legitimately reflect the will of the people?

Our Constitution delegates the running of elections to the individual states.  It is their job to organize, train and equip the state to run a fair and unbiased process.  For most of the states the job falls within the purview of their Secretary of State and if history is to be understood they have done that reasonably well, although there are always exceptions.  If there weren’t those exceptions the jokes about the dead voting in Chicago, the paying for votes of Irish immigrants coming off the boat to support Tammany Hall, or the resurrection of newly found ballots wouldn’t exist.  The controversy of recounts, having people try to determine what a voter really intended, or what constituted a legal ballot would not be a consideration.

Now, in this information age we come into a new spectrum of data manipulation.  We see in the nature of polls a natural bias that may exaggerate one set of data or eliminate another.  With our transition into massive voter data collection, we also see the potential for vote manipulation.  When one side points this out, and the other side dismisses the possibility we are left with a legitimate question, why would one side not acknowledge the possibility?

My conclusion is a simple one.  One side thinks they have control of the data and the other side does not. I’ll leave it to you to decide how you answer that question.  But at the end of the day, we individual voters really don’t get to say who we trust or not.  Until something remarkable changes our system we must accept the decisions of the individual Secretaries of State, and of course the court challenges that arise from questions about those decisions.  My takeaway from recent elections is we can no longer trust the media projections sent out to support a clearly bias agenda.

How the Democrats can Win in the Fall

It is really quite simple, although it is seemingly impossible for the party of Andrew Jackson to come to grips with. All they need to do to beat Trump and the GOP is to convince the average American they care about this nation more than he does. They should show the average American they have a plan to return the nation to a prospering economy where unemployment is low, wages are going up because the supply of labor is limited, and more Americans can stand on their own without having to worry about whether the Government will decide to take all their wealth from themselves and their families away from them.

They can do this by putting together a plan that stops the US versus THEM dialogue they began with the election of Richard Nixon.

They can do this by ignoring the daily attacks from the President. Instead, they should offer the middle class a hope they will limit the power of a central government.

They can show the average American and legal immigrant they will make sure there are jobs for them instead of allowing a flood of cheap labor into the country to make the poorest class poorer.  This would mean they challenge the current waiver process that lets the high-tech companies hire foreign workers under a visa waiver program as well as supporting limits on immigration.

They can abandon name-calling and personality politics to show how they will manage the debt and return the government to a balanced budget like we last had with Bill Clinton.  This would actually mean they would do what they said they would do in 2016 when the mantra was “They go low, we go high.”  I know in these days of personality politics this is probably just wishful thinking, but for many of us, this would make all the difference in the world.

Finally, and most importantly, they would need to nominate a centrist candidate who is not obviously carrying the baggage of diminished mental capacity and sexual assault that makes their claims of supporting the #metoo movement so hypocritical.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the political activists that make up the extremes of the party will come to grips with these relatively simple choices. So this election, like most previous elections, will be a simple battle of mudslinging and name-calling.  A campaign Donald Trump will excel at and Biden, and his surrogates, will fail at because Trump is now accepted as doing a pretty good job by those who voted for him last time and they will turn out, while the radical young probably won’t.

How Come?

How come in today's political discourse we hear people like Chris Hayes on MSNBC telling us what is wrong with things like the Electoral College, but we never see them advocating for a movement to fix the problem, just a plea to abandon the constitutionally mandated process?

Hayes notes the Federal judiciary has, since the early 1960s, been mandating a "one man equals one vote" requirement and the same should be required of the Presidential election.  What he fails to address is the historical context that drove the founding fathers to the decision of first how the states should appoint their senators, and then why the Electoral College was established to protect the rights of the smaller states by preventing the larger states from imposing their will by dominating the Presidential Election with sheer numbers of voters.

Going to the courts seems the popular approach these days, expecting some judge to impose their will on the other two branches of government, but ultimately this will fail as judges change over and society changes.  Take, for example, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in 1957 in the case of Dred Scott v John F.A. Sanford, where the court ruled that escaped slaves were not citizens and remained the property of the slave owner.  This decision ultimately led the nation into war and was finally resolved with the creation of the 14th Amendment.  The precedent set by Dred Scott became moot and non-binding from that point forward.

If the brilliant minds of the DNC and progressive-left don't like the fact Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 because he won the necessary votes in the Electoral College and they think their path to power is by eliminating the college and going to a popular vote then just get the Congress to craft an amendment and have a 2/3 majority of states approve it.  If you can't do that then all you are doing is whining and that is getting pretty old and tiresome.

p.s.  Back when politicians could talk to each other we fixed the issue of how Senator's are appointed with a change to the constitution (17th Amendment), so don't tell me it can't be done.  Perhaps it just can't be done when each side is yelling at the other about how stupid they are.

The Cost of Democratic Campaign Promises.

Let’s review the promises to Americans (and non-American visitors) made by the Democratic candidates this campaign season.

Top of the list, Universal Healthcare:  According to Bernie Sanders (in a Washington Post interview 31 July 2018), he projects government cost to be $30 to 40 Trillion (over 10 years).  Of course, he goes on to say it would really save $2 trillion by translating private costs into government costs.  Color me skeptical – I’ve zero (nada, zilch, zip) experience where a government cost is ever really less than a private cost.

Student debt forgiveness:  According to Student Loan Hero, published Feb 4, 2019, the current balance of student loans tops out at over $1.56 Trillion with about 45 million Americans carrying debt from their schooling.  There are currently a number of debt forgiveness programs and according to Forbes (2016), we are spending about $170 billion over 10 years on those programs.  So far, all the candidates have voiced some sort of plan that would just wipe some or all the debt off the books, with plans for increased taxation of the ultrarich to pay for it.  Of course, eliminating student debt sounds good, but the real benefactors of this approach are the colleges and universities who can now charge whatever they want and expect students to flock to them in anticipation of a free four, six or maybe ten years of relaxed intellectual/politically sensitive indoctrination.  

Elimination of border security:  On the surface, this promise should save the government about $44 billion a year when we eliminate Homeland Security.  Of course, this $44 billion would be reduced when we can’t just fire federal employees and the Democrats would probably want to keep things like FEMA, and maybe the U.S. Coast Guard, but I have to ask why we would keep the Coast Guard, if we’ve decided anyone and anything can come into the country and there was no need for walls and approved ports of entry.  The real question is how to transition the federal employees from work to welfare, so again that $44 billion would be reduced as the welfare programs are expanded in direct proportion to this new-found government “wealth.”  My guess is we would still spend the $44 billion, just not on things that would impede the mass migration of others into America.

Green New Deal:  All the candidates have jumped on the “Green New Deal” train, although the Senators in the mix refused to vote for it when push came to shove.  This is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY 14) signature legislation publicly intended to save humanity from extinction in 14 years and privately intended to eliminate the threat of capitalism.  Estimates on the cost for the GND range from $51-93 trillion (2020-2029), but factcheck.org questions those values saying the proposal is too vague to put a real price tag on.  From my personal experience, I’ve not seen where the Congress or the President have really ever come in under original cost estimates so for the sake of argument lets split the difference and call GND a $72 trillion home improvement project.   

Well, those are just the Big-Ticket items I’ve noticed so let’s stop there.  Of course, existing programs like Social Security, Welfare, and Defense will continue their expansions through the normal budget cycle, but those will happen regardless of who is in the White House.  The only question that really remains unanswered is what happens when we have more debt than we can pay and the rest of the world stops believing in the dollar as a basis for international trade?  I’m sure there is a Nobel Laureate Economist somewhere who would have a theory on that, but Paul Krugman’s pronouncements on the economy have routinely been wrong so who should I trust?  The same MIT dude who admitted they had to lie to the American people to get the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (AKA Obamacare) passed?  Sorry, no he is an admitted liar.

Where There's a Will

What do you do if you have a problem that is too big to tackle the conventional way?  Why you get creative and find solutions you can implement, even if it means breaking a few eggs.

That appears to be the case with the Democrats right now.  Rather than admit they lost the last election because of a flawed candidate and an equally flawed campaign strategy they have chosen to focus on the issue of our electoral college versus the massing of democratic voters in big cities in the east and west.  The mantra from the DNC after President Trump’s upset victory has been “But we won the popular vote!  It just isn’t fair!”

Now we have states with Democratic Governors and State Houses beginning to move to invalidate the will of their own voters and cast their lot with those of NYC, LA, Seattle, Boston, Atlanta, and the other major metropolitan areas.  How are they doing this you ask?  Easy, they write legislation that will commit their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote.  The assumption being no Republican can ever win over the majority of voters so they will most certainly go to support the Democratic candidate. 

But what if a Republican were to campaign and win in the cities, but not the flyover states?  While not an obvious scenario, it is possible.  What if a Republican were to win the popular vote and not the electoral vote, would these same Democrats rejoice in their decision?   For example, suppose there was a fissure in the DNC and one of the losing primary candidates decided she should run as an independent, as happened in the 1960 election.  In that election, Nixon lost to Kennedy by less than 115,000 votes (a result that would be immediately challenged in recount) but lost in the electoral college by 84 votes.  What if the contest had ended in a tie in the popular vote with the independent candidate drawing off just enough of the democratic vote?

So far, Colorado has taken the lead, but Delaware and perhaps other states will follow.  The funny thing is politicians never seem to learn from past experiences, and this appears to be another example.  Remember when the Democratic Senate cast aside the tradition of requiring 60 votes to confirm a judge and now find themselves on the losing side of simple majority votes?  Today, thanks to their shortsightedness, all they can do is attempt to destroy the person in the hopes they will withdraw or be withdrawn by the President.

Not being a Constitutional scholar, I wonder how the choice to align electors with the popular vote, rather than the votes cast within the state will play out as these laws are challenged in the courts?  And they most certainly will be challenged for on their face they potentially disenfranchise the choice of over 50% of the state’s voters.

What I do know is these types of moves can and will be cast as responding to the will of the people, but in reality, they are nothing more than political power grabs that remove any illusion that politicians believe the people they were elected to serve should have a voice in the governments they run.

Just a Note to Those Who Will Hold Their Nose to Vote

This campaign is a unique one in our history.  I can’t recall another time in my life when more people were voting against someone, rather than for someone.  Heck, even the most devote apologists for the Democratic Party that I know, the ones who blamed all the ills of the nation on George Bush through 2015, the ones who reflect on the economic problems with the nation as being caused by a President who left office in 1989, the ones who believe that Bill Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy, the ones who can’t understand why Barrack Obama hasn’t won the Nobel Prize for Peace more than once, have signs denouncing Donald Trump, rather than signs praising Hillary Clinton.

So let’s talk about you, the voter who will hold his or her nose and vote for Hillary.  I’ll get to Donald in a moment.  You say you are voting to stop an individual who is, to use Hillary’s term, a “loose cannon” or through innuendo an unrepentant racist.  You, and the nation will live with your choice for the next four years (assuming she is not impeached and convicted), and we will see what Ms. Clinton is like when she has the full power of the executive branch to wipe her servers clean and go after her enemies.  What we have seen in her campaign for the nomination was the collusion of the DNC and the media to condemn her opponent.  A nice man from Vermont, that although in my opinion misguided, at least was honest about his views, and gave you a sense that he had the integrity to be an honest President.  If you believed you were voting for an honest candidate then you wouldn’t have to hold your nose, so let’s just stop that argument now.   

My question is why should we expect honesty and integrity in government if we don’t expect it of ourselves?  If you can’t vote for someone then why vote?  Or better yet do vote but write in the name of someone you can support like Bernie Sanders, or one of the third party candidates like Jill Stine, or good old Gary “What’s his name”

What’s that you say, you want your vote to matter?  What does it matter when you elect someone you know will not make life better?  If Ms. Clinton is elected to you think she will have the moral authority or political support to ramrod legislation through like President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid did in 2009?  By the way, how is that landmark legislation working out for you and the average American?

Now let’s talk about “the Donald.”  From what I see he has a pretty strong and faithful following.  He hasn’t had to pay people to fill the seats, nor does he have the entertainment industry tripping over themselves to endorse him.  Heck he is having a hard time just getting the professional Republican politicians to endorse him.  He has struck a nerve in the average middle class voter who sees the increasing oppression of the ever growing central government, run by elitists who view themselves as superior to the average American.  Personally I think the people who will “hold their nose” and vote for Mr. Trump will be a pretty small number, but as small as that number is the question to them is the same one.  If you think Mr. Trump will damage the nation less than Ms. Clinton then why not vote for the person who matches your desire for a smaller less intrusive government, like Gary Johnson. 

The bottom line:  The two parties, and the press, have convinced us that a vote for anyone other than the two party candidates is wasted.  Of course they will say that!  The press, for the most part, wants you to vote for the political elite so they can continue their symbiotic relationship.  Think of the press just like a talk show.  Sure, they say it’s just entertainment, but the guests are, without exception, on the show to sell something.  So both sides win. 

The two parties want to maintain the status quo.  The last thing they want is to have the voters actually take control of the nation…heavens to Betsy we can’t have that.

Post Script: Just as an aside, if you insist on holding your nose to vote I’d recommend holding your nose and vote for the candidate who is most likely to affect change since that is what both parties say we want.  Who is most likely to do that? 

Is it someone who has been part of the problem for 30 years, making millions of dollars from influence peddling, or a narcissist?

In This Time

I am struck by the hypocrisy, or more precisely, the outrageous degree of hypocrisy the two main political parties, and their leading politicians exhibit in not only this presidential campaign, but in all the bombastic political talk that inundates us on a daily basis.  There is a quotation, oft attributed to Alexis de Toqueville[i], but perhaps coming from Joseph de Maistre’s[ii] Lettres et Opuscules Inédites vol 1 letter 53[iii], that said “In a democracy, people get the government they deserve.”  If this is true then it follows that we the citizens have brought on ourselves these campaigns filled with sexual accusations, political corruption, base name calling, accusations of racism, and other personal attacks.

One has only to spend a few moments on the social media so popular today (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, or others I never see) to recognize that we, as individuals, have come to accept the basest level of conversation when dealing with strangers or even friends.  The moral outrage of the opinion media, politicians (and their wives), and all the celebrities they can muster over the language and views of Donald Trump means nothing when they accept that same language on a daily basis in the entertainment industry, becasue those entertainers can be used to help further their political agenda.

Let’s talk about news and opinion journalists for just a moment.  I used to believe  journalists were impartial, and would dig into stories to uncover the truth, and while a newspaper would support a particular party or agenda, there was always an off-setting paper to show the other side.  In today’s world that construct has disappeared.  It has become obvious that the mainstream broadcast media of ABCNNBCBS is totally on board with the Democratic party and will do whatever they can to vilify the opposition and protect their own politicians.  There is a sense of elitism and distain for anyone who does not share their urban sense of propriety as we see in the accusations of racism and stupidity they assign to the average citizen.  Yet we continue to support this cartel in viewing their products. Today outsiders to the ABCNNBCBS cartel are the ones digging up the alternative explanations and hidden facts, which of course they condemn when it runs counter to their preferred narrative (e.g. Glen Greenwald and the exposé on global surveillance).  Or you can look at the time they spend talking about one candidate’s faults versus the others, or even the mere mention of alternative candidates, so just concede those we look to for honest reporting are hacks for one party and move on.

Then we come to our culture as a general baseline for morality.  If we glamorize violence in film, song and games, why are we shocked when it appears in the behavior or our young? Are we so blind as to not see the cause-effect relationships we have created?  When movies first came out, and began their wide appeal of bringing fantasy to the masses, we saw the distinctions between life and fantasy.  We taught our young in home, church and school how to be responsible within the confines of society and the movies they spent their nickels on at the Sunday matinee reinforced the concepts of good and evil.  Roy Rogers or Gene Autry were the good guys; they wore the white hats.  They didn’t shoot first and always saved the day.  The violence was limited, and the gun fights were vague enough not to traumatize the viewers.   Can we say that today where in an action move of 2 hours we can expect 90 minutes of non-stop violence?  Where a bad guy can shoot a thousand rounds and the good guy isn’t hurt because the couch stopped the bullets?  I find the celebrities (actors, directors, producers and companies) who profit from these movies, but then come out to condemn gun ownership to be among the biggest hypocrites we see today, and the purest puppets of the elite who use them.
 

In three weeks about 60% of the eligible voters will go to the polls to cast their ballot.  In some areas a few dead people will vote as well, but I don’t think they will be swing the election, but with the Clinton's you never know.  However the vote goes we will get the government we deserve.  We have, for the past 20 years encouraged ad hominem attacks of those we disagree with, we believe one party is evil and the other is righteous, we cast aside respectable behavior for political spectacle, and degrade the value of human life through performance, science, and social standards, and through it all both the leading candidates have been there.  One on reality TV the other on reality Politics.

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[i] French diplomat and historian who travel the United States in the first half of the 19^th century.  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville

[ii] French philosopher and diplomat.  Maistre claimed it was the rationalist rejection of Christianity that was responsible for the disorder following the French Revolution. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_de_Maistre

[iii] https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081021103757AAbfmpx

I Disagree

Dilbert’s creator, Scott Adams, has a blog.  Unremarkably it is called Scott Adams' Blog, where he has been writing about this year’s political campaigns and his theories of persuasion.  In the piece “The FBI, Credibility, and Government,” he opines that Mr. James Comey, Director of the FBI, is a hero because he chose not to recommend prosecution of Ms. Clinton and throw a monkey wrench into the political system, perhaps tilting the democratic nomination to Mr. Sanders and the election to Mr. Trump.  He believes the elective process is necessary to provide credibility, which he says is the principle mission of the government.  Sorry, but I have to disagree.  Not so much about the need for credibility by the government, but on the potential impact an indictment would have to the elective process as a means of establishing the President-elect’s credibility.

This election, perhaps more so than all other elections, will result in less faith in the political credibility of our government based simply on the polarizing extremes of the two main parties.

But first I’d like to write a single paragraph to explain my difference with Mr. Adam about the principle need of any government.  While credibility is nice, credibility is the expectation the government will do what it says it will do.  For a government to continue it needs legitimacy.  Legitimacy, as the founding fathers point out, can only come from the belief of the people the government serves the purpose for which it was formed.  For us that legitimacy is codified in the Constitution.  For the government to maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority it must “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.” What our government has actively done since 2006 is undermine the citizen's belief that our government cares about justice, works to maintain a balance between personal rights and communal demands (to maintain domestic tranquility), and provide for an effective common defense.  The government, under this administration has seemed to work harder than previous administrations to undermine confidence in the political leadership. 

My personal belief is that the President has no vision, but reacts to the events of the day as if he were still a community organizer running to be the Senator from Illinois, but he is not the issue on the table.  We are talking about the upcoming election and whether or not as Mr. Adam’s believes it will provide credibility to the government.

If Ms. Clinton’s opponent were a visionary, a candidate with a sense of history, an individual who could make people believe in the future of the nation, and could serve as a unifying force then perhaps Mr. Adams would have a point.  But the presumptive opponent is Mr. Trump, a man best known for his entrepreneurial deal making; buildings, golf courses, and casinos that bear his name; a failed for-profit university scheme; and a reality game show that highlights the Trump enterprises while allowing him to sit in judgement of contestants.  His greatest appeal?  He is not one of THEM – a career politician who lives off the power inside the Washington DC beltway.  He says what he thinks, or he says what he wants (I’m not convinced thinking is always involved), unfiltered by the political spin doctors that sit on the shoulder (think of Jiminy Cricket) of career politicians like Ms. Clinton.

Allowing Ms. Clinton to run, unencumbered by a pending criminal trial, will not remove the stigma of the FBI investigation.  Her followers care little of the findings and I believe they would not be terribly deterred with a pending criminal finding.  The Obama administration would have to choose one of two courses of action.  To fast-track the trial, and perhaps based on the urgency, seek an emergency hearing by SCOTUS.  With the current SCOTUS composition that would seem the ideal scenario, but even if they did do that, how much confidence would the critics have that the political organization the DOJ has become would put their full effort beyond anything but a shame trial they would work to lose.  Then again, Ms. Clinton’s law team would have a vote, and I am guessing they would slow-roll the trial until well after the election, hoping once she was President-elect they could kill the indictment all together through a Presidential pardon.  In either scenario the people for, and the people against, Ms. Clinton are all pretty much decided.  Her success or failure in a general election will not improve this countries divisions or instill an improved belief in the legitimacy of the government. 

Those who support her will still argue for the President’s narratives: America is racist, radical Islamic terror is not evil, we are killing each other because we have guns, whites killing blacks are racists, but blacks killing police is too complex an issue to understand, and finally, we need more welfare and higher minimum wages to help those poor Americans and illegal immigrants who can’t find work because of the evil 1% who have all the wealth.

I believe those who support Mr. Trump will still rant and rave about the foolishness of those “Liberal Democrats.” They will fight against any gun legislation, they will seek to limit spending on welfare, they will unsuccessfully challenge most of the Democratic half-truth narratives and we will ultimately run out of money for social security.  But if Mr. Trump is elected he will follow the consolidation of power within the executive branch and use those offices in much the same was as President Obama and his cabinet secretaries have.  In fact, since the precedent has been set by the current administration he will be able to further open the envelop beyond what Mr. Obama has done, just as President Obama expanded on what President Bush had done during his terms. 

At the end of the day we will have just as much debt, fewer individual freedoms, and a more powerful central government that is despised and vilified by a significant segment of the nation.

At the Great Divide

    For the past hundred or so years this country has been cultivating a political elite that is far different from the politicians that preceded them. At the federal level we have politicians that have spent their entire adult life spending other people’s money. To them the exercise of power, and the gain from influence, far outweighs whatever desire to serve may have originally spurred them into the public office.

    For example, take Harry Reid, D-NV, who comes from Spotlight, Nevada and has held political office since he graduated from Law School.  He has served in the Congress since 1983 (33 years, which is not even close to the longest serving members).  To borrow a line from Garret Morris and SNL, as a life time public servant public service has been very, very good to Harry.  He has managed to acquire between $3-10 million dollars through shrew investments in companies he would write legislation for or against, or land deals of questionable legitimacy.  When in charge of the Senate he stood as a rock to block any and all legislation that was not liked by the President.

    It appears the members of the Democratic party love to govern and once an individual joins the club they will stay for as long as possible. [i]  An interesting note about this list of career politicians is Senator Strom Thurman, who up until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a staunch Democrat, so we come all the way down to 17th position before we see a Republican as a life member of the club.

    Now to be fair, the Democratic party has for most of our history controlled the Congress, and the opposing parties (e.g Whigs and Republicans) have always had to challenge the popularity and power of that group.

    So now we come to this next election; where once again we will pit one party’s candidate against the other. I don’t believe the question the average voter should be asking is, “who’ll make a good President” but rather, “do I want to continue with a dysfunctional and self-serving government?” For the only way to change the government is to change those who control it for the long term.

    Unfortunately, this won’t happen because as much as Bernie Sanders would like to deny it we all make choices based on our self-interest, or greed.  There is always that fundamental question, what is in it for me? For the average individual they will vote as they have always voted.  If their “guy” is in the seat as their representative or senator they will feel good about it and they will vote to keep him or her in the seat, because their seniority will bring more federal dollars back to the district or state.  If they don’t like the incumbent they may or may not bother to vote, giving the incumbent a clear advantage.

    On the other hand, voting for the President, especially at the end of a term-limited regime, comes down to a basic choice – Do I like what the last guy did and want to continue, or do I want to change?  This next election will be interesting for the Democrats because it seems unlikely that either Mr. Sanders or Ms. Clinton will spur the minority vote to the degree Mr. Obama was able to. So we come to the quadrennial Great Divide, what direction do we want our nation nation, and how will we move forward? 

    Finally, one last thought on an issue for both the Democrats and the Republicans.  How much longer can this government exist spending money we just print for whatever pet project the party zealots love before the fundamental faith in the government to pay its debts disappears?  This faith in government is the basis for our currency, and once that evaporates our currency will no longer be the basis of world trade.

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[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress_by_longevity_of_service

Thoughts on a Saturday

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The other day I saw a posting from a casual friend on Facebook, (thanks Mark). It said, “Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

It got me to thinking about the social media dialogues I am routinely exposed to.  Generally, it begins with the posting of someone else’s meme and my questioning it.  I accept that memes are intended solely as propaganda for one side or another, but there are times the lies and half-truths contained in them are so outrageous I feel compelled to comment.  This rarely has any affect on the poster of the meme.  In fact, the internet has developed new words for people who challenge or comment on the legitimacy of a position.   So most of the time I either ignore the stupidity of the post or hide it so I don’t have to be bombarded with the absurdity others feel compelled to push in front of me.

So now we come full swing into this election season, and those memes will only increase.  After a full year of the media hyping or slamming every candidate, and the political junkies besmirching or glorifying their particular targets, I have to believe almost everyone has made up their mind about who they love or despise.  There are those who either love or despise the current administration so much they are willing to cast their lot with an old, rich, white candidate of questionable integrity and judgement (as far as I know each party has a least one of these).  Then there are those who wish to move further to whatever side they currently are on and buy into the promises of those who would pander to them. Finally, there are those who question the process by which we choose our candidates and would long for a return to a time where we were no obligated to demonize those we disagree with politically, and were able to find candidates who would be truthful and be able to explain the role of the President without promising beyond their ability to deliver.  Unfortunately, being truthful does not get a candidate many votes, because we are all greedy and want to increase our share of the pie and the only way to achieve that this through the election.

So here are a few thoughts for those who love the promises of Mr. Sanders.  If everyone has a college degree, then what will separate those in well paying positions and those who work at Freddie’s Fish Fillet Funhouse?  Will it be the prestige of the University like it is today? Next, if we allow unlimited emigration to the US, and all the jobs that must be done, like garbage collection, home construction, road work and landscaping go to these individuals where will the typical citizen with a degree from Harvey’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Philosophy work?  Or will they be supported by the state as civil servants and allowed to think great thoughts for a living?  Finally, how much will this all cost the middle class, who regardless of the promises to tax the rich, will bear the bunt of the economic burden just through the shear number of people in that group?

On the other side of the coin, for those who love the promises of Mr. Trump just one simple question. What in his history, statements, and demeanor suggests he would be able to accomplish anything he says when he blusters his way through the roll of President?  Although we have moved significantly towards making the Office of President one where he or she can be an autocrat; the power of the purse still rests with Congress.  Finally, do you really think his interest is in the welfare of the middle class?  If he saw a deal that would increase his fortune would he really put the interest of the nation before self-interest?

There are certain fundamental issues Mr. Trump has touched on that the left seems reluctant to address and unfortunately their supporters seem to care little about.  One of those issues is with foreign trade agreements.  We seem to love entering into these things, but what has it gotten us so far?  Did NAFTA create new work for our middle class or did it allow American companies to move jobs out of the country?  In the end you have to ask yourself, who did NAFTA benefit, the ordinary citizen or the rich who fund both parties?

Well that is enough rambling for today.  Time to get busy with real work.

O’Dark-Thirty

It is early, reveille has not yet sounded and I am awake, refreshed and ready to face the day.  I know that sounds strange.  I should be in bed, snoozing quietly next to my wife and waiting for some alarm clock to mark the start of the day.  I relish this time, for the solitude and peace it affords.

About six years ago I had this observation, unfortunately my fears proved justified, the Democratic majority chose not to govern, but to rule.  I have the same hope the for this new majority; seek middle ground, chose to build bridges rather than burn them, but again I am not optimistic.  There are too many voices rising up in condemnation of that approach.  Too many people who are only interested in themselves or their causes, too many who point fingers or twist the truth to suit their purpose.  How long before these new Senators or Representatives are gathered in by the promise of fame and power?

The rhetoric does not change on either side, and more importantly I am not sure the President has the ability to shed either the style or the substance of his first six years.  In some ways I see great similarity to the second term of Richard Nixon where, as he fought for his political survival, the Office of the President became increasingly separated from the nation it represented.  As a man and the President he was vilified and condemned, isolated and challenged, until in the end he was finally confronted with his weaknesses and his inability to politically maneuver as he had done so successfully all this life.  There are different voices this time, but the feeling of having seen this melodrama play out is inescapable.  The difference is the extremes, both in defense and condemnation, are so much louder than I remember. 

Photo credit:  Wikipedia

As a good friend pointed out -- we really aren’t a Red State/Blue State nation we are a rural/urban nation.  These maps from the NY Times reflect that observation.  You will see where Democrats are strong is where there are cities and dense population centers like Long Island or Costal California that are capable of controlling the vote.  Republicans and independents are, for the most part, strong in the towns and villages where independence and self-reliance seem to be more critical qualities for the population and smaller government involvement in their lives is valued.

Well the next two years will be interesting.