Tag Archives: voting

America’s Wake-Up Call – Voting & Voters – Part I

Posted on by under Election 2020, Jeff & Jill's Project, Political commentary, Social commentary

Early in our project, late January-early February, we did a three-part series about voters and voting.  Jeff and I thought it worth repeating now, just a few short weeks before the all-important election.  The U.S. does not have a good track record for voting … barely half of all eligible voters typically vote, even in presidential elections!  This year, it is too important for people to sit home or attempt to “make a statement” by either not voting or voting for a candidate who has no chance at winning, such as the ignoble Kanye West.  Long story short, we are reprising this three-part series with a few changes or additions, starting today and for each of the next two Wednesdays, in addition to our regular Friday posts.

In the 2016 elections, U.S. citizens stood to lose a lot.  As we now know, we stood to lose our voices and even our lives.  And yet, with so much riding on a single day, with our very futures and those of our children on the line, a huge number of Americans could not be bothered to take an hour out of their day to go vote.  In fact, according to a Pew Research Center analysis,  U.S. voter turnout was very low compared to other nations’ recent elections.  In Belgium, 87.2% of eligible voters actually voted, and in Mexico, 66%.  The U.S.?  55.7%.  Just over half of all those who could have voted, actually did.  Where were the rest of the people who might have been able to save us from the chaos our nation has become?  Let us take a look at some of the reasons excuses that are offered:

  • Too busy/conflicting schedule  17.5 %
  • Illness or disability  14.9 %
  • Not interested 13.4 %
  • Did not like candidates or campaign issues  12.9 %
  • Other  11.3 %
  • Out of town  8.8 %
  • Don’t know  7 %
  • Registration problems  6 %
  • Inconvenient polling place  2.7 %
  • Transportation problems  2.66 %
  • Forgot  2.6 %
  • Bad weather  0.2 %

Too busy.  Not interested.  FORGOT??? With all the non-stop news on every media outlet, both legitimate and social, for fully 18 months before the election, how the Sam Heck could anybody, let alone some 2.3 million people, simply forget???  We must surely qualify for the nation with the poorest memories in the world!

Nearly 90 million people who were eligible to vote in 2016 did not.  What might our nation look like today if those 89.7 million people had gotten off their butts and done what is known as their civic duty?  I, for one, might not have bags the size of Oklahoma under my eyes!  We might actually have a functional government in Washington.  We might have had less than half the 216,000+ deaths from the coronavirus pandemic.  Perhaps there would be heads of agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and the State Department who not only knew and understood their jobs, but were also willing to do them!  We might not be making threats to other nations that stir the angst of all and put the U.S. and its allies in danger.  We might be participating in working to establish peace, rather than to start a war.  And we might still have the respect, rather than the derision, of other nations. But no … people were too busy, didn’t want to get rained on, didn’t like the choices, or just weren’t interested.

There are, certainly, some who did have legitimate reasons for not voting.  If a person was in an auto accident, or had a sudden heart attack and found himself unexpectedly in the hospital on November 8th, that person is not to blame for the current mess.  I have a friend who lives with an oxygen tank and is confined to a wheelchair, yet she voted, so overall, I am not inclined to buy the excuse of ‘illness or disability’ except in certain circumstances.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  Especially given the fact that almost every state offers some combination of early voting, absentee voting, and mail-in ballots, so people who are too sick or otherwise incapacitated, were still able to cast a vote.

The 13.4% who said they were ‘not interested’ puzzle me.  How can one not be interested in who makes the decisions that affect all of our very lives?  Do these people pay taxes, get sick sometimes, send their children to school, have jobs?  Do they breathe???  I wonder how many of those who were not interested are even functional human beings?  I wonder if they will be interested when their son gets his draft notice to go serve in the Korean Peninsula?  Will they sit up and take notice when their kids are sent home from school because of a lack of funding?  Or when they suddenly cannot breathe the air?

Those who ‘did not like the candidates or the campaign issues’ (12.9%) are just as bad.  So what?  You do some research, you inform yourself of the issues, and you choose the one that is least obnoxious to you.  It’s called the ‘lesser of two evils’, and it has been the de-facto way of voting for decades, if not centuries.  No candidate will ever be perfect, and no candidate can appeal to everyone, for we are humans, not automatons.  But if you cannot even be bothered to give it some thought and make a choice, then you are simply too lazy.  That’s right … lazy!

The bottom line is this … with some exceptions that I will discuss in the next part, the 89.7 million people in this nation who were eligible to vote, but didn’t, must claim much of the responsibility for all the chaos and dangerous politics happening in our country today.  These people who did not vote are every bit as guilty as those who voted for Trump.  Those who voted for Trump made a mistake, but those who did not bother to even vote because they were too lazy or uncaring deserve the wrath and scorn of us all.Voting is a right, it is a privilege, and most importantly, it is a responsibility.  If you eschew this right, if you shirk your responsibility, we are all losers.  This nation will not remain a free nation if nobody cares enough to vote for the people who will keep it free.  It is my opinion that we are currently on the very brink of losing our status as a free nation, that our very Constitution is in danger of being shredded, and I lay the blame for that right at the feet of those who failed us all in November 2016.  Please, friends, let us not make the same mistake in 2020!

America’s Wake-Up Call — Table of Contents

Discord & Dissension — Table of Contents

Discord & Dissension — Table of Contents

Posted on by under Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, Jeff & Jill's Project, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Table of Contents

Discord & Dissension — Part I — Intro

Discord & Dissension — Part II (a) — How Did We Get Here?

Discord & Dissension — Part II (b) — How Did We Get Here?

Discord & Dissension — Part III — Where Do We Go From Here?

Discord & Dissension — Part IV(a) — Voting & Voters

Discord & Dissension — Part IV (b) — Voting & Voters

Discord & Dissension — Part IV (c) — Voting & Voters

Discord & Dissension — Part V — Corruption

Discord & Dissension — Part VI — Disinformation

Discord & Dissension — Part VII — Engagement

Discord & Dissension — Part VIII — On The Issues

Discord & Dissension — Part IX — The Courts

Discord & Dissension — Part X — Bernie or Bust?

Discord & Dissension — Part XI — The Climate

Discord & Dissension – Part XII – Fight For The Senate

Discord & Dissension–Part XIII–The Administrative State

Discord & Dissension — Part XIV — How To Lose An Election

Discord & Dissension-A Pause

 

Discord & Dissension – Part IV(a) – Voting & Voters

Posted on by under Election 2020, Jeff & Jill's Project, Political commentary, Social commentary

Part four of mine and Jeff’s project, Discord & Dissension, is going to cover three posts.  These posts are a series I did back in April 2018, titled “On Voters Not Voting”, and with just a few updates, are as relevant today as they were then.  The second (b) and third (c) parts will be presented over the next three days.

In the 2016 elections, U.S. citizens stood to lose a lot.  As we now know, we stood to lose our voices.  And yet, with so much riding on a single day, with our very futures and those of our children on the line, a huge number of Americans could not be bothered to take an hour out of their day to go vote.  In fact, according to a Pew Research Center analysis,  U.S. voter turnout was very low compared to other nations’ recent elections.  In Belgium, 87.2% of eligible voters actually voted, and in Mexico, 66%.  The U.S.?  55.7%.  Just over half of all those who could have voted, actually did.  Where were the rest of the people who might have been able to save us from the chaos our nation has become?  Let us take a look at some of the excuses reasons that are offered:

  • Too busy/conflicting schedule  17.5 %
  • Illness or disability  14.9 %
  • Not interested 13.4 %
  • Did not like candidates or campaign issues  12.9 %
  • Other  11.3 %
  • Out of town  8.8 %
  • Don’t know  7 %
  • Registration problems  6 %
  • Inconvenient polling place  2.7 %
  • Transportation problems  2.66 %
  • Forgot  2.6 %
  • Bad weather  0.2 %

Too busy.  Not interested.  FORGOT??? With all the non-stop news on every media outlet, both legitimate and social, for fully 18 months before the election, how the Sam Heck could anybody, let alone some 2.3 million people, simply forget???  We must surely qualify for the nation with the poorest memories in the world!

Nearly 90 million people who were eligible to vote in 2016 did not.  What might our nation look like today if those 89.7 million people had gotten off their butts and done what is known as their civic duty?  I, for one, might not have bags the size of Oklahoma under my eyes!  We might actually have a functional government in Washington.  Perhaps there would be heads of agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and the State Department who not only knew and understood their jobs, but were also willing to do them!  We might not be making threats to other nations that stir the angst of all and put the U.S. and its allies in danger.  We might be participating in working to establish peace, rather than to start a war.  And we might still have the respect, rather than the derision, of other nations. But no … people were too busy, didn’t want to get rained on, didn’t like the choices, or just weren’t interested.

There are, certainly, some who did have legitimate reasons for not voting.  If a person was in an auto accident, or had a sudden heart attack and found himself unexpectedly in the hospital on November 8th, that person is not to blame for the current mess.  I have a friend who lives with an oxygen tank and is confined to a wheelchair, yet she voted, so overall, I am not inclined to buy the excuse of ‘illness or disability’ except in certain circumstances.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  Especially given the fact that almost every state offers some combination of early voting, absentee voting, and mail-in ballots, so people who are too sick or otherwise incapacitated, were still able to cast a vote.

The 13.4% who said they were ‘not interested’ puzzle me.  How can one not be interested in who makes the decisions that affect all of our very lives?  Do these people pay taxes, get sick sometimes, send their children to school, have jobs?  Do they breathe???  I wonder how many of those who were not interested are even functional human beings?  I wonder if they will be interested when their son gets his draft notice to go serve in the Korean Peninsula?  Will they sit up and take notice when their kids are sent home from school because of a lack of funding?  Or when they suddenly cannot breathe the air?

Those who ‘did not like the candidates or the campaign issues’ (12.9%) are just as bad.  So what?  You do some research, you inform yourself of the issues, and you choose the one that is least obnoxious to you.  It’s called the ‘lesser of two evils’, and it has been the de-facto way of voting for decades, if not centuries.  No candidate will ever be perfect, and no candidate can appeal to everyone, for we are humans, not automatons.  But if you cannot even be bothered to give it some thought and make a choice, then you are simply too lazy.  That’s right … lazy!

The bottom line is this … with some exceptions that I will discuss in the next part, the 89.7 million people in this nation who were eligible to vote, but didn’t, must claim much of the responsibility for all the chaos and dangerous politics happening in our country today.  These people who did not vote are every bit as guilty as those who voted for Trump.  Those who voted for Trump made a mistake, but those who did not bother to even vote because they were too lazy or uncaring deserve the wrath and scorn of us all.Voting is a right, it is a privilege, and most importantly, it is a responsibility.  If you eschew this right, if you shirk your responsibility, we are all losers.  This nation will not remain a free nation if nobody cares enough to vote for the people who will keep it free.  It is my opinion that we are currently on the very brink of losing our status as a free nation, that our very Constitution is in danger of being shredded, and I lay the blame for that right at the feet of those who failed us all in November 2016.  Please, friends, let us not make the same mistake in 2020!

 

 

On Voters Not Voting – Part I: The Problem

Posted on by under Election 2018, Political commentary, Social commentary

In the 2016 elections, U.S. citizens stood to lose a lot.  As we now know, we stood to lose our voices.  And yet, with so much riding on a single day, with our very futures and those of our children on the line, a huge number of Americans could not be bothered to take an hour out of their day to go vote.  In fact, according to a Pew Research Center analysis,  U.S. voter turnout was very low compared to other nations’ recent elections.  In Belgium, 87.2% of eligible voters actually voted, and in Mexico, 66%.  The U.S.?  55.7%.  Just over half of all those who could have voted, actually did.  Where were the rest of the people who might have been able to save us from the chaos our nation has become?  Let us take a look at some of the excuses reasons that are offered1:

  • Too busy conflicting schedule  17.5 %
  • Illness or disability  14.9 %
  • Not interested 13.4 %
  • Did not like candidates or campaign issues  12.9 %
  • Other  11.3 %
  • Out of town  8.8 %
  • Don’t know  7 %
  • Registration problems  6 %
  • Inconvenient polling place  2.7 %
  • Transportation problems  2.66 %
  • Forgot  2.6 %
  • Bad weather  0.2 %

Too busy.  Not interested.  FORGOT??? With all the non-stop news on every media outlet, both legitimate and social, for fully 18 months before the election, how the Sam Heck could anybody, let alone some 2.3 million people, simply forget???  We must surely qualify for the nation with the poorest memories in the world!

Nearly 90 million people who were eligible to vote in 2016 did not.  What might our nation look like today if those 89.7 million people had gotten off their butts and done what is known as their civic duty?  I, for one, might not have bags the size of Oklahoma under my eyes!  We might actually have a functional government in Washington.  Perhaps there would be heads of agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, and the State Department who not only knew and understood their jobs, but were also willing to do them!  We might not be making threats to other nations that stir the angst of all and put the U.S. and its allies in danger.  We might be participating in working to establish peace, rather than to start a war.  And we might still have the respect, rather than the derision, of other nations. But no … people were too busy, didn’t want to get rained on, didn’t like the choices, or just weren’t interested.

There are, certainly, some who did have legitimate reasons for not voting.  If a person was in an auto accident, or had a sudden heart attack and found himself unexpectedly in the hospital on November 8th, that person is not to blame for the current mess.  I have a friend who lives with an oxygen tank and is confined to a wheelchair, yet she voted, so overall, I am not inclined to buy the excuse of ‘illness or disability’ except in certain circumstances.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  Especially given the fact that almost every state offers some combination of early voting, absentee voting, and mail-in ballots, so people who are too sick or otherwise incapacitated, were still able to cast a vote.

The 13.4% who said they were ‘not interested’ puzzle me.  How can one not be interested in who makes the decisions that affect all of our very lives?  Do these people pay taxes, get sick sometimes, send their children to school, have jobs?  Do they breathe???  I wonder how many of those who were not interested are even functional human beings?  I wonder if they will be interested when their son gets his draft notice to go serve in the Korean Peninsula?  Will they sit up and take notice when their kids are sent home from school because of a lack of funding?  Or when they suddenly cannot breathe the air?

Those who ‘did not like the candidates or the campaign issues’ (12.9%) are just as bad.  So what?  You do some research, you inform yourself of the issues, and you choose the one that is least obnoxious to you.  It’s called the ‘lesser of two evils’, and it has been the de-facto way of voting for decades, if not centuries.  No candidate will ever be perfect, and no candidate can appeal to everyone, for we are humans, not automatons.  But if you cannot even be bothered to give it some thought and make a choice, then you are simply too lazy.  That’s right … lazy!

The bottom line is this … with some exceptions that I will discuss in Part II, the 89.7 million people in this nation who were eligible to vote, but didn’t, must claim much of the responsibility for all the chaos and dangerous politics happening in our country today.  These people who did not vote are every bit as guilty as those who voted for Trump.  Those who voted for Trump made a mistake, but those who did not bother to even vote because they were too lazy or uncaring deserve the wrath and scorn of us all.Voting is a right, it is a privilege, and most importantly, it is a responsibility.  If you eschew this right, if you shirk your responsibility, we are all losers.  This nation will not remain a free nation if nobody cares enough to vote for the people who will keep it free.  It is my opinion that we are currently on the very brink of losing our status as a free nation, that our very Constitution is in danger of being shredded, and I lay the blame for that right at the feet of those who failed us all in November 2016.

1 Statistic Brain 

This is Part I of a 3-part project on Voters not Voting.  Part II will take a look at the demographics — who isn’t voting and why. And finally, Part III will look at some things that can be done to help solve the problem and get people to the polls on November 6th.

We The People …

Posted on by under Political commentary

What, exactly, is the role of “We The People” in our democratic government today?  Is it the same as it was when the Constitution was ratified some 229 years ago?  Is it the same as it was 100 years, or even 50 years ago?  The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution reads “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  Does our current system meet these criteria today?

Years ago, even as recently as fifty years ago, political candidates seeking offices in federal government, whether in Congress or the presidency, sought votes based on a political platform.  A platform, as defined by Wikipedia as “is a list of the values and actions which are supported by a political party or individual candidate, in order to appeal to the general public, for the ultimate purpose of garnering the general public’s support and votes about complicated topics or issues.”  Note that nowhere in the definition does it mention based on how wealthy a candidate is or isn’t, whether an opponent may have allegedly been indiscreet in his/her personal life, whether an opponent is liked or not liked.  It mentions “complicated topics and issues” as the basis for a platform.

When we decide on which candidate we prefer, are we making that judgement based on what we know about how they would handle various issues that are important to us today, or are we being told what to think by the candidates, religious leaders and the press?  Back in the day, the press did the hard work for us.  They researched, dug and found the truth.  They reported how the candidate had voted on important issues in the past, what the candidate had done or failed to do to support our values in the past.  They helped us to understand some of the most complex issues and the ramifications.  They reported very little on a candidate’s personal life.  It is now well known that John F. Kennedy engaged in multiple sexual liaisons that the media were aware of, yet we never saw more than the slightest hint of it in the mainstream news.  The press in the 1960’s still believed that even politicians were entitled to privacy in their personal lives and that the citizens were far more concerned with the abilities to govern the nation than how that person conducted his personal life.  When did that change?  A better question, perhaps, is why did it change?  Have we, as citizens, become so shallow that we care more about candidates past sex life than his beliefs and ideas about how to ensure that our young people are provided an opportunity for a good education?  Do we care more that a candidate’s father may have been born in another country than we care about finding ways to feed our poor, to provide medical care to all citizens, to stop the damage to our environment?

I know that many people today are disillusioned with the entire crop of candidates vying for the highest office in the nation, and I cannot say that I blame them.  I share in that disillusionment. This election “year” has gone on for far too long and has been far too ugly with too many candidates spewing vitriol and hate.  So yes, we are tired.  We are disillusioned.  We want it just to be over.  We must think, though … what happens when it is over?  Whoever is the next president will immediately face many serious problems:  the environment, immigration, the economy, global terrorism, Russian expansionism under Putin, the war in Syria, and healthcare, to name just a few.  Since we cannot rely on the candidate’s rhetoric to help us know how they would deal with these situations, nor can we rely on the media to research and try to provide us with insight into how each candidate is likely to respond to the issues, it is up to us to dig in and do some research.  We simply cannot afford to listen to the rhetoric and make choices based on what we are told.  The internet has made it reasonably easy to find answers about how candidates have voted in the past (those who have held or currently hold positions in Congress).  One accurate, user-friendly site for such research is http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm.  Here you will find voting records as well as comments that each of the candidates has made regarding most of the major issues. Another that I find helpful is http://www.politifact.com, which is useful for separating fact from rhetoric.

It is by no means my intention to tell anybody for whom they should vote.  I simply want to ensure that everybody votes based on something other than the fear and panic that is so often stirred up by the candidates and promulgated by the press. Study the candidates, their past record, their views.  Listen to what they say, then take it upon yourself to check it out and see if what they say matches what they have done in the past.  It only takes a short time and has much more value than watching the debates and the campaign swaggering.  And then, most important of all, on Tuesday, November 8th, go out and vote for the candidate that you honestly believe is the most capable of dealing with the complex issues facing our nation.  We all owe it to ourselves and to future generations to do so.

On Voting: A Short Primer

Posted on by under Political commentary

In a mere twenty (20) months we will be electing a new president to head up the executive branch of the government of the U.S. You scoff? Twenty months? That’s nearly TWO YEARS!!! Why worry about it just yet? And I would agree with you. Fully. Completely. Totally. Except, the potential candidates and the national parties are already circling the wagons, seeking weak spots in both the opposition and their constituency. Thus, it behooves us to start building our fortress and filling our moats! Man the battlements! Okay, okay … overkill, I suppose, though it is sometimes how I feel. Already, with nearly two years remaining in President Obama’s term of office, we are being bombarded on a daily basis by propaganda from BOTH parties and I can only imagine that by the time election day 2016 rolls around, we will all be nauseous, disenchanted, relieved, or perhaps suicidal. That said, to parody a popular, yet totally meaningless saying, “it is what it is”, and we might as well make the most of it. So, if the national parties and the candidates have twenty months to bombard and annoy us, that also means that we have twenty months to actually enlighten, educate and prepare ourselves for the final decision in November 2016.

Now, I lean toward a specific ideology, which is embraced by a certain political party, however my purpose here is not to sway anybody toward either side, but merely to assist in the decision-making process. Though I may favor one party in particular, I am more nearly a moderate and have voted, from one time to the next, for candidates representing both parties. As a popular old saying goes, I vote for the candidate, not the party. I’ve never been a “straight-ticket” voter, and I don’t recommend it for anybody, as there are good, not-so-good, and downright bad people on both sides of the aisle. It is good to keep in mind that you are voting for the person who you think is best qualified for the office and will do what is best for the nation as a whole. I have a few guidelines to share today, when thinking about the “upcoming” elections.

1. Make a list: List ten issues that matter to you. The first five should be things that matter to you personally, that will have direct impact on your life. The other five should be more global issues that you consider to be of significant importance in a more global sense, things you care about and that will have long-term impact or consequences for the nation and the world.

2. Research: Starting with the first item on your list and working your way through the list, find every scrap of reliable information available about that issue, what each potential candidate has said about the issue in the past, say, five years, ten years. Remember that what the candidate says today may vary significantly from what he or she has said in the past, and may vary from his/her voting record in the past. Be sure to study both sides of the issue, not just the one that you favor, because

a. You should be aware of the reasons each side feels as they do
b. You need to be able to clarify, in your own mind, why you feel as you do

It is likely that your research will lead to additional questions and thoughts on the topic … follow up on these with your research as well.
3. Organize: Start a spreadsheet or other type of visual tool to organize the results of your research, listing the issues and cross-referencing with each potential candidate. Make footnotes if you have found a source particularly helpful.

4. Ignore: Virtually ALL propaganda!!! I cannot stress this enough. You are about to be bombarded by trash. You will be told stories of each candidate’s indiscretions, both political and personal. Some may have an element of truth, most will be 90%-95% lies. For the most part, I recommend completely ignoring and disregarding anything you see on either Facebook, Fox News, or any of the other radical or questionable new sources. Even most mainstream news, think ABC, NBC, CBS, New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, are inept at telling a completely unbiased story. So … how, you ask, does one find the truth? Well, one looks to a broad variety of sources. I do use mainstream media, primarily print sources such as the Washington Post and New York Times, but I also rely on updates from Foreign Policy (both print and on-line editions) and Jerusalem Post for issues concerning the Middle East, Trove Today and Huffington Post for both national and international issues, and a wide variety of other sources as well. Where there are wide discrepancies, you will have to find other sources or use your instincts. The important thing is to use a broad variety, and never ever believe everything you see or hear, particularly on social media sites!!!

5. Understand: That no candidate will be perfect, no candidate will be 100% in line with your goals, beliefs and agenda, so it truly boils down to, as my father used to say, “the lesser of two evils”, or the candidate who shares the majority of your goals for the nation.
Voting is both a privilege and a responsibility that should never be taken lightly. The Preamble of the Constitution of the United States starts with a phrase, We The People. We the people are a very diverse group of human beings and each of us expect our elected officials to meet certain criteria which may vary wildly from one person to the next. We are truly blessed to live in a nation that not only tolerates, but encourages open and frank discussion among citizens. Use this wisely. Don’t let yourself be drawn into arguments that have no logical basis and exist solely for the sake of an argument. Remember that some people speak merely for the sake of hearing themselves talk. Listen … other opinions need not sway you, but sometimes you may learn from the wisdom of others. I steer clear of radicals on either side, recognizable by those who scream the loudest and are the most rigid in their thinking, convinced that their opinion is the only possible right answer. To sum up, start now doing your homework, and by the time election day rolls around in a short 20 months, you will be confident and secure that your decision is the right one for you. I am certain I shall be posting more over the course of the next twenty months, and I hope you will feel free to comment, whether you agree with me or not.