The Nice Vote

I hate to keep harping on fraudulent elections, but before I get to the main point of this post I have one final thought on the election which I present in the first paragraph below.  The rest of this blog addresses what I refer to as the “nice vote.”

Elections and Integrity

I know that even if fraud is officially found it is unlikely at this point that it will change the outcome – in large part because once illegal votes have been cast it becomes next to impossible to determine which those votes were and hence impossible to remove them – but I am appalled that so many Americans seem not to care if there even was any fraud.  Even one illegal vote dilutes the strength of every legal vote.  If there are huge amounts of illegal votes as it appears there were in this election, then the essential right to vote of all Americans has been tampered with.  This is not a political issue but an American issue that goes to the very core of our democracy.  Every American, regardless of their political leanings, should demand a full investigation and demand safeguards so that from this point forward we can all trust in the fairness and honesty of our elections.  Many people don’t want the acrimony that may bring, but sometimes democracy is not “nice” which brings me to the main point of this post.

The Nice Vote

If the currently questionable results are nonetheless the same as they would have been if this were an election of unquestionable integrity, then I think that the reason that Trump lost is due to the people who voted for nice.  He got more minority votes than in 2016, but most Democrats and Republicans unlikely changed their votes, so it had to be the nice vote.

What do I mean by that?  Here is the reason given by many people, both Democrats and Republicans, whom I personally know and generally respect, for why they voted for Biden:  They wanted to express their hope for a kinder and more civil country.  These people, despite reservations about the dangers of big government, or reservations about Biden’s past record and corruptions, despite praise for Trump’s foreign policies and his accomplishments toward peace in the Middle East, despite their approval of how he was able to handle and improve the economy and the economic status of minorities, despite these acknowledgements and more, these people simply voted for nice.

Now, I happen to think they made a big mistake.  But I also think that they were not even seeing what was right before their eyes.  While Biden claims to be a nice guy, he is not.  He is a career politician and with that comes the self-interest and lying that is a common part of that role.  While he says he is a straight shooter, he is not straight with the American people. 

As I listen to Biden and his unauthorized transition team make more and more pronouncements about their plans, I become more and more concerned for America.  I wonder if the nice vote is beginning to realize what they voted for, and if they are beginning to have some sort of buyer’s remorse.

I also realize that if one is going to vote based on nice, then they really have very little understanding of our country and how it works.  Most of those I know who voted for nice live outside cities in comfortable suburbs.  They are of the type often referred to as “soccer moms” (though some are not moms, and some are men).  They have not experienced firsthand what it is like to live in a city, either as one of the privileged or as one of the underclass. 

Violence is likely something that is not part of these nice voters’ regular lives, although they see it on TV and therefore from a media perspective – a narrative, not a reality.  They have the things they need, including material goods and things like healthcare.  They feel badly for those who don’t, but they themselves do not experience it. 

Looking from afar they are told how those sorts of problems should be dealt with rather than having any real understanding of those problems.  So, they vote for what they feel is nice, be it nicer, more sophisticated verbiage, or nice sounding narratives about the future that a candidate will create.

But nice is not a requirement for any of the systems of our government.  And indeed, nice is often ineffective.  If we accept for the purpose of discussion the proposition that Biden is nice, then for 47 years his niceness was totally ineffective in getting anything done for the country. If anything, many of the programs his nice verbiage supported were more harmful than beneficial to our country or certain groups of people within our country.   Former President Obama made nice speeches, but his actions tore this country apart as he built and strengthened a politics of identity. 

Yet President Trump, with his rough and often acrimonious words, accomplished so many things that the nice talkers have only talked about for years:  prison and criminal justice reform, return of economic hope for inner city minorities, better quality of life for most Americans, more opportunities for all, but especially minorities, return of respect around the world, working to end foreign wars and bringing troops home; improved trade agreements that are fair to our own country, the list goes on.  He made and kept his campaign promises.  He followed the law and the Constitution.  And in getting it done he was often not nice. But his actions benefited our entire nation.

And that is what a President is supposed to do.  Support our laws and our Constitution.  Work hard, but within our system.   Put our country first.  Work to make things better for all of our people, not just those belonging to favored identity groups.  

There is no requirement of nice.  And indeed, no one can mandate nice because, at least in this country as long as we retain our Constitutional protections, people have the right to their own views and to speak their own words, and sometimes that is not nice.

The nice voters have in my mind been fooled by pretty words.  Pretty promises – we will all be civil and we will all get along and the government will take care of everyone in a kind way.  In the words of Thomas Sowell:  “Mystical references to ‘society’ and its programs to ‘help’ may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.”

Listening to the plans being put forth by Biden and his handlers since he was declared the presumptive winner tell us that the nice that these people voted for will be a large government in charge of our lives and a diminishment if not loss of our freedoms, especially those set forth in the First and Second Amendments of our Constitution. They voted for a loss of our nationhood and a movement toward the New World Order.  They voted for loss of tolerance for individuality as we move toward a society where even our thought will be under government control.

What they voted for may sound nice, we may not hear so many acrimonious words (though I doubt that), or they will only be spoken in secret behind closed doors, but what they really voted for is not what I would call nice.  What they voted for is a march down the path toward full out socialism and all the evils and pain and suffering that brings.   

I think the nice voters made a huge mistake.  I suspect it will not take them long to realize that.  But it may nonetheless be too late.   God save us from nice!

Real Elections Require Honesty and Fairness and Sometimes Patience

 Elections.   Most every country has them, but they are not all the same.  In some countries we know that despite the people going to polls to vote that the result has been predetermined by those in power.  We laugh when leaders like Putin “amazingly” receive an almost unanimous vote. 

We laugh, because we know that in America that doesn’t happen – we vote, our votes are counted, and we the people decide the winner.  We have faith in that.  At least until now.

But now only a fool would think that there were no irregularities in this election.  Whether that changed the result, we will likely never know.  But it cannot help but change the faith of the people in our elections, both now and in the future.

But this is not just a problem with the fraud itself, it is a problem with the way we are reacting to it.  And that is what I want to address here.

First, there are credible acts of fraud, sworn affidavits by numerous poll workers, a small number of whistle blowers who were poll officials unattached to either party, obituaries from a year or more ago of people who seemingly also cast votes in this election, etc. etc.  The MSM does not report this because it does not fit their narrative.  The credible allegations by Republicans are regularly referred to by the press as “unsubstantiated” and “unproven.”  Well, of course they are at this point only allegations – that is why the Republicans ask for investigations that would prove or disprove what are credible and sworn statements of fraud.

By way of example of what is being alleged and some of the affidavits, here is a link to the complaint filed in Wayne County, Michigan (LINK). It is long.  The affidavits are near the end.  Its allegations are less egregious than what is being found and asserted in Pennsylvania and Georgia and perhaps other states.  

As I write this, the Georgia Secretary of State has announced a state wide hand recount.  The reason for the recount is to create trust in the ultimate result.  Yet even as it reports that announcement the press continues to call the allegations unmerited and essentially characterize them as nothing more than sore losing.  

Any citizen who truly cares about free and fair elections should be concerned.  And that concern should go far beyond the results in Trump v. Biden.  Because if we cannot trust our elections, if the identities of the dead are being stolen, if legitimate votes are not being counted while illegitimate ones are, then we are all being disenfranchised.  And we will never again be able to take the results of our elections seriously.

Any realist will acknowledge that no election is fraud free; there are always some dead people who vote.  But the problem this year was the huge amount of mail in ballots.  The mass mail in balloting of this year must be distinguished from absentee balloting which requires a request for a ballot as well as other verification procedures in order for one to cast a vote by mail.  But general mail in balloting has no such protections.  The following quote from The Kafka Election: Finding a Way Out of the Maze  (LINK) lays out the problem with frightening clarity:

          “When you vote in person, you first make an active choice to vote, confirm your identity as a registered voter to a poll worker, then mark your ballot privately but in the presence of other people, and finally hand it off to a poll worker who scans it directly into a vote-counting machine while you watch. In other words, you establish your legal right to vote and have a secure chain of custody of your ballot until it is scanned, which you yourself participate in.         

        None of those steps is present in mail balloting. You are a passive recipient of a ballot, your identity is assumed rather than confirmed, you may be marking your ballot under pressure of either family members or strangers, and you send the ballot to an anonymous election worker through any number of insecure methods of transmission. You have no assurance that your vote has been counted, and what’s worse, you may not even be a participant in your own vote being cast in your name.  

           The most important thing to remember about mail ballots is that once they are separated from their secrecy envelope, they are completely unidentifiable. They may have come from legal voters, or they may not have. They may have come in the mail, or they may have come in the soda delivery truck. They may have come one at a time, or they may have come 100,000 at a time.

                         And no one will ever know.”

We should all remember that near the end of the first presidential debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked Biden if he would “pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified.”  Joe Biden answered, “yes.”  Wallace then asked, “Will you urge your supporters to stay calm while the vote is counted, and will you pledge not to declare victory until the election is independently certified?” “Yes,” answered Biden.  (See C-Span video of that debate HERE.  This exchange happens about an hour and a half in)

Yet Biden, now proclaimed by the media and his party to be our next president, despite no certifications, and with legitimate ongoing challenges and recounts, does nothing to urge calm or patience.  Rather, he and his handlers and supporters mock the Republicans as simply sore losers for being concerned about the validity and fairness of one of the most importance processes of our democracy – the people’s vote.

Biden and the rest of America should review the Constitution.  The Electors must vote before we have a President-elect and that vote must be certified.  That is scheduled to occur in December.  That has not happened yet this year, so while we can have a presumptive or predictive President-elect, we legally and Constitutionally do not have an actual President-elect.  And the one who claims to hold that title should be the first one to understand that and to clarify our Constitution to us.  Afterall, the actual president must take an oath to uphold that very same Constitution.

Indeed, that is what makes us different from the countries whose obvious manipulated elections we laugh at.  We are a country of laws, not of emotion and mob rule.  We are governed by laws, not media.  We the people are the ones in control, not the ones who scream loudest or who have the best emotional propaganda.  To quote the current presumptive winner, “c’mon man.”  And by that I mean, c’mon, stop pretending and follow the facts and the law.  If Biden and his supporters really believe their victory is secure, then why not take the time to prove it?

As the above explanation of mail in ballot fraud demonstrates, we will never know what the true result of legitimate votes in this election was because once the illegal vote is put into the tabulating machine it becomes unidentifiable.  Even if we were able to say there had been a precise number of fraudulent ballots cast, we would not be able to tell specifically which of those votes were the fraudulent ones. 

So, as the Democrats now assert, it is unlikely that even if the challenges successfully show significant and possibly result changing voter fraud, we will nonetheless likely not see a change in the current narrative proclaimed to us by the media.

Whether any fraud was conceived and designed at some broad level with some master plan, or whether it was simply a result of a number of poll workers suffering from the hatred of Trump Derangement Syndrome, it doesn’t matter.  The fact is, the mass mail in allows it to happen and it is next to impossible, once it has happened, to determine for whom the actual legal votes were cast.

But that does not mean we should just ignore what went on.  It does not mean that we should just let the media decide for us when they decide that the time is right.  It does not mean that we should let the media and the presumptive winning party simply acclimate us to that win so that we accept it as we do so much of what we hear repeated to us on our various media sources. 

It does not mean that we should not demand, both now and in the future, that every legal vote be counted and that only legal votes be counted.  It does not mean that we should accept, or worse participate in, condemnation of someone who with credible evidence challenges election results.

Yet, that is what is happening.   We are being encouraged to just forget this and move on.  The presumptive winner, who said he would be the president for all Americans, seemingly does not care enough about those Americans to keep his word or to ensure for them that these as well as future results will be fair and honest.  That tells us a lot, doesn’t it?

Mass mail-in balloting was widespread in this election, and as predicted it was fraught with fraud.  Yet now the people are used to the convenience of mail in.  They will want to use it again and regularly.  If we do not fix its problems now, we will never again have an election result that the people can trust and believe in.  And every single American should care about that.  Even if this election provides you with the results you like, that does not mean that future fraud will do the same.

We need to return to elections that we can be proud of and that we can trust.  That requires patience.  It requires support for the investigation of legitimate and credible allegations of fraud.  It requires not letting the media decide who won.   Only when we know that the results are honest can the winner truly claim victory and delight in the result and only then can those who lost know that they were not cheated out of victory.  And what is wrong with waiting to prove an honest result?

 

Unity Requires Tolerance and Other Post Election Thoughts

So it is now 5 days post-election and we still do not have an official winner, although at the moment Joe Biden is the presumptive winner.  The media is treating him as the winner and people are beginning to accept that, though that does not necessarily make it so.  If it turns out that he is indeed the official winner, I hope that everyone will accept that just as I hope everyone will do so if the tide turns in Trump’s favor.  

In the meantime, several different but related thoughts and issues are rolling around in my head and I will discuss some of them here.

First, let’s understand that in this country, accepting a victor does not mean agreeing with all the policies or views of that victor or his party.  In America we accept the vote of the people and support the legitimate office holder, but we retain our right to hold our own views and beliefs, and to speak out both for and against various political policies.  If we do not like the policies of the chosen winner, we can work to see someone with different policies elected in the future.  The win of one side does not make the other side’s views wrong nor require them to alter their individual beliefs.

Last night Mr. Biden gave a speech in which he essentially claimed victory and called for unity in the nation.  A nice thought, but I don’t see how we can take that call seriously when we still have the leaders of his party, people like  former President Obama, his wife Michelle, the presumptive Vice President Harris, Senator Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, Rep. Cortez, and many others, along with most of the Democrat voters continuing to throw a variety of ad hominem attacks against the more than 70 million who voted for President Trump. 

Mrs. Obama just yesterday called that 70 million plus racist.  Others assert they are uneducated.  Some call for the identification of all Trump voters so that they can be “educated.”  Others yelled F**k USA at groups of Trump supporters singing the National Anthem after the press had declared Biden the winner.  Hypocrisy is everywhere when we see such things as Biden supporters celebrating without masks or social distancing when Trump and his supporters were regularly criticized by Biden and the Democrats for the same behavior.

The speeches, but even more so the actions of Mr. Biden and the Democrats seem to make it clear that there will be no tolerance for views of which they disapprove.  And real unity requires tolerance of viewpoints that are not one’s own.  So I see Biden’s words as nothing more than that – pretty words of a politician. 

Another thought is about the election challenges.  We should remember that Mr. Biden and the Democrats all applauded Stacey Abrams when she challenged election results in 2018.  Yet today they condemn the President and the Republicans for their challenges based on much stronger evidence than what was held by Ms. Abrams.  Not only are there serious and verified accounts of widespread voter fraud, there are also very credible allegations of unconstitutional procedures in Pennsylvania and perhaps other states. 

Now I know the Democrats don’t want to hear this, they want to get on with their celebrations.  And many Republicans are just tired and want to move on.  But every American should be very concerned about this because if we do not have fair elections that we can trust, then how are we going to retain and protect our democracy?  And the most concerned person should be the presumptive winner and probably next president. 

These challenges go well beyond winning or losing.  Obviously, if they go forward there is a chance Trump could win and if they end here Biden will clearly win.  But at what cost to the nation?  We should all want these challenges to go forward so that we can know that the final outcome was fair and honest.  And the person for whom this should be cause number 1 is the next president of the U.S., whichever candidate that might be.  And if he is not willing to support that assurance to the American people, then how can Biden claim that he intends to be president of all of America?

I hear many proclaiming that now we will not have a bigot/racist in the White House.  First, while many have called President Trump those things when they did not like his policy or action or his sometimes vulgar language, I have seen no actual proof of real bigotry or racism.  Indeed, I have seen a presidency that tries to treat all persons equally under the laws that exist. 

But I would argue that even Mr. Biden’s VP is the result of a racist act.  You will recall that he promised and did select his VP based upon skin color and sex, thus excluding the majority of Americans and American politicians from any consideration whatsoever.  To base such considerations on two immutable characteristics is the very definition of racism.  And no, it is not OK to be racist just to try to prove that you or your party are not racist.

While they are continuing to throw their ugly and hurtful words toward Trump and his supporters, many Democrats now call for conversations wherein we will learn to “understand one another.”  It is hard to have a conversation of understanding when one half of that conversation has already determined the other half to be guilty of things such as racism or other sins and in need of change.  Without tolerance for other views there can be no real understanding.

People are claiming that with a Biden administration we will see a return to love, kindness, family, etc.  Nice words, but the actions betray them.  It is not loving or kind to call those who do not parrot your views the ugly epithets that Democrats fling at Republicans.  It is not kind or loving to threaten them when they do not accept the Democrat view. 

As to family, the Democrat policies are in so many ways anti-family.  Without even mentioning many social values, just looking at economic policies it is clear that Biden’s proclaimed agenda is not family favorable. 

It was Trump who helped to bring many minorities out of poverty and with that create stronger families.  It was Trump whose renegotiated and USA-favorable trade policies helped not only farmers but American businesses and with that jobs for American families.  It was Trump who reformed criminal justice, who made sure Black colleges would remain funded, whose economic polices created better investment opportunities meaning more home ownership, better retirement savings, etc.  Biden has said he will reverse all this, which I do not see as family friendly.

While hate has blossomed on both sides of the aisle, I honestly see the Democrats as the party of hate.  It was VP Biden who participated in illegal plans to spy against President Trump even before he took office.  It was the Democrats who for 4 years refused to accept Trump as their president and did everything within their power to try to remove him from office, thus working to overturn the will of the people.  It has been the Democrats who, blinded by their irrational hatred of President Trump, have spent the last four years lying to the American people and disregarding any aspects of our system of  laws that do not immediately provide them with what they want. 

It is the Democrats who have removed the boarded-up windows in cities that were placed there to protect from rioting after the election, because it was really to protect against riots by Democrats.  Now that a Democrat is the presumptive victor, there is no fear which implies that the Republicans are not the ones likely to riot and destroy.  It is the Democrats who refuse to condemn violence against the Right by their own people as well as by groups such as Antifa (and yes, despite the media and Democrat narrative, Trump has many times condemned violence and White Supremacists).  And it is the Democrats who just keep on posting their nasty memes about Republicans and Trump, claiming that they are just celebrating.

And Joe?  Does he condemn any of that behavior?  No, he just says we will have unity.   Yet if he is willing to continue to accept the hateful behavior upon which the hateful Democrat campaign was built, if his only tolerance at this point is of the continued hatred from the Left, if the only behavior that he will accept is a blind acceptance of his view, then there really is no call for unity at all. 

And so we wait for an official decision, for challenges to be heard and recounts to be had.  We wait, and if we really want an honest and fair election, then the wait is both valuable and worthwhile.  It would be nice if the wait included a call against hatred from the presumptive winner.

Reflecting on Our Great Divide while waiting for Election Results

I am not quite sure what is happening with the returns or when we will know who our President will be come January.  I do know that it may take time to count legitimate ballots.  I know that our system provides for challenges and recounts (which are not voter suppression!).  I know that it seems strange that suddenly late election night all counting stopped as certain states looking as if they would go to Trump suddenly decided to await additional ballots (many of which, legitimate or not?, they seem to have found supportive of Biden).

If Biden is elected, I will accept that.  I will not like it and I will mourn for the America that I believe in.  If Trump is elected, I hope that Democrats will accept that, unlike their hate-based refusal to do so from the date of his 2016 election until today.  But I do not hold out much hope for any tolerance towards Trump or his supporters from the Democrats.  I wish there was something more positive to say.  There is not.

One thing that this election (as well as the last 4 years) has made perfectly clear:  We have two Americas.  And they cannot be reconciled.

Look at the election maps.  In nearly every state you will see vast expanses of red in rural areas with large blue spots atop the big cities.  This red-blue political divide reflects the larger divide between the values and lifestyles of the two groups.  These values, these hopes and dreams for themselves, their neighbors, and for America are often in direct opposition to one another.  The divide is really a divide of two cultures not unlike the divide between two countries. 

It has been suggested that we should have a Fulbright type program between metropolitan and rural areas within the U.S.  This would be a way to foster a better understanding of different ways of life, different cultural values in the same way that the Fulbright program fosters such understanding between different nations.

While I like the sound of this idea, I wonder if it would really help to bring this nation together.  Yes, it would probably promote understanding just as the current Fulbright program promotes understanding of other countries and cultures.  But that understanding does not actually unite two countries into one and currently we essentially have two countries within our borders. 

In 2018 the Pew Research Center published a study of the differences between urban, suburban, and rural cultures.  The study found significant differences between urban/suburban and rural not only in politics, but also in such things as measures of economic well-being, education, optimism about the future, basic values,  views on social issues, importance of diversity, drugs and drug addiction, importance of family ties and attachment to community, interaction with neighbors, immigration, age and economic status of population, type of jobs available, etc.  These are discussed in great detail with statistics and charts showing nuances of similarities and differences; the entire report can be found here:  LINK  

While there are small areas of similarity between urban and rural (with suburban a sort of neutral zone between the two that leans toward each in some ways), there is really very little upon which they agree.  Their differences can all be traced to differences in core values.  While it is possible to tolerate a different value system in another, it is not possible to change it to your own. 

Yet that is exactly what many Democrats and their policies would do.  They would force us to conform to a given set of values legislated or mandated by the government.  There would be no room for tolerance of others.  And the core values of rural and urban are distinctly different and irreconcilable. 

Our country was mostly rural for much of its existence.  Cities have grown larger and larger with former rural dwellers as well as many immigrants who are newer to America and its culture.  The two cultures have different needs and different desires; their cultures are different.

World views, values, beliefs are formed in childhood.  While their superficial expressions may change, their core rarely does.  So if we have entirely different core values being instilled then the populations and the culture that result from those values will be very different and perhaps unable to live together as one.

While Pew did not discuss religion, I think that one’s faith leads to and supports many of one’s values.  Faith and religion play different roles in the lives of rural and urban dwellers.  In many instances the faith of a rural area is a central part of the community; it is something that helps to hold the community together.  In urban areas there may be pockets of sub-communities held together by a particular faith, but faith/religion is not the driving force within most urban areas.

Additionally, the values necessary to a rural culture include self-reliance and independence.  In an urban setting where large numbers of people are grouped together in small spaces, there is more need to become a part of the group and a greater dependence on the group than on ones’s self, for both daily needs as well as one’s own identity.  A belief that one has the right to control one’s own destiny does not merge well with the belief that government can and should control much of a citizenries’ behavior.

Rural and urban America have different mind-sets that have resulted in different cultures.  At one time the total populations between rural and urban were not that different allowing both cultures to have some say in the overall running of our country.

Today, the urban cities, because of their large populations are more and more able to control the outcome of both statewide and federal elections.  This is dangerous.  When two cultures must reside together and only one is heard, the outcome is never good.

I honestly do not think that the huge rural-urban gap can be bridged.  We have two countries and two cultures.  We used to be able to tolerate different views, but this goes well beyond different views.  Because the underlying values are so different the two groups seek entirely different Americas.  While they might want to visit, neither wants to live in the America of the other. 

In this election, once the counts and recounts are concluded and court battles decided, we will have a winner.  The people will have spoken.  But I wonder how long we are able to have one half of the country whose views are polar opposite of the other decide how the entire country will live.   We will permanently be at war with one another.   

We cannot solve this problem with politics or legislation.  We cannot require someone to change their values or beliefs to suit whomever is in power.  We cannot have both big and small government.  We cannot have both capitalism and socialism.  We cannot hold traditional values and deny those traditions for a new world order. 

Once this election is resolved, we will have people calling for us to understand one another and get along, to have “conversations” about our differences.  These things never work.  We are different people and we simply have to accept that fact.  The question is, being so different that we are essentially entirely at odds in all that we believe, how do we live together? 

Our Constitution and our government used to help us to do that with its protections of each individual’s beliefs and speech and its demands for tolerance of others with differing views.  But one of the great divides is that half of us no longer respect that Constitution or our form of government. 

I wish I had a solution.  I do not. 

 

The Real Nightmare (it’s not Justice Barrett)

The hysteria over Amy Coney Barrett is misplaced.

Justice Barrett will not destroy the environment, take away your healthcare and leave you to die, turn all women into “handmaidens”, return us to the days of segregation, or any of the other horribles that the Democrats would have you believe.

Instead, being an originalist/textualist Justice Barrett will read, interpret, and apply the text of written law and Constitution.  She will not deal in policy or legislation which is not the role of the judicial branch.  She has made it clear, in both her Senate testimony and in her actual rulings on the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals that she takes her role as a judge seriously and with integrity; she does not decide cases as she might personally prefer, but is there to do her duty and to follow the law wherever it may take her.

If we were still taught civics and government in our schools everyone would know, and most would understand this.  (I would note that the blogs I wrote earlier this month – Oct 12, 13, 15, 22 - addressing the hearings on the Barrett nomination address many of the relevant concepts of role of judge and judiciary.  I will not repeat those detailed discussions here.)

Sadly, we are not taught and most do not know, let alone understand, these things.

But, what is sadder still is that Democrat politicians, most notably in this instance Democrat Senators including the Senator-VP candidate, are making repeated misstatements and mischaracterizations about the role of a judge or justice, about the judicial branch of government, and about Justice Barrett and her record.

And, even sadder is that people accept and believe these Democrat untruths without question.   Political rhetoric used to be aimed at one’s opponent, not at our system of government.  Yet now the Democrats aim their rhetoric at our system itself.

The Democrats lie when they say this appointment was illegal.  Democrats lie when they say the position of the Republicans on this nomination was inconsistent with their position on the Garland nomination (it was not; in both cases their actions reflect the will of the people who elected them).  Democrats distort the concept of originalism/textualism in a way intended to instill fear in the people. 

Democrats misconstrue the role of the judiciary in an additional attempt to instill fear and, more frighteningly, in a way to justify their intent to completely destroy the independence of our judicial branch of government by either packing the court with political operatives or completely altering the term of Justices. 

The people may be ignorant of what the Democrats are doing because it seems that few today really understand the non-political role of the judiciary in our governmental system; they may be ignorant of how this judiciary along with the other two branches and their checks and balances on one another are essential for our form of government.

But the Democrats know exactly what they are doing.  They are fomenting irrational fear and with it hatred of our government as it exists.  Why?  Not just to win this election, but to gain support for their goal of irretrievably altering it and with that alteration irreversibly ending America as we know it.

We can’t have a crash course in American Government for the entire nation.  All we can hope is that the voting public are able to see through the lies of the Democrats. 

Political rhetoric is fine, and we should expect our politicians to engage in it.  But when that rhetoric becomes a narrative of lies about our very form of government, lies that are designed to take hold in a populace largely uneducated about our governmental system, then we should all be very afraid. 

The nightmare scenarios that the Democrats like to present are nothing compared to the end of the American democratic republic that has been and continues to be a shining beacon not only to we the people but to all of the world.

 

 

Reflections for the Election

I am less than 3 years shy of having spent three-quarters of a century as an American.  I can still remember when I turned 21 and was able to vote for the first time.  I walked several blocks through a pretty seedy part of Detroit to reach my polling place and proudly cast my ballot.  Since that day I have voted in every election – not just presidential or midterm, but local things like schoolboard, etc.  I truly believe it is my responsibility as an American to do so, and I proudly cast each and every ballot.

Today I want to reflect on how this election is different and why, beyond any discrete issue, it is so important to the future of America.  This year it is absolutely crucial that voters understand not just for whom, but more importantly for what they are voting.

I have always been interested in politics – one of my earlier memories is my father allowing me to stay up to watch the nomination of Eisenhower for president.   Growing up there were many political discussions in my family; one thing they always included was the need to be well informed in order to properly carry out the Constitutional duty of voting.  I always try to follow that principle even though it is much more difficult in today’s world.

For most of my life I have been able to rely on a fair and objective media to keep me informed.  For most of my life I had a high respect for the media and its First Amendment right (and responsibility) to gather information and inform the people.  (My second law review publication while still in law school dealt with the First Amendment and specifically with freedom of the press and a reporter’s ability to gather news.) 

The press is sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate which denotes its influence in the political system.  It has enormous power to frame and advocate political issues.  Until recently it, for the most part, did this in a fair manner.   But that has changed.

Today we live in a world of narrative rather than fact.  People select a narrative that is pleasing to them and support its authors without regard to the factual support or lack thereof for that narrative.  Because the news media now also takes that approach, it is no longer the source for fair and objective factual information. Even the alleged media fact checkers disagree based on bias. It has become more and more difficult for those who seek the facts (not interpretation of or opinions based on them) to find what they are seeking.  That alone affects the nature of this election.

My belief and my personal education about various candidates in the past always led me to the conclusion that they all wanted essentially the same future for America – a betterment and closer approach to the ideals embedded within the Constitution.  The various politicians and political parties may have had different ideas about how to accomplish that, but all those different paths had the same goal in mind and the same underlying respect if not love for America and its founding principles.

When I protested for civil rights and to end the war in Vietnam, I was not protesting against my country or its form of government.  Rather, I was protesting about specific policies within that government.  The protests were a means to an end – a way of making our country better, but not completely different.  In law school, when discussing those protests, one of my Constitutional Law professors noted that many wrapped themselves in American flags, not out of disrespect, but out of respect for the country that allowed us to speak our minds in this way.  That flag, representing America, was the shield that protected our freedom of thought and our ability to speak our views.

In the past voters looked at the planks of a party’s platform – what did each party intend to do for America?   It has always been unlikely that someone would agree with every plank of any party’s platform and so, in past years, informed voters would generally choose the platform and party with which they had more in common.  In the end, the voter knew that both parties had the same interest – a better America – at heart, and that they would listen to and follow the will of the people to get there. There was a unified respect for and pride in our country and that held us together.  Our goals were the same.

That is not so today.  Today there are two very different goals that include starkly different views of what America is and what it should be.  This year’s election is ultimately not about the specific planks in a platform.  This election requires the voter to go beyond the planks and specific policies to see the fundamental and dissimilar view that each party has of and for America.

Looking at various aspects of our nation’s culture and government, the two parties have contrasting views of what should be, many of which I have discussed in prior posts.  These include but are not limited to:  the individual vs. identity groups; self-reliance and self-determination vs. large government control; protection of inherent individual rights as outlined in the Constitution vs. rights created by the government that controls (or takes away) those rights; representative government giving voice to all vs. pure majority (mob) rule which silences the voice of the minority; equal opportunity vs. equal result for everyone; creating opportunity vs. maintaining an underclass of hopeless individuals; rule of law vs. rule by emotion and personality; capitalism vs. socialism.

The bottom line is that the Republican party is generally satisfied with the current governing structures of America.  While they would work to improve them and with that the lives of all Americans, to move ever closer to the aspirations that define America, they would not fundamentally change them.

In contrast, the Democrats generally no longer respect those structures.  They believe the very nature of our country and its governing bodies must fundamentally change. To reach their goals, to create the America that they envision, rather than improving current structures the Democrats would dismantle them and turn them into something else entirely.  

To achieve many of its goals, the Democrats must ignore aspects of our Constitution and cannot continue with our three separate but equal branches of government.  The Democrat vision provides much less voice to the people and much more to the control of the party and its government.  This would require removal of an independent and non-political judicial branch – hence the Democrat plan for Court-packing to create enough political judgeships so that their party would never lose a political case.  It would require more secure control of a Democrat voting bloc in the Legislative branch – hence their plan to create 2 new states giving a larger seat count to Democrats in the House and the Senate.  And it requires an assured voting bloc for those things over which the people maintain control – hence create 11 million new voters indebted to their party by giving unqualified citizenship to 11 million illegals. 

Of course, these may be short lived goals – there could come a time that these Democrat blocs would turn Republican.  But if the Democrats are able to seize control then they can make enough significant changes that a shift against them would make no difference.  If they do it right, the Constitutional guarantees that protect us will no longer have any force.  

And that is why this election is so very different.  The question of what kind of healthcare we will have pales against the question of whether we will have America as we know it or not.  This is why it is so important that people become educated about the true facts behind what each party seeks, and why it is so frustrating that we can no longer count on the media to inform us. 

Yet every voter must find a way to look beyond the surface beauty of the Democrat narrative to see the real and sometimes not so pretty consequences that lie beneath.  Some may prefer the Democrat narrative and be able to ignore the inconvenient facts that the Democrats and the media are not disclosing.   They may eagerly await a dismantled and different country.  

Personally, I love America with all its warts and blemishes.  I love its Constitution and its form of government, its rule of law.  It is a place where we can truly become the full individual that we are meant to be.  This is the America that I want my descendants to experience.

It is essential that people recognize the two different Americas that are on the ballot and truly know and understand for what they are voting.    This election is different because we are not voting about which way we will get to the same place, but rather to which place we are going. 

I ended yesterday’s post with a personal statement about my vote this year.  I repeat it here:

As I have said before, I am not a member of any political party and have voted for both Republican and Democrat candidates in the past.  But this year I believe that America’s future is fully dependent on our vote.  Because I believe in our Constitution and our Democratic Republic, because I value our democracy and how it allows every individual to determine his or her own beliefs and values and allows each of us to speak freely those beliefs while requiring tolerance of those who hold different views, because I believe that Democrat policies will truly weaken if not destroy many of the crucial foundations of our society, for those reasons and more I am voting Republican this year, and I urge everyone who holds America dear to do the same.

The Photos That Prove They Don’t Care

Today, as the Senate Judiciary Committee convened to vote to advance Judge Barrett’s nomination to the full Senate, the Democrat members of the Committee did not show up.  Instead, they placed photos in their empty chairs.

The photos were of people they had previously used as campaign props during their (laughable) questioning of Judge Barrett.    These were the photos that they used as back drops while they called Judge Barrett a liar and a threat.  These were the photos to which they pointed when they claimed that Judge Barrett, if confirmed, would somehow and seemingly singlehandedly not only deny them and all of us any health care, but also return us to some sort of Dark Ages. 

These same photos were behind the Democrats when they refused to use their time during the Barrett questioning to actually ask Judge Barrett questions relevant to her qualifications to become a Supreme Court Justice.  These were the photos that they pointed to as they recited campaign rhetoric about healthcare and abortion and civil rights.  These were the photos that the Democrats used to try to instill fear into the American people.

While claiming that they cared about the people in the photos, the Democrats pointed to them as part of their theater of fear mongering.  Do the Democrats really care about these people?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that they tend to use individual stories to prop up their own sweeping and misleading rhetoric.

What I do know is that despite the pretty and perhaps emotion invoking photos and personal stories behind them, the Democrats have contempt for the American people, for the Constitution of the United States of America, and for our form of government.

Today, the Democrat Senators had a job for which the American people elected them and for which we the taxpayers pay them.  That was to show up at the Committee meeting of the Judiciary when they are members of that Committee.  

Contrary to what they would have the American people believe, this meeting and indeed this entire nomination process is not a sham.  It is a constitutionally mandated part of our government.   The appointment of a Supreme Court Justice is serious business that these Senators were elected to conduct.  Let them grandstand on their own time.

The Democrats can present all the political theater that they want.  The bottom line is that they are shirking their duties.  (And if you want to understand the facts about why this nomination is not a sham and is perfectly in line with our history, our Constitution, and the will of the people, you can read my previous 3 blog posts about the hearings)

The Democrat stunts during this nomination process present one example of the Democrat contempt for the American people and the rule of law, but, while this process displays in high definition the Democrats’ true colors, it is not by any means the only example.

If you have been reading this blog for the past three and three-fourth years you are aware of example after example of the Democrats' refusal to accept the will of the people when it is not what they want.  It began with their refusal to accept Donald Trump as the legitimate President of the United States.  That has continued throughout his presidency as they try one after another means of removing him from office and hence overturning the will of the people. 

The Democrats have shown us that they do not care about the will of the people and will not think twice about thwarting it if it stands in the way of their power.  They do not respect the institutions and offices of our government.  They are willing to ignore, indeed shred, the Constitution if that is what it takes.  They are also willing to use people and their photos as props if that is what it takes.

The Democrats have shown us that they believe that those with whom they disagree, those who do not fit their preconceived mold for women or Blacks or any of their many identity groups as well as those who hold value systems or beliefs that they disdain such as conservatives (and especially conservative people of color and women)  do not deserve our Constitutional freedoms such as speech or worship.  To Democrats it is acceptable to silence and hate those with diverse views.

If you have read my blog for the past few years you have read about various forms of governments including socialism and its failures.  You have read about how socialist programs, programs that sound laudable and may actually be intended to help one or another group, how those programs actually harm the individual by creating a dependent subclass.  Such subclasses are used by those in power as a means of retaining their own power.

You have read about how the progressive programs of the Left will actually deny us the freedoms that we hold dear.  They will severely weaken if not remove our right to think for ourselves and each determine our own destiny.  They show a disregard for the individual humanity of each of us.

The Democrats’ rhetoric about Judge Barrett and her nomination process is based on lies, misinformation, and mistruths.  This should not surprise us since that pretty much describes everything that comes from the Democrats these days. 

The Democrats build narratives on facts that are at best incomplete and more likely do not even exist.  They along with their media handmaidens suppress information and facts that are harmful to their narrative.  The list is long, beginning with the Russian hoax and its falsified FISA warrents and continuing to the present with the suppression of credible facts about Joe Biden’s use of his vice presidency for personal and family gain.  (NPR justifies not reporting the story as “not wanting to waste viewer’s time”; I still believe that viewers can and should decide for themselves what is a waste of their time.)

Politicians of course always try to make a case for their policies.  But that case should not be based on mistruth.  Yet, this approach of denying the truth about our system of government is on full display by the Democrats in the Barrett hearings. 

I suspect that the Democrats who did not show up today actually do know what their responsibilities are, that they do know that the Supreme Court is not a political branch (at least not unless/until they succeed in making it so by their Court-packing scheme). 

I suspect that the Democrats know that our form of government requires, and our freedoms depend upon a judiciary that is not political.  Justice requires the ability to put one’s personal agenda aside.  That is what the Democrat Senators should do when considering a new Justice.  Yet, their goal seems to not be justice, but rather a political ally dressed in the black robe.

The empty seats this morning, the photos intended to pull on our heartstrings, the lies about Judge Barrett and the nomination processes, these all show a callous contempt and disrespect on the part of the Democrats for the American people.  Those of us who are not bamboozled by their rhetoric need to put an end to it the one way that we still can – by casting our vote on November 3.

This is an important election.  The status of our democracy and with it our individual freedoms are on the ballot.  See this morning’s photos for what they really are – a picture of the Democrat disdain for America and Americans.

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As I have said before, I am not a member of any political party and have voted for both Republican and Democrat candidates in the past.  But this year I believe that America’s future is fully dependent on our vote and because I believe in our Constitution and our Democratic Republic, because I value our democracy and how it allows every individual to determine his or her own beliefs and values and allows each of us to speak freely those beliefs while requiring tolerance of those who hold different views, because I believe that Democrat policies will truly weaken if not destroy many of the crucial foundations of our society, for those reasons and more I am voting Republican this year, and I urge everyone who holds America dear to do the same.