Adulthood

 There is an expectation that adults act like adults.  I realize that is subjective. However it does require acceptance of reality.  Reality is a bit questionable to some people.  I suppose some think that movies like The Matrix depict reality.  It doesnt , at least not yet. It doesn't seem like a potential future but I suppose anything is possible.  Well not anything but at one time flying was considered impossible.

While it might be fun to imagine various futures and speculate about alternate history, adults are supposed to recognize reality.  Unfortunately we seem to have people who have achieved the age of adulthood but who haven't achieved the mental capacity, or at least the ability to determine reality from fantasy.

Take the current fantasy that seems to live on about massive voter fraud in the last election.  Outside of the normal precautions we had recounts and court challenges in most of the swing states that verified the results.  Despite this a certain percentage still think there was fraud.  This is a current trend, any result that doesn't confirm your belief is biased.

That means there is no way to determine reality.  Unfortunately we see people question the moon landing, the mass shootings, the pandemic because they are all fraudulent.  

Where are the adults?

Government Is For the People

 Last night President Biden laid out a path to improve America and the lives of its people.  It was an uplifting message addressing real issues.

You might disagree with parts of it or maybe the whole thing, it does require that Government grow and reflects a view of our country that trends back to the New Deal, or Great Society vision of the Country and the Government.  Some feel that American greatness is defined by individual achievements, and that less Government is better. 

That works out for the few, not the many.  In countries where we a dog eat dog culture, we see most dogs not doing very well.  We have started to see that happening here.

Government has always been the only one that can level the playing field.  Income inequality is at an all time high in this country and it hasn't trickled down much.  Wealthy people like to get wealthy and many of them have earned it, but getting wealthy doesn't help many others really.

Economics can be complex and confusing, but concentrating wealth in the hands of the few is not.  In Ancient Rome we see a similar issue as the empire led to similar income disparities.  The rich sometimes made gestures to the public via monuments or sponsoring games.  They also had no trouble enslaving them when they could.  When it was a Republic it was comprised of many free farmer citizens.  When it fell it was big estates worked by slaves.

The Government once owned by the rich is a dangerous thing.

Can we Talk? Doesn't Seem Like It

 Its very hard to argue with a position that has no real basis in reality.  For example, people argue that Democrats want to take away their guns.  Well maybe some extreme one do, I'm not sure anyone actually supports such a position, certainly not the party or its leadership but that argument goes like this.

    You want to take our guns.

    No we want reasonable gun control.

    That's just your scheme.

    No, it isn't.

    Yes it is.

and so on.  When someone accuses you of lying without proof its hard to have a reasonable exchange.

So many issues are now framed this way.  Guns is just one of the issues, most of them seem similar.

Take the recent idiocy about objecting to people wearing masks in public.  He is trying to cause confrontation.  Now wearing a mask is not different than wearing a hat.  If it offends you its really just your problem.  the fact that a fox news hypocrite told his viewers to raise an objection and to file false child abuse reports is actually dangerous and probably illegal.

This is all he has left to do, try to get attention by causing issues.

Its sad.

Progress or Morass?

 Most of us have had to deal with the impact of the Pandemic for the last year and it has been tiring.  Some had to deal with the immediate impacts as emergency workers and that was. n many cases, horrific.

The majority of us may or may not have had an actual encounter with the disease either via a close family member or ourselves.  Of course the impact of the disease varies and any one person's experience is unique to them.

In many ways as the Pandemic starts to fade thanks to the vaccines and preventative measures we also are experiencing a wave of Government inspired optimism as we the relief package pushed through and a number of other initiatives being proposed.  The problem is these could be blocked via filibuster.

It would be nice if we could actually debate proposals with the objective of reaching a compromise.  It doesn't seem that Republicans want to do that, even if they pretend.  Almost certainly if substantial changes were made without an ironclad agreement to then pass the result.

In the current political environment that doesn't seem possible but attempts are being made.  Some things may have to wait until the next election but that is a bit too long for many of these initiatives.

Vaccines

 How safe are vaccines in general and the Covid Ones especially.  You wouldn't have a vaccine if the underlying disease didn't exist so you have to take that into account.  Also nothing is absolutely safe, you could be hit by a car or shot by a random stranger, and those risks are generally higher than dying from a vaccine.

So safer then not getting them is the only meaningful measurement.

Covid has risks that are more than just dying.  It hasn't been around long enough to fully understand them but it seems to weaken organs, cause blood clots and of course it kills around 2% of those who get it.

Vaccines do none of those things except maybe the J&J one caused blood clots in 1 out of a million people who took it.  That's not proven, just a statistical likelihood.

I brought up other vaccines and all of them have undergone massive clinical tests and have long track records.  Its easy to manipulate statistics and during the period of vaccine use we also have seen upticks in any number of conditions and diseases.  Of course besides the vaccines we have seen a ton of changes both to diets and activity levels in the population.

Maybe the rise in autism is due to the tremendous amount of time many young children spend alone glued in front of a TV or other device?

Not saying it is, just that there are so many other more common possibilities than vaccines.

Think whatever you want but you don't have the right to be a public health hazard.

Find Spin to Use, Hurry!

 Sometimes I see certain media personalities or Republican politicians say things that make me scratch my head.  For example at a recent hearing a Republican congressman tried to berate Dr. Fauci about when he was going to let Americans be free again.  Now the doctor did fine but the question is does this congressman not understand how Government works or was he simply hoping for media clips?

Well he got the latter and maybe there is an audience that will like his position, but he knows the restrictions are done by various levels of Government, and that the CDC issues guidelines which are guidelines, not directives.

Is being told you have to wear a mask to go into a shop more of an issue than being told you have to wear shirts and shoes?  Businesses can set rules that you comply with or leave.  

Take the insistence they have of blaming China for what happened here.  They know that the location is a matter of chance and if they believe it was an attack then that just reveals ho woefully unprepared the previous administration was.  

The only thing they seem to worry about is tricking enough Americans into voting for them.  They try to figure an angle on every issue they can use but generally they can't find any.

They still push the big lie about election fraud so they can tinker with voting to give themselves advantages.  Its a bit of a desperate act but its all they got.

Blended Culture

 Generally people use the term cancel culture to refer to cancelling out a particular person because of an action, such as engaging in sexual abuse or racial animus.

It also reverberates with certain white nationalist groups who think it is the war against them.

White nationalist have based a movement around a statistical fact but a fantasy result.

Demographics show that "white" people will not represent the majority of Americans soon.  If fact depending on how you define them it has already happened.  That is a statistical fact.

What does it mean?  Well after the revolution most of the colonies were populated by people from Europe with a majority from England.  Of course there were significant numbers of Black people here as slaves as well.  Most immigration over the next 100 years reduced the percentage of  English from a clear majority to a plurality while first other northern Europeans, than Southern and Eastern Europeans as well as a significant Asian influx as workers.  

So the country was never purely Anglo Saxon and some of those populations were considered inferior by people already here.  However after a generation or two they became American.  Of course some have clear identifiers in their physical appearance so they became the non-white.

Our original culture wasn't cancelled, it was expanded.  Now we have an influx of immigrants from altin America and they are viewed as non-white.

History and common sense tell us this will all blend into a diverse future with a evolved culture.  

Climate

 Yesterday was Earth Day and it wa marked with a Presidential goal that we , as a country reduce greenhouse emissions by 50% by 2030.  This is an ambitious goal in many respects but it may not be enough to reverse the harm already done.

I'm a firm believer that the American people and the world's can have the type of impact we need.   First they have to take the issue seriously.  This is an issue that has, like everything elae, been politicized.  

There are certain terms Republican use over and over again because they have polls showing it works.  The Green New Deal is one of them.  Most of them have been told it does a lot of things it doesn't.  Still you will hear it attacked over and over again.

We do need to change attitudes about climate and everyday some change.  The exaggerated pronouncements won't go away quickly but they will fade away over time.

One Case is One Case.

 Based on the reactions it appears that a certain number of Americans feel that kneeling on a persons neck is appropriate if he feels threatened?

I understand that police have a difficult job but we seem to have people in this country and on the media that don't want to apply common sense to the real world.  We have a clear video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of a subdued potential offender long after he was a threat while bystanders called for him to be allowed to breathe.

Even if I assume that the officer did not think that death was going to be the outcome, how is this defensible?  Why facing that overwhelming evidence did the officer think a trial was the way to go?

Unfortunately police officers and white police officers in particular sometimes think there is an us vs them situation in this country.  There is to some extent, but between the extremes there are the great majority that apply common sense.

If you think the outrage was because the "real" people were trying to appease the agitators you are mistaken.  Everyone is one of the real people and no one is to be treated like an animal.

I'm not fond of the slogan "Black Lives Matter" because it leaves out part of the message.  They matter just as much as everyone else's, not more, not less, just the same.  Too often that not the actuality.

Easy Violent Living

 We have grown so accustomed to mass shootings in this country that when we hear someone shot three people and killed one of them we think its not a big deal.

Unless of course its someone in your family.

Shame on us.  The constitution might not spell out the right to live, we did that much earlier.  We also declared famously that its an inalienable right.

Apparently not.  

I don't have any issues with people owning guns unless they use them to shoot other people.  Even accidental shootings should face significant penalties.  A gun is a dangerous item and if you decide to own one you are responsible to secure and safeguard it.

We probably should screen the people buying them but screening won't stop most of them.  We just saw how ineffective a red light law can be.

Further, if something sets you off, your prior exemplary life will allow you to get the weaponry you now want.

Most shooters aren't planning to do it.

We just make it easy.

Government Needs to Lead

 At some point we seem to have devolved into a society that worries more about trivial technical points than about real issues.

Think about the border.  The biggest issue on the news seems to be whether it should be called a crisis or not.  Well who care what we call it? 

I gather the press does and I've seen more about them trying to trip up the White House then about what we are doing to house and help the unaccompanied children.

There are times when declaring something a disaster impacts the aid you get, but I don't think we designate things as crises in the same way.  Besides when people arrive at the border they are processed.  Seems more like a busy season than a crisis.

However it is something that needs to be handled.  There are many things in this country that need to be handled or fixed but very few of them are a crisis, except of course for someone particularly impacted.

The real crisis in today's world relates to climate change.  That is already impacting millions and is likely to get worse.  We need to try to reduce our emissions even if it looks like the initial goals might be out of reach.  Still it is no reason to stop, its a process that will get worse until we turn the corner.

We still have the crisis of Covid 19 and while we know the solution we have resistance.  

Some additional immigrants at the border isn't going to flood Florida or kill thousands.

Just something to deal with.

Elect the Best

 There have been some stolen Presidential elections just not the latest one.  Technically winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote is not a steal but in reality it is.

It as if one team outscored their opponents but the game was awarded to the team with the fewer points based on some obscure rule, say led after 3 quarters.

Elections should be won by whoever gets the most votes so we know that two recent ones were not.  Still because we are or were a nation of law abiding rules followers the results were generally accepted.

Now the last election was lost in both methods of counting.  It really wasn't close overall although close in some states.  Yet we have deniers and had an insurrection of sorts on January 6th.

How is this acceptable to any American?

We should all want open and free elections because we are one country.

The person we elect should be of any race or any gender, as long as they are the best qualified.

It shouldn't be that hard.

Freedom Is Inefficient?

 I was watching a show last night in which the host was complaining how China can do things cheaper and faster than we can.  

There are some examples that seem to indicate this but of course details coming out of China is often unreliable. 

Still China has one advantage we don't, lack of freedom.

China has a central Government which couldn't care  at all about individual freedom.  We have a Government that does and further we have a country divided into 50 states.

So yes they can build high speed rail on instant hospitals and by the way if they tell you to wear a mask and you don't they arrest you or at the least fine you.

Look at the pipeline from Canada that has been on again, off again as the politics change.  In China it would likely have been built already without concern for local populations or environmental issues.

Perhaps the price for freedom is some inefficiency.

Still seems better.

How Much Government

 One of the issue facing Republicans is how much Government do they really want.  As a party they have always officially wanted small Government but their actions indicate they don't understand this.

Take their position on Abortion, a major issue concerning their supporters.  Why should the Government be involved in decisions being made by individual women?  I suppose the argument is that it is akin to murder except of course that requires the Government to define the fetus as a person and that takes the Government down a rabbit hole it needs to stay our of.  They may argue it is a sin but of course their is the whole separation of church and state problem then.  

Take their position on numerous social issues as another example.  They want to regulate the internet because it is violating people first amendment rights.  It can't since the internet is not part of the Government.  Second, we had a law that required media to provide equal time which the Republicans tossed out.  By any standard we are talking cake and eating it to in those positions.

They rail against cancel culture which is in fact completely non Government by its nature.  How do they want the Government to act there?  Get involved or stay out of it?

The list goes on.  They are often pushing for more Government not less.  Of course they want to censor those stories as best they can.  

Party of No?

 There are curious things going on in Congress as Republicans seem ready to oppose everything, including their own bills as a strategy to maybe prove that they eren't the only ones who got nothing done

For instance there are a number of bills started under the last administration that were Republican initiatives.  Specifically controlling big tech and China.  These were major goals.

Now the Democrats are prepared to move those bils out of committee only to face staunch Republican opposition.  The motive seems to be "just say no".

This didn't work in the war on drugs and it won't work here.  The question is going to be on of accountability.

With the friendly propaganda media they will be able to get friendly air time to make their case.  That case seems to be to argue that the bills could be better.

Well couldn't everything?  There are plenty of common sense expressions about this behavior, throwing out the baby with the bathwater, don't sacrifice good for perfect, etc.

Either you want to pursue actions against big tech and China or you don't.  They want to oppose these bills as bad bills and still claim they want to do what the bills do.

Cake ownership while eating it comes to mind.

Immigration

 I get on-line surveys a lot and I give my opinion and then I like to see the results of everyone else.  Today I got one about the border crisis and I said it wasn't very concerning but almost everyone else thought it was.

I was wondering why and outside of the humanitarian aspect of the children, I can't say that I see any particular threat from the increase.  I realize the media has been playing it up, especially the right wing media, but besides that what is the issue?

I suppose that some believe the silly argument that if we can't enforce our borders, we aren't a real nation?  Well besides the fact that we do enforce our borders, who came up with that definition?  Up until fairly recently there was very little border enforcement in most of the world.  Even now in much of the world you can cross borders in remote regions fairly freely.  No one questions if these places are countries, Still, what impact would that have on most people?  

Are they coming here to take people's jobs?  There is no evidence for that, they tend to get jobs no one else wants.  Some right wing media says they are here to swing elections.  They can't vote and don't even try.  If they across the border they keep a low profile.

They aren't here because of our wonderful benefit packages.  Most of the countries they left provide universal health care and we don't  Because of their status they are reticent to get involved in any bureaucracy.

I'm not saying they don't present a bit of a problem, just not a very serious one.  They are the ones that have the serious problem, much like all the immigrants who ever came here over our history.

Money Talks

 What most people don't think about is how we as a country are unable to match other countries in the services we provide, either by cost or quality.  Our health system works for wealthy people but for everyone else it is mediocre at best.  Our social programs including old age pensions and unemployment insurance are well behind everyone else, in the industrialized world.

The one thing we are ahead in is our military might but if we could measure efficiency we wouldn't do well there either.  There are a lot of politics involved in where to put bases, what weapons to buy and where to station them.  

The real problem with our system is that politicians get involved too far into the business end.  In many countries they rely on professionals to run the departments.  Politicians set direction.

This is true at every level of Government in this country.  Treating people equally was one of our principles.  Now it seems to be you get what you can pay for.

His Tweets are Boring?

 One of the things I see a lot on TV is the apparent expectation that thepeople being questioned know everything and are simply refusing to tell us.  For example after the election there was a surge at the border of migrants and unaccompanied children. This has happened in prior years but this one seems to be larger.

The press demands to know why it happened and why we weren't better prepared to house the children?  I get a kick out of the Republicans who demand to know why the Biden Administration didn't make the prior administration build more adequate facilities and continued to use the existing inadequate ones.

Well his magic wand was probably at a repair shop.

It is amazing how in a relatively short time the administration has gone a long way towards controlling the virus, passing a covid19 relief bill and has started to address other pressing issues like infrastructure, climate change and gun control   It has also taken action to relieve conditions among the migrant children which is of course being attacked as too expensive.

Outside of the true believers most Americans are seeing this for what it is.  The polls reflect what should be obvious, they see Biden looking for real solutions and support the effort.  Stop the virus, fix the roads and bridges, improve the climate, and move the economy forward is a winning agenda for all of us.

Getting things done is important, obstructing progress isn't.

Simple enough.

Meaningless Issues

 One of the odd things that goes on in this country is that people get outraged over things that don't really matter.  For example look at the outrage many had over Hillary's use of a private e-mail server.  Nothing bad happened because of that and it was probably a perfectly reasonable solution, but even today the right wing media has a hissy fit about it.

Once it got raised the mainstream media felt the need to cover it also making a no issue into a significant issue indeed.  The fact that her aide's husband was a letch and had his laptop confiscated was maybe the final nail when duplicate e-mails were discovered on it.  

All about an issue that never had any potential downside.  Hillary was not a traitor nor did she traffic in children and her e-mails were generally simply a method to conduct business.  We are a gullible nation and what was probably a good faith effort by her attorneys to exclude personnel e-mails was depicted as an attempt to hide ...what?  The public never sees most e-mails in the first place and not seeing these changed nothing, except perhaps enough votes to matter.

So since and before the last election the right has been trying to find some meaningless issues to turn into  scandels.   They seem to have settled on Hunter Biden as a good line of attack but so far have failed to come up with anything.

Sure he got his job because of his name, not the first person, but there is no evidence it made a bit of difference not that his father was involved in anything.

I'm not even sure what the thing would be, but that doesn't matter to the right.  They just want negative headlines about nonsense with the a negative connotation and the Biden name attached.  It has been enough in the past.

Not Enough Options

 Whether we can pass the laws needed to move America forward is questionable at this point.  We will need a revival of bipartisanship or some special procedural actions.

Of course this is politics and the outcome depends on who can negotiate the ins and outs better.  Obstruction is easier and to defeat it you need a groundswell of public support.

Its a bit of a shame that we have become a two party system where both parties have taken control of funds for many candidates.  Yes candidates can appeal to an old constituency if they get well known, but most need central party support.

This tends to keep them in line.

Both parties have become "big tent" parties meaning that they have to accommodate quite dispartate views.  The majority of people in this country are really moderates.  There is no moderate party per se although right now the Democratic party seems closest.

In both parties, your desire for oe issue forces you to accept issues you don't like or want.  If you are anti Abortion, you would tend towards Republican and then be forced to support things like voter suppression, even if you never would personally.

 

So Far So...

 Since the election we are starting to see a lot of good things.

It is exactly opposite of the dire predictions made by the opposing candidate but in all honesty it is a bit too early to celebrate.

Still one of the problems with the opposition is their tendency to be dramatic so they predict immediate collapses.

The Stock Market, Jobs, Virus handling and even foreign affairs are all showing improvements.  There has been an influx of migrants at the border which has led to some issues, but whatever needs to be done can be funded with money from the wall.  There are no long term consequences from the current situatin although you would think based on right wing media it is a catastrophic event of some sort.

Will the stock market continue to rise?  It looks that way because of the influx of money and the reopening of the states.  

Jobs will return but many of the old jobs won't but new ones will take their place.  In the movie, the Graduate, the hero was advised that plastics was the wave of the future.  Now climate may be.

Some things are outside of our control.  For example an increase in volcanic activity could counteract some of the Greenhouse effect.  An asteroid hit could be in fact catastrophic.

For the things we can influence, it is looking good right now.

He Played Second Fiddle Well

 Prince Phillip died today and while it isn't really unexpected, it starts the start of a change in the British monarchy.

Why any American cares is a question but I guess we just have a connection to England that we don't have with any other country, although everything since the Louisiana Purchase was never part of their empire.

I don't know if this has been continuous since the revolution or if it has ebbed and flowed over the years.

Certainly some wealthy people clearly considered England part of their social world although not most of the country.

I looking back, the whole period was essentially dominated by Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth although there were other monarchs.

Well his death means almost nothing to me really but I sort of feel bad he didn't make it to 100.

His main claim to fame was he didn't cause much trouble, which in some ways is enough.

The Government

 When I think back to the years of my childhood, while I knew my family had some problems I never thought the country did.  I didn't know or think about racial equality, poverty, treatment of homosexuality, or poverty.  I think I took the words of the Superman show to heart, we stood for Truth, Justice, and the American way.

Yes of course there were criminals, in those days they seemed to be aprehended fairly easily in the shows on TV.  I guess it wasn't so easy in real life.

Thsi was of course a fantasy world and all the problems we have today existed then.  ome were much worse with open persecution of people of color and people of different sexual preferences.

Its almost impossible to compare the world where sodomy or unnatural sexual behavior would get you arrested in most states to today where we argue of what pronouns to use.

What we seem to have lost was the concept of "The American Way".  Is it a world where we have less and less Government or a world where a benign Government protects people and helps them achieve things like the right to vote, health care and old age security.

In the modern world I don't see that the first alternative can work and many of those championing it are tremendously dependent on the Government.  They just want it to help the "right" people.

Companies and Politics

 If I am buying a product what I am mostly interested in is product attributes, quality, price, etc.  In a capitalistic country there are often many or at least a few choices, so I generally eliminate those that cost too much and compare the rest.

I cant really say what other people do, but it turns into an elimination with one survivor.  Now sometimes I know I'm going to buy a particular product because maybe I had it before and it was really good.

Over the years on of the factors I consider is how the company impacts me or things I believe in.  For example if a company is know for employing oppressed child labor, I would eliminate their products.  Unfortunately this isn't as easy as it sounds because a lot of work is parceled out to subcontractors so individuals may or may not be able to tell easily.

It can also be tricky when you have competing elements.  Maybe the company is reducing its carbon footprint (good) but using child labor by contract (bad).

However, the one thing I know that matters to all of them is the money I spend.  So if the company is actively trying to subvert an election or supports candidates I consider bad or actually evil I can avoid their products.

Some call this cancel culture I call it choice.  They decided to use the money they earn to promote issues I consider bad or harmful.  So buying a product like "My Pillow" would effectively be endorsing that man's ridiculous claims.

I actually agree with Mitch McConnel in part on this, Corporations should stay out of politics.  Of course he still wants them to donate millions of dollars to his candidates, he just doesn't want them objecting to things like racism.

Its all or nothing Mitch.

Just Confuse Then Enough

 Free and hones elections is a worthwhile goal.  The fact that we have achieved it mostly is a victory.

In some states the achievement was helped by the pandemic which forced some states to make voting easier in response.

While the impact of this was a bit unclear politically, it did not result in any particular irregularities although there were many attempts to find some.  Every potential instance of an irregularity was pointed out even if it didn't make sense and further wouldn't have changed anything.

In some cases ballots were mailed to old addresses because the voter had not updated the information in the system.  Whether this resulted in any of those ballots being cast fraudulently is unknown but very unlikely.  Many of them were returned as undeliverable, the reason we know about the issue.  Now people not updating systems with a change of address and the post office returning undeliverable ballots is not voter fraud, its simply life. 

One researcher in Wisconsin got permission to do his own audit.  It seems he found about 6000 absentee ballots that did not have their corresponding envelope with them.  OK, but we know they arrived and the ballot was clearly counted correctly.  Outside envelopes are supposed to be signed and checked as eligible before it is opened and these likely were.  Why the envelopes got separated is unknown.  Not fraud or anything even close.

Lets discuss a simple fact that came out in a backhanded way.  Many minority voters are not particularly good at following complex instructions.  Some of this is because they received lower than average educations or because they simply don't like red tape.  Making the process to vote more complex will cause more of their ballots to be thrown out.  Yes it will also have an impact on some white voters but it will be disproportionate.  

Maybe just enough to win a close election.

Do They Have Any Policies?

I belong to a site that allows people to ask questions and have them answered by "experts".  I don't mean to imply that they are not all experts, but some of the answers are from people who have credentials but little obvious expertise.

We ten to credit people who have certain degree with a level of expertise that may or may not be warranted.  It does mean they went through a process to get that degree  and they deserve credit for that.  

What strikes me about a lot of historical questions is haw the people asking them and the ones answering them seem to think ancient people had access to knowledge they couldn't have know or would have cared.

One such example concerned what we have come to call the Byzantine Empire which was the survivor of the Roman Empire and continued for a thousand years after the fall of Rome.  While it was fairly cultured, the vast majority of people living there were not worried about whether they were Romans or something else.  It would most likely never come up as they struggled to survive the daily grind.

Even not most people have little concern for things outside their relatively small orbit.  The news is full of things like the Mars rover or a coup in Asia but most people don't really care.  Right now they want to avoid the virus and get their life back to normal.

Some politicians recognize this, all politics are local, and can connect with the people. Others, Hillary Clinton comes to mind, are brilliant but don't have that connection.  

Joe Biden is connecting with the people and because he is his popularity is likely to grow.  Sure he has issues to address but he is doing that in a real way.  

Republicans continue trying to fight the last war but so far it isn't resonating.  Maybe it because the messenger was the message?

Abortion, not Just a Moral Issue

 Most Americans are very ambivalent about Abortion and women even more so.  For them it is a very personal and painful decision they may have to make.  No one is planning their future activities around having an abortion until you are faced with that decision.  And it is a life altering one, certainly if you don't have one and potentially even if you do.

The issue is primarily about how you see the fetus/baby that is alive in their body.  Men can share the philosophical and family repercussions but they cannot share the physical and emotional bonds that form.

Still whether you think abortion should be allowed is quite dependent on how you view the new life, as a fetus or as a baby.

Scientifically and legally it is not a baby (legal person) until it is born and has an independent existence.  Changing that is the goal of some anti-Abortion activists.

If the fetus gets defined as a baby it creates some complicated situations and tricky legal gymnastics.  What does the mother's obligation become pre-birth?  If that is a person it would be entitled to legal protections and some legal rights.  At what point does it become a dependent?  What is you engage in behavior or lack of behavior that is harmful to it?  

Most consider this path too intrusive on the woman who could face potential serious legal problems.  Suppose the grown child sues the Mother for damages because of an activity she did that cause it damage?  I guarantee lawyers could be found to pursue such a case.

At this time the states do not accept an obligation to protect or support the fetus/child before birth.  If we mandate a pregnancy what sort of support should be provided?  Can the mother be forced to raise the child she didn't want?

People Need Better Info.

 We live in a world where people draw conclusion before they know the facts.  Anything Trump did was either bad or good depending on your party.  It didn't matter what the facts were only what your party wanted you to believe.

Now that is pretty wide sweeping and it isn't true about everyone but it seemed to be true for far too many.

Now the more outlandish claims seem to come from the Republicans but I'm sure they disagree.  The facts don't support the claims of massive voter fraud but many still believe that's only a cover up.  Its hard to match the outlandish claims with anything from the Democrats unless of course you believe the Republican stuff in which case the Democrats would be the outlandish ones.

We also live in an age where a rumor, despite being untrue, can go viral and ruin a person or at lest their career. In 2016 Hillary Clinton had a distinguished career, tremendous achievements and addressed the issues sanely.  However her unfavourability ratings were close to her opponent's who was a promiscuous, scandal plagued reality TV star. 

This was because of the rumors spread by right wing media about her.  

Its up to the American people to make up their minds based on fatual data or the system produces bad results.  Before you accept claims try to verify them.

It might be surprising and the system will get better.

Factions Don't Compromise

There is a lot of discussion about being bi-partisan and what that means. It requires compromise and for compromise to work both sides have to be willing to agree.

Since at least the Obama administration we have seen an inability to gain votes on the other side no matter what you offer.  Take the Affordable Care Act.  Despite many concessions to Republican concerns not one Republican voted for it.  

Nothing bi-partisan will happen if both sides come to the table with all or nothing demands.  

That is not to say that the other sides positions are ignored. To the extent they represent the will of the people they get incorporated.  The latest recovery act is very popular with Americans who know they stand to gain from it and beat back the virus.  Not a single Republican vote was gained because they demanded that the bill be reduced to an unacceptable number.

Similarly on infrastructure, paying for it requires some rollback of the tax relief from the 2017 act.  I don't want to argue whether that law helped or hindered but if the position is that any adjustment is a deal killer bi-partisanship is gone. 

The American people may see things differently.

Stay Vigilant

 I generally find it interesting that one argument I have seen by Trumpsters is that 74 million American wouldn't have voted for him.  Of course they believe 80 million Americans voted for a senile, sex abuser who is controlled by the radical left among others.

I guess they dispute that 80 million American voted for him since this conspiracy controls that process and could elect anyone they want.

Why they don't use that power more is the question.

It adds some weight to the argument made by some that Democracy doesn't work because the people can't be trusted.  Of course it has some weight and the choice you have to make is to hope it will make the right decision.

Democracies in the Ancient world are pretty rare, they tend to fall prey to internal or external threats.  Athens Greece is sometimes held up as the home of Democracy but Democracy there made it a strong City State until it led to disaster.

Its a complex story but they fell under the influence of a Charismatic politician who convinced them to disastrously attack a city in Sicily.  It didn't go well and weakened them so much that there real enemy was finally able to defeat them.

The other great ancient Democracy Rome did better in many ways but eventually also fell to charisma and autocracy.

Will modern democracies do any better?  Hard to say but we just had a scare in this county.

The odds are against us but we survived that one.

Stay vigilent.