Make Voting Easier

Voting is not supposed to be difficult or complicated.  Since it is fundamental to our system of democracy we need to make it as simple as possible for our citizens.

Voting in person has been the traditional method but as times have changed it has become less available to many who have to work that day or have to contend with less polling places and longer lines.

We now have a infectious disease that might kill you further complicating the issue.

Voting by mail has become more available and is widely used.  Despite some unfounded allegations there is almost no evidence of fraudulent voting in the process.

There is more chance of legitimate votes being rejected than fraudulent ones getting counted.

There was a case in Patterson NJ, widely cited by some that was supposed to show voter fraud.  Some irregularities were present but many of those represented technical deficiencies, not fraud.  Some to the ballots might have been filled out by a particular campaign but they deny it and those ballots were not counted.

Most of the other rejected ballots were simply not filled out correctly, hardly fraud and they didn't get counted.

To improve access and encourage voting, its time for this country to introduce on-line voting with appropriate safeguard.  Some of you will immediately imagine hacking and fraud but we can clearly create a secure system.

It would add another method to let our citizens vote and improve our democracy.

Some really don't want that hoping to restrict voting to just the right people.

Suppressing votes is the real issue in this country, not voter fraud.

Real Choice

Throughout History Government has varied from serving the interests of a few to serving the interests of the many.

Sometimes the first type is violently overthrown, i.e. the French Revolution.

You would think it would be easy to tell the difference but not always.

Is our current Government serving the interests of the many or just the few?

A few recent candidates have maintained that the big corporations have bought the Government and actually run things.

Considering the role of money in getting elected they may have a valid point.

Everyone running for office claims to represent all of their constituents while clearly some do not..

Lets be clear, we have elections and to some extent we are a Democracy.

Not a pure one, but rather a representative democracy where some votes count more than others.

The question everyone should ask themselves is what kind of democracy they want?

One in which a minority can impose their will on the majority or a true one?

Consider that you may in fact be part of a minority now or in the near future.  However, if we ignore superficial qualities such as skin color, national origin, religion, income level, etc. we can join a majority of fair minded people who support the greatest good for the greatest number.

Its a choice we all have to make.

Its Not A Revolution, Its Democracy

We just saw a resurgence of what I consider common sense prevail on Super Tuesday.

One of the problems with many revolutions, if not all of them, is that the organizers are totally convinced about the righteousness of their beliefs.

That's not to say they aren't addressing real issues, but in revolution after revolution, you see overreaction if successful.

Its sort of like a religious fervor where everyone who disagrees with you is in fact the enemy.

Of course this behavior often ends up in a Dictatorship where dissent is simply not allowed.

That is not to say that there weren't or aren't real issues that need to be fixed, but if you look at how Russia dealt with its pre-war inequality, the results were pretty bleak for many people, most of whom were not evil.

Yes we need to deal with Climate Change but we need to reach a solution that is doable and aggressive.  If your opinion is its our way or the highway, I think you need to calm down.  Fight for the solutions you want but accept that you might have to accept some compromise, or lost the chance at any progress.

Similarly we need to provide health care to all but there is more than one approach.  Medicare is a wonderful program but it certainly isn't perfect.  If you have decided capitalism is evil, you might want to reconsider the country you inhabit.

Every issue requires a solution that is acceptable to the majority of Americans.  Its what we call democracy.  If you think they don't understand, educate don't berate.

If you believe in progressive values I hope you learned the lesson of 2016.  If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

At least for Politics.

We, the People

There are some fundamental issues in America that should be fixed.  This is not to say that the country isn't great in many respects but if the idea of a country is to represent its people and do the most good it can we have some issues.

Some of the issues stem from a different objective, to prevent the tyranny of the many and preserve individual rights.  Those two ideals are not actually in conflict but in some cases we need to understand the conflict.

For example two current issues represent this, Abortion and Gun Ownership.  Abortion has significant religious involvement but the simple fact is that people who oppose it are trying to impose their will on others.  Pro choice people have no interest in making anyone have an abortion, simply that they are free to do so.  In a case like this we should protect the individual and not force specific behavior on them.  If the argument is that the unborn have rights, well not in any real sense.  Its still true that those who hold such a belief are trying to impose it on others which they just don't have a right to do so.  Gun rights has the same issue.  No one who supports gun rights generally demands that other get guns.  I'm not sure anyone is trying to take guns away despite NRA propaganda but in the same way we regulate things like automobiles, we should also regulate guns.  However the fundamental right to own them is

Protecting these rights are not the real issue.  The real issue is that democracy requires that the will of the people be heard.  Something that was built into our constitution to protect slavery continues and has in fact become worse.  The idea that the country is a group of states, instead of a democracy.

No matter where you live or what you believe, as an American you should have an equal say in the policies of this country.  That simply isn't true in this country.  People in low population states have a bigger impact than people in high population states.

There are numerous ways to fix this but under the current system any fixes can be blocked by the same states that benefit from the inequality.

 Unfortunately we can see that self interest is in charge and democratic ideals get ignored.

We the people shouldn't stand for it.

Being a Democracy

As much as the founders and the constitution were impressive for their time we need to realize that their world view was dated.

For example, while we have noble words about how our Government is one of the people, the people who got to participate were generally free, white and male.

Everyone else was excluded.

In fact in our early years there were also restrictions concerning property ownership,

The words in the constitution have been interpreted differently over the years.  For example we have reinterpreted the second amendment expanding its meaning well beyond the Militia requirement.  

In other areas we have expanded the constitutional rights to include states and the laws they pass.

One area where we have strayed significantly from its intent is in the form of Government.  A strict reading of the Constitution clearly gives the Congress the power to govern and the President the power to manage.  There has been a shift since the pre-civil war days increasing the powers of the presidency and therefore decreasing the powers of the Congress.

This creates a bit of a problem in the sense that the President is not elected based on popular vote.  The electoral college and the Senate were designed to prevent the rabble from taking over the Government.  

If you consider two states, California and Wyoming, you see the disparity.  In California a senator represents about 40 million people while in Wyoming its about 500 thousand or 1/80th.  

The electoral college is not as bad but still unrepresentative.

Now one might argue that this protects small states from big ones, but it allows the smaller ones to exercise power based on geography, not demographics.

If we want to be a democracy we need to address this situation. Of course the situation itself prevents us from addressing it as the low population states can block any reform.   

Democracy Hi-Jacked

We have been witnessing a coup in this country which has undercut the will of the people.

It was done cleverly and legally, but the result is the same.

Its success is such that undoing it may take years, if it can ever be undone.

Realizing the importance of state legislatures in defining the framework of districts allowed the Republican party to win control in 11 additional states.

This resulted in the results of the 2010 census and the redistricting that took place to establish large number of "safe" republican districts.

They used complex computer models to devise districts that concentrated "Democratic" voters in a few districts while maintaining safe "Republican" majorities in a majority.

So a state might actually have a majority of its population vote for one party but see the House and State legislature won by the minority party.

Yes to some extent Gerrymandering has gone on for ever in this country, but now it has become scientifically aided.

Two things need to happen.  State legislative sears need to be focused on and we need a better way to design districts.

Democracy is a wonderful system if it is allowed to work.

One Nation?

I don't know but it certainly seemed like this Independence day was a bit of a bust.

We had tanks and fly over in Washington, but it certainly seemed more like a campaign rally than a celebration of America.

The fact that the dontard doesn't seem to have a grasp of history or pretty much anything doesn't help.

We used to get to celebrate America at lest once a year without all these politics.

However at times we still seem to be replaying the last election since thy dontard can't stop talking about Obama.

Its only going to get worse as we get closer to the next election.

The country is going to need a while to recover from the last decade.

It has to start at the state level where the principle of one person one vote needs to be restored instead of trying to fix districts so certain votes count much more.

It was a successful strategy is you consider undermining democracy a goal to maintain power in the right hands.

Democracy Should be Rule of the Prople!

The good news is that no matter how absurd things get in our Government, most things simply continue as always.

Things obviously change, we all have cell phones now, but the basic pattern of our lives doesn't.

Clearly what happens in the various forms of Government matters.

It just doesn't normally have an immediate impact.

It makes it easy to ignore for most of us and also easy to complain about.

One of the things that causes the Government to be dysfunctional is that our system allows small but fervent factions to have undo influence.

If you consider our primary system, it is supposedly more democratic than when the party decided who should represent it, but now, because so few actually bother to vote, you see it becoming less representative for most of us.

You also see games played in primaries as some allow open or crossover voting.

Shouldn't the candidates represent the actual party they run under?

We've developed a system where the primary voting is often more important than the actual elections.

We need a system of universal voting if we really want a democracy that represents us.

It might be difficult to implement, but its time to make sure our democracy is actually real and not one that can be stolen.

Republic or Democracy

There are people, and some of our founding fathers were among them, who consider the average person untrustworthy.

If you allowed "the mob" to rule, they would be both unpredictable and probably attack the privileged property owners.

The constitution as originally written included a number of protections, certain restriction on who could vote (most of those have been eliminated) the Senate and the Electoral college.

The Senate was originally envisioned as respected property owners selected by each State's legislators to provide a check on the House, elected by the populace.

In addition they came up with the Electoral College, an indirect way to select the President, hoping to prevent a demagogue from swaying the masses and taking over.

Senators are now still apportioned evenly, 2 to State, but in those States they are elected via popular vote.  They therefore still represent a check on the Government protecting the interests of smaller states.

The Electoral college is still in existence and because of that we have now in a number of cases had a President who did not receive the most popular votes.

Is this desirable?  Well it doesn't represent the will of the people but it does allow a well organized minority party to manipulate the system (legally) and win an office they couldn't win in a popular election.

It has now become a political issue which is opposed by a majority of Americans.

Naturally we are seeing all sort of self interested arguments effectively repeating the insulting mantra that the "mob" cannot be trusted.

The Oligarchs  making that argument are much more untrustworthy than the average person, they have been manipulating the system since the nation was founded.

May we should opt for real democracy?

Another Election

Tomorrow is election day although millions have already voted in early voting in the states the allow it.

The good news is the the electoral college is not a factor,

The bad news is that the gerrymandered congressional districts are a factor, although probably not enough of one to stop the House from changing.

The Senate was very unfavorable this year since most of the seats up for election were held by democrats and the odds of holding all of them and picking up two more was a difficult task.

Still it all depends on who turns out to vote and it looks like we will have a very high turnout for a midterm election.

Of course that is still going to be a pretty low percentage if you think about it of everyone who could or should vote.

Voting should be convenient and easy for citizens who want to exercise their fundamental right.

We have certain interests who prefer some people not vote so we throw up impediments.

The idea that we have any significant voter fraud has been debunked over and over but some still use it to put up restrictions aimed at certain minorities.

Democracy is dependent on the will of all the people, not just some of them.

The really good news is that so far we in America still respect the rule of law and accept the results.

The last time some didn't in 1860 it didn't go very well.

Vote and move America forward.

Troubled Democracy

We now live in a world where every fact seems to be viewed from a purely political viewpoint.

That is a bit of an exaggeration, maybe, it just seems that way.

When the rising temperature of the earth as measured by many organizations around the world becomes a political debate, we need to demand some sort of common sense.

Its not OK for black to be called white or up to be called down.

We are seeing a bit of a fight over some memos written by the FBI director.

The memo's are consistent with what we already knew and aren't really of much significance, although they provide a bit of a distraction for a time.

There are ongoing investigations over potential criminal and other activities that will eventually come to an end, but it is already guaranteed that there will be no agreement on the facts, which will be viewed politically.

Of course some will plead guilty, others will be found guilty and some will be exonerated.

In each case, there will be allegations of political influence, and those allegations will live on since we are no longer able to let these things play out in our system of justice.

Investigations that have ended are brought up again because the outcome wasn't what some wanted.

Allegations that have no basis in law are made by people who should at least try to know what they are talking about.

Of course it isn't going to end, in fact it seems to get worse.

It is unfortunately a symptom that our democracy is troubled when the institutions that should be respected become viewed as purely partisan political forums which serve no purpose.

History has many examples, we should pay attention.

Democracy

We saw the ex-director of the FBI describe the current president of the United States as a liar who is morally unfit to be president and most of us said to ourselves, so?

The general attitude towards politicians in general and this one in particular is already so bad that a day in which there isn't an outright scandal is probably a good one.

Not sure if there is anything that politicians can do in the short term, but in the long term we need more regular people and less professional politicians in office.

I don't favor term limits but people should vote in new people who better represent the real world.

One of the factors that helped the dontard was that his opponent was viewed as part of the Washington establishment and he wasn't.

True, but he was a corrupt business and media person who represented the worst of both worlds.

In this country people often decide to be politicians as a career and work their way into office only to stay there unless they can move higher.

This isn't that different than what people do in regular careers except they are supposed to represent the people who vote for them, not cater to donors and special interests.

The way candidates are selected and the campaigns run strongly favor insiders, even if the insiders aren't crooked.

Insiders don't know what the people really are going through and who they hear from normally represent specific constituencies without much contact with the world most of us inhabit.

I think that with modern technology we would be better off if we could have more referendums, but I also realize that most people wouldn't know or care about the details of many important issues.

The solution of course is to have involved citizens who participate and vote.

Simple enough, but its been that way a long time.

Next Election

We will see if in the next election the movements get out the vote.

Its actually hard to say what republicans have going for them at this point.

If you are n favor of smarter gun regulations you should vote democratic.

If you want to promote the rights of women to earn equal pay and not be harassed in the workplace you should vote democratic (yes some democrats were also harassers)

If you want to promote equality for people who have different sexual orientations you should vote democratic.

If you want to treat immigrant fairly and with respect, while of course enforcing reasonable immigration laws you should vote democratic.

If you want to make sure all Americans have access to affordable health care, vote democratic.

If you want to protect the environment and slow the impact of climate change, vote democratic.

If you want trade policies that really do put the American people first while offering our industries a fair chance to compete, vote democratic.

If you want to protect and improve our public schools instead of trying to privatize them, vote democratic.

If you want to see our drug laws reflect the world we live in and not the tactics of Asian dictators, vote democratic.

If you want to control foreign attacks on our system and protect our democracy, vote democratic.

The list goes on.

Republicans are generally on the wrong side of history for these issues while promoting an agenda (not actions) promoting smaller government and family values.

Look at what they actually do and decide.

Voting

Maybe one good thing may come out of the current divisiveness in our society and politics, more voter participation.

In the Texas primaries this week we saw a couple of things, but maybe the most impressive were the record turnout in both parties.

The worst thing is the apathy we see so much of. It has allowed fringe candidates more opportunity to impact results but also allows the political machines to have undue influence.

Those two things may seem contradictory but most of the time apathy allows the primaries to be dominated by the party regulars.

The exception to that is when a fringe candidate energizes a base and defeats them.

In neither case is the public well represented.

Participation is the only way to get our Government to reflect our shared goals and ideals, as least our majority ones.

We are all concerned about the same things and our Government should be focused on the right ones, not these hot button issues that appease a strong lobby.

Voting is the cure to a lot of things wrong with this country.

Its something we all can do.

Our Democracy in Trouble

One of the things about politics is that it is really a popularity contest in a democratic society.

This is one of the reasons ancient democracies tended to fail.

Promises made to the masses were more persuasive than smart choices.

For example, common sense would tell you that a rich country like ours shouldn't be running the deficit it is, especially when the economy is doing well.

However getting elected on a platform of austerity is pretty unlikely so we have tax cuts and increased spending.

This has always been the way and ultimately in the ancient world, bad leadership voted in by the mob eventually led to situations requiring a strong man to resolve.

So watching our current situation makes you wonder is our democracy doomed?

Probably, just when is the question?

We are starting to see the trappings of megalomania at the top as large rallies and desired military parades become the norm.

Of course the dotard is not talented or liked enough to pull off a coup.

However, he may have set a trend.

It isn't likely to happen very soon, but as Government becomes more inept and corrupt and the economy starts to crumble, we may very well be clamoring for a savior.

It is certainly possible.

Protect Freedom

The one thing a government needs to do is to protect its citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic.

This is enshrined in our constitution and in the oaths of office.

It is clear then that if a foreign power is trying to subvert our republic, every government official, including the president is oath bound to defend us.

So since we have conclusive evidence of such behavior we should have pretty universal condemnation and action to prevent and stop it.

It's not universal.

When you look at the history of colonization, you find a tactic that was used in many parts of the world with a lot of success.

You find a faction that is not quite strong enough to seize power and you help them in return for certain commitments.  This makes them to some extent your puppet and as your exclusive rights grow and your influence increases, the government becomes more and more dependent on your support to continue.

It is something that works for the puppet rulers and the colonial power, but not so much for the inhabitants who are deprived of economic and political freedom over time.

This attack on our freedoms is what is dangerous and it is being attacked by both foreign and domestic sources.  Business is often more interested in a puppet regime, it is simply easier to deal with, or bribe.

The people need to be aware of the danger and demand that our elected officials honor their pledge of office, or replace them.

Election Day Thoughts

We live in an age where communications are beyond anything our forefathers could have imagined.

In their day, even with just the East Coast States it took time to travel to the nation's capital and consider issues important to their constituents.

Of curse the constituents who got represented were usually the ones that had an in, either because they had money or were organized, which brings us to the flaw in our representational system of Government.

Who do the monkeys represent?

Many of the founding fathers, being generally landed and wealthy by the standards of the time, had very little use for the "common" man.

They were considered to be of little intellectual capacity and unlikely to be capable of making important decisions.

Real democracy was neither possible nor desirable.

It is now.

Maybe we should try it.

We can certainly use  modern technology to give people a greater say in the decisions being made.

Currently a lot of the monkeys look at polls to see what the people want, but why not just ask them?

Why Not Issues instead of an Agenda

We like to categorize everybody and label them.  Once we do that we assume they support the appropriate agenda.

So Democrat or Republican you become bedfellows with people you don't really agree with.

Now a lot of Americans now declare themselves as independent, which is fine, except in elections they are still faced with picking one of the agendas if they want to vote.  Even worse, they likely didn't have a chance to vote in a primary to help select the agenda.

Now party platforms are a bit of a tradition but because you want to reduce the national debt doesn't mean you are against gay marriage.

The two things are unrelated and lumping these things together in an agenda is a problem.

In an election that was decided by our quirky electoral system, we elected a man with a history of certain liberal leanings who was viewed as a jobs president.

Now a lot of people who voted for him likely had to hold their nose while doing so, but he catered to the anti abortion folks and pro gun folks as well as the out of work blue collar guys with a sprinkling of racists, bigot and then some business people to grab a few swing states.

Now this group is certainly not cohesive and generally aren't all going to the same parties.

Yet they sort of compose the Republican party.

Now, by pretty much any measure you can devise, I'm very liberal, especially when it comes to individual lifestyles.  You want to get married, I don't care who it is, although human is preferable.

You practice an odd religion or no religion at all, not my business.

You speak a different language than I do, hell not my concern.

You want to own a gun, fine, but I do think there should be a few restrictions on where you carry it, hell even in the old westerns they did that.

Now I however do think that we could use a stronger economy and more jobs and a better tax system, although I don't know if I like any of the current proposals.

Defense is important but it has to be the right defense, that actually protects us and our allies, not just a lot more of things we don't need.

Health care should be something that everyone gets when they need it, period.

Immigration?  We are a country of immigrants but we do need to keep out known criminals and terrorists.  Otherwise they help build our country greater.

Now as far as songs and symbols, they don't mean much to me and whether you stand sit or do flips is sort of irrelevant.  How a person behaves, obey the laws, do their part, pay their taxes sort of buys them the right to do stupid things if they want.

Now I sort of think a lot of Americans are in line with most of this, but we are sort of forced to accept things we don't like to get something we do like.

Why not have binding plebiscites?  Let our idiots in Washington debate these things and then put a proposal on the ballot that people can vote yay or nay?

Guess it would cut down on the lobbying contributions but otherwise, why not?

One Country

Well think we have achieve a level of divisiveness now that is unprecedented, at least in this country.

The main responsibility for this would be the president who despite talking about uniting the country has engaged in a series of petty tweets and attacks.

This is troublesome not because it is amateurish and childish, which it is, but because as the sides become more antagonistic it leads to escalation which can in the end threaten our very democracy.

Don't say it can't happen here, there is nothing about us that is different than everywhere else throughout history it has happened.

When the opposition is considered so vile and so beyond approach, well then everything goes.

The general belief that everyone is working for the common interest goes away and political opponents become the enemy who must be stopped.

It no longer becomes an issue about different approaches to common goals, the goals themselves are in question.

How to secure the nation becomes not just a discussion about the best approach but an attack on one side or the other as traitors.  We saw this with McCarthyism. 

We have started to fall into the world of propaganda and we see lies repeated over and over again as the "real" truth.

We see a loss of faith in our institutions, and a distrust of public officials.

When democracy is considered to have failed, the alternative is never good.

The first thing that we need to protect is our society and form of government.

Fight hard over the issues, but realize we are still a single nation that needs to continue our great traditions.

Football's a Game, Politics is Real

Most Americans like football and the fall and football go together.  Its a bit of a dangerous game with the health consequences becoming more known, but it still provides a game with strategy, raw strength but also plays that require split second timing and tremendous talent to execute.

If you ever played the game on any level on a crisp autumn afternoon, the lessons it teaches include a lot of things we use, from wearing down your opponent to tricking them.

It contrasts with baseball in that it rewards size and strength and direct confrontations in a way that baseball doesn't.  Baseball has more of an intellectual aspect to it while football is controlled by the people in the trenches.  While these positions have a lot of skill involve and techniques, they look pretty much like big guys trying to knock each other down.  They enable the skill players to excel or fail by how well they do their job.

At the end of a football game, both sides can shake hands and go about their business preparing for the next opponent.  The crowd has victory or defeat to discuss and goes home generally unscathed.

Politics on the other hand is serious business.

The result can have a profound impact on peoples lives.

When the Nazis won in 1933 Germany, not many would have predicted the consequences.

That is a bit of an extreme example, but each election impacts us, and in our case the world we live in.

Presidents and congress send young men off to fight, they determine how to spend our tax money, they have a profound influence on the stock market.

Unfortunately, we live in an age where I see many people treating politics as a game, thinking nothing is going to change anyway so I'll vote for this outrageous candidate because I can.

Well things do change.

Wars happen.

Young men die.

Economies collapse.

You may not think your vote matters, but it does and you should really make sure you use it wisely.

It is the greatest benefit of being part of a free society we have.

Use it wisely, it will impact your future.