The Nation's Soul

Politics for the most part used to be pretty simple, who was likely to make our lives better was the better choice.

This was primarily measured in economic terms since for the most part we agreed on some fundamental social policies.  Not everyone, but the mainstream believed in most of the same values, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Not universally but enough that we didn't see those values questioned openly.

A number of years ago, theories that used to be associated with fringe groups started going mainstream.

This coincided with the advent of cable and the internet, which allowed many more avenues for these theories to be publicized.

Whether it was simply an internal expansion or one fueled by external enemies trying to disrupt our society is something for the historians, but we started to see an us vs them set of values.

In fact one side was quick to argue that our values were under attack by forces and that "true" Americans had to stand up to those who wanted to destroy religion, patriotism, and ultimately America.

Many incidents, either real or imagined were highlighted to show how school prayer, gun rights, the Flag, and innocent unborn were under attack by mysterious forces.

Villains were identified, the liberal elite, the illegal immigrants, socialists, progressives and all those who didn't "fit" into their image of an American.

Our national soul was put in question.  As a nation of immigrants we once celebrated out differences, at least some of us did.  Now we started taking sides.

We need to restore our values and our national soul, however it doesn't seem like an easy task.  The first step would be to reject anyone promoting hate and an us vs them agenda.

All Americans and all people should enjoy our American values, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  How they do that is not cookie cutter, its what they want.

Values

People are different but we tend to view others the way we are ourselves.

This causes us to judge their behavior using our internal values and not theirs.

Everyone's world view is shaped by their experiences.

Certain values may be common, but even then they may be less common than they seem.

The more different the experiences, the less common the values.

Of course many of us have the same general experiences based on shared experiences.

F Scott Fitzgerald noted in the Great Gatsby that the rich are different.  They grow up in a world where they can have anything they want and other people are always trying to help them.

This is not what most of us experience.

On the other hand we have a whole bunch of people who are viewed suspiciously simply because or the color of their skin.  

The first group is just not able to truly understand the second.

Real Americans

Its a phrase you hear from certain politicians a lot, real Americans, and what they want.

Usually they conjure up an image of older white Americans who they claim espouse conservative values.

Obviously some of them do but many others do not.

Its also true that these same baby boomers are children of the 60s who set the course of this nation towards what it has become.

More sexual freedom for everybody.

More legalized marijuana.

More equality between the races, although hardly perfect.

A greater acceptance of religions and diversity.

So who are these real Americans?

They do exist but are hardly a majority of us.

They do tend to vote more and hold on to certain values that aren't the norm anymore.

Real America is much more than that.

It is all of us.

CPAC?

There was a time when CPAC was dominated by literate, intelligent people who argued the rightness of their conservative philosophy citing the constitution and the founding fathers.

It is now more of a joke.

We have the chief clown coming out and hugging the American flag as is he loves it.

He didn't love it enough to serve in a war.

As a con man he like to play to the crowd and as a snake oil salesman he simply lies about how great his product (in this case him) is.

What is interesting is that the principled conservatives have descended into a crowd of true believers, believing things that they argued against for many years.

Free trade was one of their core principles, when they had some.

Massive deficits and debt were never something they supported.

Cozying up to dictators was never one of their core values.

I don't know if the audience is different now or if the attendees have just decided to enjoy the circus while it lasts.

What Values

There are some issues in this country which are so dependent on individual belief systems that we are unlikely ever to come to a common national position.

Take an issue like guns and safety.  If you believe that the right to own a gun is more important than the right to be safe, than we have a significant and possibly unbridgeable abyss.

Of course those who support gun ownership tend to argue that guns make you safe, although clearly this isn't supported by the many statistics on gun violence.

There are obviously other weapons available but guns are unique in many ways.

Responsible gun owners are not the problem and this isn't about that specific issue.

A similar issue is abortion.  If you consider it murder you will never accept it.  If you consider it as simply another form of birth control, you will never understand the other sides position.

One of the phenomena's of the modern era is that in many cases truth is now relative.

For most of history societies excepted that there was a single authority who dictated what was right or wrong for everybody and questioning that authority was heretical and severely punished.

We now live in a world where we are our own authority or can choose one based on our personal predilections.

This creates a climate and a system where there is no clearly defined truth, where many believe what they want to.

Of course some still cling to the belief systems they were raised with, although even many of them have changed during their lifetime based on a personal event or crisis.

Without a central authority everything can be questioned, even those things that seem indisputable to many.

If a fundamental issue such as the existence of God is in question, what isn't?

What are the core beliefs of a society?  Who defines them?

The freedom to be who you want to be can be liberating, but it is also terrifying.

Our society and values are in many ways in flux and the new authority is probably the court of public opinion, which unfortunately has trouble making up it mind.

Or it jumps to conclusions.

Conservative Values?

If you are in favor of armed murderers using assault weapons, people going without adequate health care, increased Government spending while lowering Corporate taxes, restricting a women's control over her own body, opposing equal rights for people who have different sexual orientations, closing the borders and trying to deter people who don't agree with you from voting, I guess you call yourself a conservative.

Conservative is a term that represents someone who is generally opposed to change.  At least that's what it meant at one time.

Now it has taken on a certain radical approach where it wants to make many changes, or as they might think of it, a lot or undoing changes, to make America into something it never was, a bigoted white enclave.

Yes, the founders of this country were in most cases "white", ignoring the slaves they imported, but they weren't all the same.  You had your New Englanders, originally Pilgrims who had morphed into whalers and traders as well as farmers.  Of course New York had the remnants of its Dutch Farmers and in Pennsylvania you had your Quakers.

Delaware had its Swedish heritage and Maryland was a Catholic refuge and Virginia and the Carolina's were peopled by English émigrés who left for various reasons.  Georgia was originally a prison colony.

Much of the interior was still held by the French or Spanish and of course we had the Native Americans.

This was not an America that was terribly united but in general we tolerated our differences, at least until the Civil War.

The immigrants who came here for the first few hundred years simply had to get here, we didn't have a lot of restrictions,

This was a radical country that stood for opportunity and freedom, not narrow mindedness and hate.

We need to remember our roots and keep the American dream alive.

The real American dream, the land of opportunity that welcomes immigrants and promotes freedom

The real America has always been a diverse nation and it has made us a great one.

Let's keep it that way.

No Promises

Sometimes I can't for the life of me understand what America some people live in.  Now the country is far from perfect but in general most of us have a reasonably nice life.

Yes, for some it was better when manufacturing was less automated and more domestic and many low paying jobs have been eliminated due to automation, but most of us have jobs, even if they aren't as good as we would like.

Now being unhappy in your job is nothing new but some folks seem to think there was a golden age when everybody was just happy.

That never existed, and the images from TV were made up.  We talk about the greatest generation but those people dealt with the depression and World War 2.  Some remember that war as a time when Americans came together, and maybe it was except they were fighting and dying in Europe and Islands in the Pacific while millions of people died in concentration camps.

Not really a golden age.

The 50s were noted by the fact that America was in a unique place because many of our industrial rivals had been devastated but we had Korea and the constant threat of Nuclear devastation as we watched communism advance in parts of the world.

We also had Jim Crow and the oppression of a part of our population simply because of the color of their skin, a problem not yet gone.

We had dangerous pollutants being used on our food and poisoning our waterways.

Yes for many of us, primarily because we were young, life seemed simple and there was a promise that if we didn't do anything really bad we would get a good paying job and live a middle class life.

Well there never was such a promise, life is complicated and you have to do what needs to be done.

Technology has transformed the world, for the better, and we have lots of rivals in the world market.

If you thought you could spend you life getting paid for something a machine could do just as well, you were mistaken.

Get off your butt and stop blaming others, you are to blame for not developing the right skills.

Those factories and mines are gone and new opportunities will arise, but you have to be able to grab one when it comes, not cry into your beer while watching football on your color flat screen TV.

Maybe you already have the American Dream.

What is Patriotism?

I know its not putting some symbols on a higher level than my fellow citizens, but what is it?

Its a bit of an odd concept in many ways since the country we live in is two things, an area on the map and the people who occupy that area.

So are we loyal to the geography or to the people or something else.

We talk about our native land, our mother land and sometimes vow to defend it, but many Americans can't identify parts of their country on a map.

Some parts of it are call National Treasures and we protect treasures, so maybe its Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, the Great Plains or Death Valley that we support?

No they don't really need us to do much and certainly they are simply geographic characteristics.

What about the people?  Patriotism or nationalism arose from the sense of clan and tribe that was essential to our early survival.  Clearly you needed help to protect yourself and your family and the scale of that protection obviously varied based on the circumstances.  In fact many countries that we know today are named after tribes that occupied them, France and Franks, England and Angles for example. 

Of course the tribes demanded a certain loyalty and as our modern world developed this grew into what we call patriotism.  Of course it started as loyalty to the leader or King who symbolized the tribe for all.  So is patriotism a commitment to our fellow citizens?

It is to some extent, however, in many cases they don't really like each other.  Its hard to imagine that a gun supporting evangelical is supporting a transgender anti gun atheist and vice versa.

They may support the right of each other to exist but maybe just barely.

So what do we support?

Well to some extent its an idea and that idea is symbolized by our constitution and our laws. 

These are the only things that bind us together as a nation and what we all share.

The constitution expresses the fundamental rights of its citizens in its amendments and those rights and obligations are what make us a people.  Not the color of our skin or our religion or our national origin. 

It makes us Americans.

Challenge or Opportunity

Years ago I remember being told by an instructor that every challenge is also an opportunity.

Some let the challenge defeat them and others figure out ways to overcome the challenge.

It seems like this has become the defining characteristic of our society, the difference between those who want to give up and those who want to move forward.

We are faced with a number of challenges, such as climate change, terrorism, poverty, health care, etc etc.

We see the world of robots and automation eliminating jobs and forcing many people to reconsider their futures.

However, these challenges present opportunities as well as we can explore alternative energy sources, protect ourselves from terrorists, expand health care, and in general embrace the future.

The question is do we try to deny that the future is coming and bury our heads in the sand or do we embrace it and figure out how to benefit everyone, not just a few.

Unfortunately I feel that a large portion of the country would like to turn back the clock because the future scares them.

The associate it with things they don't like and fear it is changing the face of America.

Well, the face of America has changed many times before as we incorporated more and more people into it.  Rest assured, after a generation they are as American as anyone else.  There is a certain irony in that the children and grandchildren of immigrants who were viewed negatively have now embraced that view towards the new immigrants.

No one has ever been able to turn back the hands of time, and we need to make our country and the world a better place for all of us. 

We need to look for the opportunities and defeat the challenges we face 

Otherwise we are defeating ourselves.

Saturday among the Bushes

I guess we can rename hide and seek to among and seek now to stay up with the recent White House speak.

People roll their eyes at you because you are talking nonsense.  I believe you actually know you are and want to practice deflection by raising sexism.

Millions of people don't vote illegally in this country, millions are legally prevented from voting by republican bigots.

What is wrong with being considerate in how you talk and act?  I don't consider that political correctness, I consider it common courtesy.

Free trade increases global efficiency and results in lower prices for everyone.  If you work for an inefficient enterprise, its not the best thing for you.

You can't really have a debate with someone who simply isn't willing to use actual facts. 

Things like climate change are not in question.  Some aspects of the theory are still debatable, but not the fundamental fact of it.

The most scary thing is that it is possible that humanity is out of control.  Nature has a way of correcting that sort of thing, and it's usually not pretty.

One of the things coming out in many studies is that a lot of Americans think their children will do worse than they did.  Maybe, but isn't it the parents job to prepare their children to live good lives?

So many people who complain about food stamps are receiving much bigger government subsidies which they fell they deserve for some reason.  Price supports for agriculture or small business incentives are paid for by us taxpayers too.

Charitable tax deductions allow people to support causes many of us don't like at our expense.  If you want to support discriminatory causes do it on your own dime.

Your Papers Please!

One of the scary moments in any number of movies over the years was when the hero or heroine was confronted by the police with the demand to see their papers.

Now it was scary either because they were spies using false identities or on the lam trying to avoid.  Of course in some movies it was because they were Jewish trying to escape the NAZIs.

Now being a naive American who lived in a land where we were free and allowed to have privacy I didn't think those words would ever be something to worry about in this country.

Of course I knew that in certain situations you had to provide IDs, such as if you were pulled over while operating a vehicle either recklessly or too fast and entering or leaving the country, but not say driving between two states or just walking down the street.

Now I've grown less naive over the years but I also think we as a country have grown more suspicious.

I learned that people who looked Mexican could be required to show their green cards.  Since I never had any such thing I wondered how people born here got past that.

Then we started stop and frisk in some cities where ordinary citizens, some of whom might be up to no good could be stopped and required to prove they weren't?  We were getting closer to some of those old films, if not actually there.

Then we started to make people trying to exercise their fundamental right to vote jump through hoops to prove they had that right. 

This was pretty much all the way there.

Now Texas is allowing their state police to stop anyone and prove citizenship.

The scary movie scene has now become real, at least in some places.

Hell we might start asking people who buy dangerous weapons to prove they are sane soon.

Tolerance

A lot of people claimed that American values were in danger and to some extent the election was impacted by people who wanted to restore these values.

Now the only value that has ever made America great was tolerance.

However, they are confusing American values with intolerance for others

Now if you don't go into the armed forces your chances of being hurt by a foreign terrorist are slim.

If you don't live in one of the likely targets (generally big cities) the chances become much slimmer.

In fact the likelihood is almost non-existent for most Americans.  Not zero, but pretty slim.

We have however made a big deal out of it and certainly we should never let our guard down, but the real danger is that some troubled person who is here legally will become radicalized and do something, i.e. the Boston Marathon or the Orlando Nightclub.  They might have nothing to do with Islam.

The people coming here to escape fighting or to start a new life are not the ones we should worry about, especially since they are already extensively vetted.

In general they are more invested in making a new life for themselves. We all  know that being an immigrant has always been difficult, leaving what you know behind and starting over amid challenges and hostility. 

If something in your life isn't going the way you want it to, its unlikely to be an immigrants fault.  Not the refugees, not the ones who come here on visas, and not the ones who come here without documents.

There are of course criminal elements that operate in multiple countries, like the Russian mob or Mexican cartels and they are criminals.  Some of the people moving back and forth have associations with these groups and others, smuggling people, drugs and weapons etc. and we should do what we can to stop them.  However, the person with a family who works in a low paying job to support his family isn't the problem.  In fact, more of them are leaving recently, the ones who are staying are invested in this country and have become Americans.

The hate and fear exhibited by so many is simply wrong and in-American.  Lets restore the true American value of tolerance and stop being paranoid.

Freedom of Speech

One of the things that Americans cherish is freedom of speech.  Now when I say we cherish it, we cherish the right to use it, but some of us don't like others to use it.

In a tweet, our minority president-elect noted that flag burning should be a crime and maybe should include loss of citizenship.

This is going to cheer on by many of his supporters who believe the flag is more important than civil liberties.

Now I am a firm believer that the flag should be treated with respect, but I also realize that it is a piece of cloth or an image widely used in non-patriotic ways, such as to sell products or as an article of clothing.

Now maybe these displays are acceptable, maybe not.  I've seen young ladies in flag bikinis which didn't offend me.  However, I doubt very much they observe flag etiquette when used that way.

Now if someone is protesting an American policy or behavior, burning the flag is a demonstration of that protest and has been determined to be part of free speech.  Whether you like it or not its covered by the constitution.

Now, if we decide to limit free speech that we don't like, the question becomes, do we have fee speech?

We have some restrictions right now on it, such as not being able to yell fire in a crowded theatre, but to decide that a symbolic protest gesture should be criminalized and further should result in the loss of citizenship is abhorrent.

It doesn't matter if you like what someone is saying, they generally have the right to say it.  The recent election demonstrated that telling lies and spreading false stories can be an effective political tool and as much as I would like to see that curtailed, the only American solution is to try to educate the public to see what is and isn't true.

If we start rounding up people we don't agree with, we have become un-American.

Root for Success?

One of the things you hear is that after the election we should hope the new President is successful since his success means America is successful.

Bullshit.

Destroying the planet by doing nothing on climate change is not success for America.

Taking away freedom of choice for American women is not success for America.

Disrupting the lives of million of American residents who came here for a better life is not success for America.

Removing regulations designed to prevent the abuses that led to the financial crisis is not success for America.

Building a pointless wall that in the end wouldn't achieve anything is not success for America.

Ripping up trade deals and causing a worldwide crisis that will heavily impact the average American is not success for America.

Not honoring our international agreements designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in not success for America.

Taking away health insurance from millions of Americans without providing adequate replacement is not success for America.

Privatizing Social Security and putting older Americans at risk is not success for America.

Reducing taxes on the rich and increasing the National Debt is not success for America.

Increasing the output of coal that nobody wants anymore is not success for America.

Refusing to accept refugees because of xenophobia is not success for America.

Increasing hate by tacitly supporting racism and bigotry is not success for America.

Cosying up to tyrants and accepting it is not success for America.

Causing our closest allies to worry about our support is not success for America.

And so much more.

Supporting America

America has from the time of the first colonists represented a land of opportunity.

It represented an opportunity to practice the religion of your choice.

It represented an opportunity to succeed by working hard and taming the wilderness.

It represented an opportunity to escape the concept of kings and emperors and live free.

Now of course it wasn't like that for everyone who came here, the slaves, the Chinese who were brought in to work on the railroads, but for many it did.

Now the people who came here initially were not anarchists, they simply wanted to practice what they believed in or pursue fortune without the restrictions in the old world.

Native Americans were for most an inconvenience who either needed to be eliminated or transformed.

Throughout the growth of America we provided this sense of opportunity to waves of immigrants who fled hardships or tyranny.  At times because of conditions in their home country we would have an influx of one particular group, like the Irish during the potato famine, We tend to forget that they weren't greeted with open arms, but rather viewed as threats to the established order.

Many of our immigrants continued our westward expansion but the concept of "legal" immigration didn't exist until we started passing laws designed to protect our ethnic identity and restrict certain undesirable nationalities.  I've included the list below, and it should be noted that many people who claim their ancestors came here legally are only right because we didn't have any laws to restrict them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_immigration_laws

Now currently America is still viewed by many as a land of opportunity.  Despite the delusion of the alt-right, immigrants and refugees to this country do not get a free ride and are for the most part very much the same as the immigrants who preceded them.

This is a basic feature of America that we need to support and not buy into the xenophobic actions of the alt-right.

A lot of the people who think immigrants and refugees are destroying America are sitting around complaining rather than doing what the immigrants and refugees are doing, trying to succeed.

The Future Part 3

So if the basic issue is the individual versus the collective what does that mean?

Human civilization is in effect a development towards cooperation.

In pre-historic times people banded together for protection, to help each other on the hunt, to gather effectively.

As civilization developed we needed to work together to develop irrigation systems, provide water and sanitation services and a marketplace where what we produced could be exchanged for what we needed using a common means of exchange.

Of course in each stage individuals were able to do better than others but they couldn't normally succeed in isolation.

This has continued until the modern times with the common good helping all including the "individuals" who certainly benefit from defense, laws, infrastructure and education.

So what does it mean to want little to no government so the individual rights can be protected?

Generally it simply means that they want as much Government as the need to succeed but not a bit more.

Of course if you are creating costs to the rest of us by polluting our air and water or leaving your workers dependent on the Government in their old age, that isn't their problem, they aren't responsible.

These posts are about the future and not just the short term future.   As a society we have to decide what we want the future to look like, not just for us but for our descendents.

I talked about some basic goals in the first post that I think are generally things most people agree on.  However, we also need to consider the impacts we are having on our future generations.

This includes things like the national debt as well as the environment.

These are things that could have dramatic impacts on future generations.

Of the two I think the bigger issue is the environment since that has the potential to disrupt or kill billions of people so lets talk about economic issues first.

Money is a medium of exchange.  We use it to measure the value of various items so we can exchange them more or less fairly.  Before money we simply bartared but that is problematic in that you have to find someone who has what you need and wants what you have.  With money you can sell what you have to anyone and use that money to buy what you need from someone else.

Money is also an easier way to accumulate wealth.  If you have a tremendous amount of say wheat, storing it for a long period can be problematic considering spoilage, theft, infestation, etc.  It is easier to sell it and keep its equivalent value in money.

Money in general has no independant value.  Now at one time gold was widely used for money and some think that gold has some intrinsic value, which to the extent it can be used in jewelry it does, but as money it is no different really, except the underlying gold might go up or down.

Money alows us to exchange future promised to pay against current needs.  If I want to buy a house I might take a mortgage where the bank puts up the money in exchange for my promise to pay over time with interest.  In that case the house serves as collateral.  Eventually the mortgage is paid off and the house in mine.

However it is generally a bad idea to go into debt to pay routine expenses since there is no reason to believe the situation will change.  For example, if you simply spend more than you make every month and use credit cards, each month you situation will get worse until you can no longe pay and survive.

Many people view our national debt exactly like that.  Each month that we spend more than we take in, it increases and the cost of the money adds to the burden.

So similar to the individual they argue we need to spend less or take in more.  Since increased taxes are pretty much a sure way to lose an election, the emphasis is on spending less.

Of course thats problematic.  What can we cut?

There is one other option.  Much of our current issue is driven by demographics and some unwise tax cuts made in the past.  Ignoring the tax cuts, we have the baby boomer generation moving from being productive members of the workforce to beneficiaries.  The number of people who can contribute is way less than it needs to be.

Now the demographics will eventually improve but not for quite a while and in the mean time the debt will increase and the ability to pay benefits will be jeopardised.

(to be continued)

The Future Part 2

In discussing the future of this country its important to decide on what kind of country we want to be.

There are goals that I think most people can agree on and I discussed some of those yesterday.  However there are even more basic choices we have to decide on.

In its most basic form it is do we work individually or collectively?

The individual model wants each of us to be responsible for for our successes and failures and thinks the best Government is no Government.  They don't want to be told what to do or conform to what the group decides.

On the other end of that spectrum is the collective mentality.  This person thinks the group succeeds or fails together.  That individual talents are best used for the good of all and rewards should be shared.

America is generally viewed as a country which honors the individual allowing them to succeed or fail depending on their talents and abilities.

It was one of the things that allowed the country to expand so rapidly and industrialize.  Of course there was always support from the Government that favored the "individuals" followed by some progressive reforms that protected the collective.

It would be hard to imagine the country without Social Security, unemployment insurance, veterans benefits, and other social support functions that are designed to help the weakest and poorest among us.

However each of those programs were attacked in their own time as socialism or worse.

Generally the movement has been progressive in direction with things like the minimum wage, holidays, and labor laws won after hard struggles.

To a great extent the battles continue however the people who benefit the most from these progressive programs often oppose new ones.

This is a reaction to the changes in the economy and a certain belief that these progressive programs have hurt our competitive capabilities and led to a worsening of the average workers condition.

(to be continued)

Creatures of the Night

Dracula since he could not be up during daylight had a fondness for "creatures of the night" that most people find repellent or scary.

Understandable since we are a species that generally thrives in the daytime where we are adapted to see and survive better while night creatures present unique dangers to us.

Of course back in our evolutionary past we developed strategies to survive and those strategies always included a certain security for the night.

Now, as the world has evolved you would think this has changed.

Certainly the night is still generally scarier than the daytime but we have found ways to block out the dangers for the most part.

But then you have the internet.

Now there is no particular reason that late night on the internet should be very different than it is in the daytime, but it is.

All the creatures of the night emerge.

Your conspricy theory people, your alt-righters, your porn lovers, trolls and hackers.

Now if you spend significant time on during those hours you can find many alternate versions of reality.

It will skew your views on what is normal, and what is acceptable.

Insulting anyone who disagrees with you, standard practice.

Treating women disrespectfully, perfectly acceptable.

Everything is rigged and we can't get a fair shake, of course.

The country is controlled by (insert name of group), certainly is.

Everyone is corrupt and everyone covers it up, of course.

Its a world where you can easily lose your perspective and common sense as aliens are everywhere, immigrants and refugees are destroying the country and everyone, except "US" is getting a free ride on our backs.

People up at 3AM get exposed to all these things.

Some actually believe them.

Election Integrity

The United States hass been notable for the fact that we respect our constitution and election results.  This is not always true in much of the world.  To claim the election is being rigged is a serious challenge to our democracy and is not very likely.

Now, are there unscrupulous people, of course there are, and in history there very well may have been some instances of elections being manipulated.

When Kennedy won, there were accusations about shenanigans in Chicago.

When Bush beat Gore, the process in Florida was questionable.

However, elections are run locally.  Both parties as well as state inspectors get to monitor polling locations.

All studies indicate very few instances of voter fraud.

In fact, its easier to not count votes than it is to create votes.

Disenfranchising voters is easier than creating illegal voters.

I want to point out that you might be able to register a dead person, but its hard to actually cast a ballot.

I'm not familiar with the procedures at every polling location but I don't think any of them allow hoardes of people to come off the street and vote.

You have to be registered and sign in.

Recently there have been a number of instances of fraudulent registrations and registrations being altered.  They were discovered but of course some might not be.

In all honesty, the idea that these have something to do with swinging elections is unlikely.  I think its more likely that they are designed to show flaws in the system to promote voter ID laws.

Just speculation by me, but it fits that agenda which needs to create incidents to support theire argument.

All studies have shown very few fraudulent votes.

Making this claim is is outrageous and has no basis in reality.

R E S P E C T

What is most sad about the current election and America in general is how we have lost certain core values like common courtesy and mutual respect.

We always had a certain amount of bad behavior in the culture, but it was generally disapproved of and if you continued to behave that way you were eventually shunned.

At some point however the culture changed.

Maybe it was the tremendous expansion of channels and outlets brought about by cable TV and the growth of the Internet and social media.

Views that were on the fringe became more acceptable as popularity and ratings overtook any sense of responsibility.

Whatever you think of it, CNN started as a pretty straightforward news outlet.

Then FOX attacked it as a liberal bastion and spread its own biased view and grabbed ratings.

Of course the Internet provided even more opportunity for extreme views and rumor mongers and the only objectives were spread an agenda and get clicks.

Its probably not going to get better and the public is the only one that can control it by ignoring the real fringe groups.  However, it doesn't take much to start and maintain them, so they will go on.

This has led to totally false accusations and allegations, supported by either nothing or falsified documents which take on a life of their own.

Of course a little research reveals the falsehood but most of this simply gets passed along by either willing or unwilling dupes.

Its a new world but not a better one.