Our Ideals

First and foremost this country was founded by people who wanted to live lives that were not particularly allowed in the old world.

Nothing is ever that simple and the various colonies and subsequent States each have many stories, but you didn't pack up and go on a long risky sea voyage because everything was fine.

Yes some came to get rich other to practice their religion and others just to be free and have a new start.

Once the colonies got well established they rejected the tyranny of the old world and demanded independence.

If you live in this country you need to keep in mind the words of our Declaration of Independence, even if at the time they might have been primarily talking about free white men.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

Over the years we have expanded the meaning to include all people and to secure these rights we have adopted the Bill of Rights to guarantee freedoms of speech, or religion, or assembly among others.

We are about to celebrate President's day and people may very well disagree about the current one, but President's are not the country, the people are.

As Americans we need to hold onto our ideals, and stand up for freedom and equality.

If we can agree on nothing else, we always have our founding ideals.

Our inalienable right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

A World of Uncertainty

So much of the information being circulated is false that it can become nearly impossible to know what is true.  Our mainstream media has been attacked as fake news and alternative media has created different news as true.

It has gotten to the point where things that should be undisputed get disputed.  If you buy into the theory that the Government is in control of people who want to deceive you, then who can you trust?

At one time late night radio had shows on that were controversial and in many ways amusing.  Stories about area 51 or who shot JFK allowed listeners to speculate and often absurd theories.

Unfortunately some people did take them seriously.

The internet and the rise of other media sources on cable have made these type of theories circulate further.

Some of our well established media outlets are accused of bias and falsehoods.

You could try to rely on scientific evidence or hard news except some attach those too.

One would like to think the public can figure it out, but when popular media is telling them false theories as possibilities, the public is faced with a difficult job.  As noted by George Orwell in his boo 1984.

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

Hate and Oppression

Many people in this country are willing to put up with someone like the current President because they feel their values are being betrayed.

Abortion, gay marriage, transgender, and other issues are viewed as violations of their faith and beliefs.

Ideas which have become well accepted on the coasts and big cities are still not so accepted in much of the heartland, especially among evangelicals.

This creates a problem because the concept of individual freedom is not something liberals and progressives can abandon.

It really becomes an issue of oppression.

Throwing off the oppression which made these things illegal or unacceptable is now viewed as oppression by the politically correct.

Both sides view the other as tyrannical.

Evangelicals view what is going on as equivalent to the stories of Sodom and Gomorra while liberals see their reaction as Neo-Fascist.

Its hard to see how this gets resolved in the near term.  Clearly as time goes on more and more freedoms have been accepted, but much of this is related to what Evangelicals see as bad Court Decisions, which they hope to overturn.

Unfortunately many evangelical churches are teaching hate and not love, although they disguise it as hating the sin, not the sinner.

However if they win and suppress gay rights among others, it isn't a real distinction.

More Primaries

It seems like Joe Biden's run for President is in trouble.

He hasn't provided the necessary charisma or enthusiasm so far and its doubtful that he will.

Except for his age, I believe he would have been the candidate we needed,   He was progressive but not extreme and had appeal to working men and minorities.

If you are looking for radical change after the next election, he wouldn't be your guy.

The fact is that he is perceived as and in fact is what I would call a regular guy, not some elitist.

I don't want to exclude women from that category, Amy Klobuchar certainly would qualify.  Maybe a better term would be regular people.

They have a quality that makes you feel like you could run into them at a fast food restaurant one day.

Harvard College professors, socialists and others give a different impression.

Realistically, progressives and others on the left should have learned their lesson from the last election.  Whatever they thought about Hillary, she would have listened to their concerns and helped as opposed to what they get now.  If they fail to support the nominee again they might as well go back in time to the 50s.

What we really need in a candidate is someone who can win over those regular people who would like a good job, drug free children, and what some would consider a boring life.

The whole political correct thing is of little interest to them.  They don't really care if some people feel unsupported about their gender choices, as we used to say in the Army, it sounds like a personnel issue.

They aren't trying to offend anyone, they just don't want to be nagged.

Primaries, why?

I tend to get a kick out of news analysts who talk about how Democrats or Republicans need to do something.  For example the fiasco in Iowa has been typically depicted as a failure of Democrats as opposed to the Iowa people who ran it.

Maybe the National party should take over but I don't think that is practical or desirable.

Meanwhile we still have candidates moving on to New Hampshire, another small non-representative state that we assign significant meaning to.

Now the primaries are messy and the media maks them worse.  In past years certain candidates were eliminated after early primaries largely because donors gave up on them.  O fcourse we also know primaries are not actually representative of either party because of the relatively low turnout.

Our whole process takes too long, costs too much and produces bad candidates much of the time.

Last election the two nominees were both disliked by more people then liked them but they became the nominees.

A better system would simply be to let all registered members of a party fill out a secret ballot just before the convention and use those results to pick a nominee.  Not even sure we need a convention, but it does allow for negotiating platforms and kicking off the actual campaign.

Independents might object to being excluded, but of course if you want to participate, join a party.

I don't understand why the nominee for either party can be nominated because of non-party support.

Its unlikely to change because the current system is very profitable to some. 

Still, I can dream of a system where the nominee is actually the one preferred by the majority, of the actual party members.

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.

Guilty but not Guilty Enough

There are two reasons not to call witnesses.  One is because you just don't care about the fact of the case.  That is pretty damming and an aspect which I see a lot of focus on.

The second though is a little more reasonable.  Namely that you already proved he did the act accused of so why keep going?

If you accept the second premise all you need to do is determine if that particular action is worthy of removal from office.  Obviously we all expect that not to happen.

Without laboring the point one can have a legitimate difference of opinion on that issue.  Similarly, when we last had an impeachment there was no doubt that the President had committed the acts, but enough senators decided it was simply not enough to merit removal.

Crimes have certain degrees of harm associated with them.  If someone steals a loaf of bread, we no longer consider that act bad enough to warrant imprisonment without extenuating circumstances.  On the other hand stealing a million dollar necklace is likely to be treated with serious consequences.

The acts are very similar but have different consequences.

So the two articles of Impeachment are the issue here.  The first is that he misused his office to gain a personal favor.  Its a bit complicated by the military aid involved but is it bad enough to warrant removal from office?  Whether or not it is actually a crime is part of the issue.  While the radical argument that he actually can't commit a crime is nonsense, it might be valid that his actual act was allowable but it was his motivation that made it wrong.

That is subjective enough to allow legitimate differences of opinion.

The second article is tied up with the first and regards obstructing congress.  He did but so have previous Presidents and generally there is recourse in the courts.  So if the first charge wasn't filed, the second wouldn't have been.  If the first is not enough, the second joins it.

The vote on Wednesday will acquit the President even though he is in fact guilty.  Its a question of how guilty more or less.