I was listening to the news this morning and they had a story about the NoLables party not being able to find a candidate to run for president and it got me thinking. We could really use a third party winning the presidency to straighten out both of the other parties. This person would need to be the greatest politician of our age to convince a majority of voters to abandon their party. I hope we can.
Tag: republicans
Rights X2
We in America aren’t taught this: There are two different kind of rights. The first are called innate, natural, God-given, or negative rights. These are like freedom of speech and freedom to own and control property. They exist outside of any government or ruler. They don’t require me to do anything for you to possess these rights. I don’t have to give you a megaphone for you to have the right to speak your mind. I don’t have to sell you what I own or give you any money for you to own or purchase property. To remove, limit or interfere with these rights a government or someone else must act.
The second type of rights are called either positive rights or government assigned rights. These include anything the government chooses to call a right. Examples include: healthcare, food, water, shelter. These are positive rights because someone must do something for you to have these “rights”. A healthcare professional must be forced or coerced into providing care for you to have a “right” to healthcare. The same for any other of the rights above. These aren’t rights in the correct usage of the term but more entitlements.
How long
How long does it take to figure out that a program isn’t working in our Federal Government? We’ve had welfare for over 80 years now and still the poor in our country haven’t declined in percentage. The government can’t fix most social problems, so why don’t we do it instead? If each person took full responsibility for themselves, we would almost eliminate poverty in the US. The Brookings Institute reports that if you do three things you have a near 100% chance of being in the middle class in the US: graduate high school (or GED), keep a job, and don’t have children out of wedlock. Simple enough?
Dishonest Political Adds
I know it will surprise absolutely no one over 12 years old that Politicians and political adds are not honest. Just this morning I found two I want to fuss about.
The first one is from a leftist group who was fearmongering about reproductive rights. They showed the pill and an IUD then the caption read, “They’re coming for these next!”. Really? There are very few pro-life people who would take away anyone’s birth control. On the contrary, I think most pro-life people would gladly give universal birth control options in exchange for a ban on abortion. We want everyone who doesn’t want a child to prevent the conception of said child.
The second was a conservative add attacking a candidate for being “liberal”. Traditional liberalism is the rights of the individual taking priority over the wants, or even needs, of the government. To attack someone for being liberal is to say you want either no rights or government over reach.
Please have the most critical eye possible when listening to/reading these.
Bon chat, bon rat.
A phrase to mean: What’s good for the goose, is what’s good for the gander. We just saw Mayorkas impeached for not high crimes nor misdemeanors. Many Democrats are saying this is atrocious and terrible. Last administration we saw Trump impeached for not high crimes nor misdemeanors. Trump’s actions were not at all good or appropriate and Mayorkas is bad at his job but neither should be impeached.
The Democrats opened this can of worms, now we all are stuck stepping in worm guts.
First Political need
We must stop feeling our way through voting. Have you ever felt a pain that had no cause? Felt hungry when you are thirsty? Tired when bored? We know from a young age that feeling are temporary and don’t reveal truth but still we allow them to ruin our lives and, through voting, the lives of others.
An addict looks for their next fix/drink/encounter because they feel bad but it leads them deeper into the addiction, sorrow, pain, and self-destruction. Many voters however are addicted to the government fixing problems. We vote for people who promise to give money to the poor, but there are still (and always will be) poor. We vote for people who promise more freedom but then take freedoms from those who can’t vote. We vote believing that we are electing those who will show kindness and the politicians do what they said they would then it damages our present and future.
When you hear someone who disagrees with your point of view, please do your best to take your emotions out of the equation and listen with an ear to understanding what they are saying and why. If you really are an amazing thinker you will then try to make their argument stronger to challenge your beliefs and force you to support your position better or give up your previous belief to accept a better belief.
Better than this.
We can do better than this. On one hand we have an old billionaire who isn’t smart enough to keep everything he does above board when he KNEW there was a world watching and half of them wanted him to fall. On the other we have a somewhat senile, corrupt old politician who’s son runs around the globe, to many of America’s enemies, and collects bags of cash for daddy. Let’s ignore both of these guys and find someone to push us back toward good, above the board, governance.
Here are my picks for the two I would like to see run. For the Republicans, DeSantis. He cleaned up Florida’s bureaucracies nicely, kept it working during COVID, removed special privileges for a bloated mega-corporation, and stopped teachers from bringing their sexual instruction to children under 8 years old in schools. For the democrats, Manchin is a good choice. He is willing to work with anyone to move the country forward, willing to say he made a mistake (his recent comments on the Inflation Reduction Act – A misnamed piece of legislation if ever there was one), and he listens to reasonable ideas, no matter who they are from. This would be MUCH better.
It’s our fault
We in the USA like to blame our politicians for our issues of governance, national finance, national morality, and dis-unity. And to some degree the blame is well placed but we also must face the fact that we are far more to blame. We have a representative republic therefore we can choose our representatives, and we’ve chosen poorly in the past few decades (scores of decades…).
I think it started with Burr, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Adams but it could be older. Humans, and I mean all of us, have a bad habit of mistaking other things for good ideas. We believe that nice and kind are better than functional, since functional can be hard to swallow. We allow our compassion to over rule our better judgement and historical data. We choose an ideology that feels best to us without thinking through the full consequences. We are angry at the jerk in office now, angry at the “other guy” for not voting “correctly” and politicians use that to convince us that the “other guy” is not just in error, but evil and to be ignored.
None of these are going to help us have a better dialogue and create a “more perfect union”. I implore all voters to pay attention to your representatives as much as you do your favorite show, sports team, celebrities, and hobbies. Know what they stand for, why, and what their plans are. If they are running for re-election, know how they voted in the past. I am not as good at this as I should be either but I do try to listen to those who disagree with an open mind (or as open as I can make it).
Truth
I was struck this past week when the Democrats (And I say that technically since almost no Republicans joined them) passed H.R.5376, called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It won’t help reduce inflation, defined simply as too much money chasing too few goods, but does have multiple provisions for more IRS agents, green technology, increased taxes, and other spending. If inflation is high the last thing you do to fix it is add more money.
The thing that bothers me most is that our media kept repeating the name Inflation Reduction Act knowing that it is a lie. Even now we see news outlets calling it some type of environmental/green act, which is far more honest. If they had said that to begin with they wouldn’t have passed the bill but would have been credited for their honesty and the media could have built back a little of their lost value to us as a reporting source.
That having been said, I can’t say the Republicans wouldn’t have done the same, I don’t fully trust any of them. I think we need an honest person in every elected government seat as soon as possible. I’m not sure we can find that many truthful politicians.
Politics and Civility
When did we give up logic and effect for emotion and partisanship? We now fight against anyone who isn’t of our political party even if we might agree with their position when put forward by one of our party’s leaders. We oppose good ideas that come from the other side. We tear down for the smallest infraction against our side while forgiving the true evils our side commit.
I pray that at some point we have a leader who can convince the average American to think about arguments in a logical, dispassionate way. Someone who reminds us that our core value is freedom, not entitlement. That we are all the same, no matter where we came from, where we were born, no matter our color, race, or background. We must return to the belief that I am not lessened if you don’t share my views and opinions. That we can disagree and still be friends. And especially that when we disagree and argue we can do so with civility and respect, being mature. Only once we can debate and argue without taking it personally will we be able to advance ideas and create a “More Perfect Union”.
Mark's Thoughts 