Get Out the Get Out the Vote

“Get Out the Vote.” Remember that? It came about a few election cycles ago. The idea was to get as many people to the polls as possible. Now, at first glance that seems a great idea. But when you give it a little more thought, like me, you discover it is not such a good idea. Especially when it comes to this current election.

I've joked that my Twitter feed seems to be all liberal and my Facebook feed seems to be all conservative. My social networking is a bit bipolar. And since I'm the same guy in both networks, the algorithms seem to be a bit . . . off.

Now, in both the emphasis is the same: you have to vote for one candidate to make sure the other candidate doesn't win. And if you are thinking of voting for a third-party candidate, you are guaranteeing the other candidate will win. In all cases, I see very little convincing for you to vote FOR a candidate, only AGAINST the other one. This tells me that people really don't like the candidate they are voting for, but the other candidate is so much worse and needs to be stopped.

As I've written previously, this is a job interview, and we are the potential employers. We are trying to find the best person for the job. When you hire someone, you not only look at their background and opinions, but you look to see what their job qualifications are. You don't have to go much further than the last three Presidential debates, to know that the emphasis of this particular job interview has very little to do with qualifications.

So, if your intention is to vote for someone only in order to vote against someone: DON'T VOTE!

If your intention is to blindly vote along party lines: DON'T VOTE!

“J.P., are you seriously telling us not to vote?” Yup. Absolutely. What's more dangerous than a wasted vote? A vote made in ignorance.

I don't care how many women Trump may have groped. I don't care how many emails Clinton may have deleted. I don't care if Johnson can't find Aleppo on a map. If you can't honestly say you are voting FOR someone because you AGREE with MOST (not necessarily ALL) of what they have stated their POLICIES are, DON'T VOTE!

Now, you'll notice I did not say to stay home. Go! Vote! There are usually local issues and candidates on the ballot, and those you need to vote for. Oh, and as in the above, if you can't honestly say you agree with most of what the candidate's policies are, you don't for them either.

Here is what I do: I read the ballot carefully. If I do not know enough to make an informed decision on an issue, I skip it. A non-vote is not counted as For OR Against. If I cannot say I agree with a candidate based on their policies, I skip them too. I do NOT vote along party lines (to be honest, I'm a registered Independent, so I don't HAVE a party line to vote for). And that includes those situations when there is only one candidate running for a position.

I hear that voting is one of the most important things an individual can do, outside of running for office. I say that is wrong. INFORMED voting is one of the most important things an individual can do. UNINFORMED voting is one of the most DANGEROUS things an individual can do.

So, get out and vote, or get out the get out the vote. This is too important for an emotional decision.

Our democracy depends on it.

©Emittravel 2016

What's a Reagan Conservative?

I haven't heard it yet, but any day now we'll hear one of the GOP (Grand Old Poopers) touting that they are the Reagan Conservative candidate. Though, when you think about it, that may not be such a Grand Old Proposition.

Before Ronald Reagan was a Republican, he was a card carrying member of the Democrat Party. He made the switch in 1962, a whole four years prior to becoming Governor of California. He said that he didn't leave the Democrat Party, but that the Democrat Party left him.

(Note: I refer to it as the Democrat Party, because that is what it is. Democratic is a type of government. For the same reason we don't call the Republican Party the Republic Party: The United States government is a Republic.)

Reagan said that his political views had not changed. The Democrats had moved farther to the left and now he found that his political views were more in line with the Republicans.

Think about that for a minute. Read that last sentence one more time. What does this mean? It means that the Republicans have THEMSELVES moved farther left as well. Reagan said his political views (which at the time were considered liberal) had not changed. And this, my friends, is the root of the problem.

During the Primaries, the candidates are not talking to the general electorate. They are talking (primarily) to their base. Once the Primaries are over, and the general election cycle starts; the candidates start talking to the general electorate as a whole. That is where a lot of the "flip-flopping" occurs.

Here's the funny thing to me. What happens is that the media convince us that the Republican candidate is "too right wing". Oh, "we need a centrist candidate" they will repeat ad nauseam. So what does the Republican candidate do? He goes about proving how he's not "too right wing".

Think about it. If you are considered "right wing" and you move more towards the center, which direction are you moving? LEFT!! Correct! So now, the Republican Party is more left (a.k.a "liberal") than they were before. And each election cycle this repeats, moving the Republican Party farther and farther left. What was considered "centrist" last year is "right wing" this year. Don't believe me? George W. Bush touted "Compassionate Conservatism". That was another way of saying "Liberal". Remember that he always said he would veto additional spending bills (that bloated the size of the federal government)? It took to half-way through his second term for him to find his veto pen. And then the GOP runs John McCain up the flag pole; a man who spent more years working across the aisle than he did with his own party. And who is (currently) at the top of the heap? Donald Trump. A man who has supported Democrats and their policies for years.

One thing you never hear is that the Democrat Party is "too left wing" and needs to move more towards the center. The media seems pretty mute on that. Yet, in order to make sure the Democrats and Republicans aren't saying the exact same things, the Democrat Party moves farther left themselves.

The results of all this side-step shuffling is that the Republicans are the liberals and the Democrats are the new socialists. (Wow! I guess this means that Bernie Sanders IS the true representation of the Democrat Party after all!)

On second thought, looking at those who have ran for office in the GOP over the last few years, maybe nobody WILL tout themselves as a Reagan Conservative. You know, he was "too right wing".

©Emittravel 2016

Stuff My Brain Says #46

Hey candidates! If I can't trust you to tell me the truth in a 15 second commercial spot, why should I trust you as President?

© Emittravel 2012

Why You Don't Choose The President

It's official: GOP candidate Mitt Romney has chosen Paul Ryan for his VP. Will this turn out to be a good choice? We don't know. There is the impact on the election and, more important, the impact on the potential administration. 

We understand why the election impact: a candidate is trying to capture a voting block that he may otherwise be not as likely to win over on his own. (Note: I'm using "he" throughout, since when the gender of the person is unknown, "he" is grammatically correct usage. Using "he/she", or alternating "he" and "she" makes reading clumsy for the audience.) What I want to address is the impact on the administration. Mainly, why do we let candidates pick their own running mates?

According to Federalist #68: "The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter." The 12th Amendment gives instructions on choosing the President and Vice President. In neither document does it state that the Vice President is chosen by the President - neither as President, nor as a "running mate". 

Shouldn't the Vice President be elected in the same manner as the President, as described by our founding documents? I understand that choosing one's own running mate allows the balance of the ticket, but one of the main responsibilities of the Vice President is to take over in case of the loss of the President. If something happens to the President, wouldn't we want the SAME things in a Vice President? Isn't the point to have a seamless "change of command" in such a loss? Why would we want someone who would take us in a completely different direction? 

Think back on all of the President/Vice President combinations we've had. Would you honestly have voted FOR the Vice President chosen?

Barack Obama / Joe Biden
George W. Bush / Dick Cheney
Bill Clinton / Al Gore
George Bush / Dan Quayle
Ronald Reagan / George Bush
Jimmy Carter / Walter Mondale
Gerald Ford / Nelson Rockefeller
Richard Nixon / Spiro Agnew / Gerald Ford
Lyndon Johnson / Hubert Humphrey
John F. Kennedy / Lyndon Johnson

The above list goes back to just before my birth. Just think about the combinations. Why would anyone willingly choose these combinations? Sure, some of those aren't so bad, but if given the opportunity to choose, would you have done the same? I don't think I would have.

But again, when the game is to get elected, what is best for the country slips in importance.

So remember when going to the polls: Since the Vice President is selected as a running mate, you don't, ultimately, get to choose who is President. If something were to happen to this person if elected President, would you REALLY want their chosen Vice President to take over? Brrrr - is there a chill in the room, or is it just me?

© Emittravel 2012

Stuff My Brain Says #27

One of the more current events in this election cycle is the amount of money Mitt Romney makes, the amount of taxes he pays, and the amount he is worth. This is being pushed by the media as a negative to Romney, and I find it parroted by people who apparently have difficulty producing anything resembling an original thought. Here's one for you: name me the last presidential candidate that had a gross income of $30k or less (in today's dollars), and STILL became President. That's right: the office of the President is deemed for the wealthy; the, dare I say, "evil one percenters". So, Romney's wealth is NOT news. If he DID make only $30k/yr, THAT would be news. Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

© Emittravel 2012

Nanny-state-ism

Nanny-state-ism: where the government takes care of us because we are incapable of taking care of ourselves.

If you have ever watched television a month or two before a major election, you would have noticed that almost every ad was a muckraking ad about how bad the other candidate was. What this means is that every candidate on the ballot is a lying, cheating, stealing, back stabbing, kick-granny-when-she's-not-looking, jerk. So when you go in to pull that lever (or create that dangling chad, or complete the ACT, or whatever) you are going in to choose the lesser of two evils.

Muckraking . . . mudslinging . . . it's all better in a Jeep!

Now this is how the system works: People who are incapable of taking care of themselves have the responsibility of choosing those to take care of us by selecting the lesser of two evils who will then take care of us because we are incapable of making good decisions on our own.

Got it?

In other words, the next time a government "official" wants to ban something like trans-fats because he doesn't believe people have enough brains to decide on their own to stay out of the restaurant (or order something healthy), he needs to be reminded that the only reason he is even IN a position of authority to make such a cockamamie proclamation in the first place is that the very people he feels that can't take care of themselves voted his sorry ass INTO office.

(Note: I've ignored many a grammar rule in order to give the above more "punch". I ain't that bad an administrative assistant. Honest!)

Thanks to my friend Mark at the Cutting Edge of Ecstasy for inspiring this entry.

©Emittravel 2010