"Voting"

 Whether it was the participants, or whether it just being tired, I fell asleep Tuesday night just after the opening remarks from Harris and Trump, and then awoke in time for their closing statements; so I am in no position to offer a fair appraisal. But ignorance has never stopped me. Trump did not seem especially angry or defensive, as he sometimes is, but he rambled as usual and was as unpleasant as always. He is a bad lawyer for a good cause. Harris reminded me of an artificial unintelligent robot, programmed to spew a rehearsed message. While sounding like she was running against Joe Biden and the last three and a half years, she said that she would be President of “all the people,” as though that were a radical concept. And she added that as a prosecutor she never asked a defendant if he (or she) was a Republican or a Democrat. I had never realized such a question was common practice.

 

Mostly, my sense was (and is) one of sadness, that this great Republic has descended so low that these two represent the best we can do. God, help us, our children and grandchildren.

 

………………………………………………………………

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Voting”

September 12, 2024

 

“As I have done in every election since I started voting so many years

ago, I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates,

see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in,

the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme

Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.”

                                                                                                       Attributed to Colin Powell (1937-2021)

 

In an era when convenience substitutes for deliberation, Colin Powell offers wise advice. One of the great privileges and responsibilities of a citizen in a democracy is the ability to help determine the course of government by their vote.

 

While there are almost eight weeks before election day, early voting in five states – Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, and Virginia – will begin in just over a week. (Only three states – Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire – do not allow early voting, though all allow absentee voting.)

 

While early voting is a relatively recent phenomena, absentee voting has been around in some states (for instance Connecticut) since the Civil War. Advocates for early voting argue that it is easy to implement and increases turnout. Opponents suggest it leads to ill-informed decisions, prevents voters from changing their minds, creates logistical concerns, which increases the risk of fraud. While there is no question that for some people early voting simplifies their lives, the principal beneficiaries are politicians (and their surrogates) who hold rallies, pump up their followers, and send them off to vote on an emotional high. 

 

Nevertheless, voter turnout in 2020, at 66.6% of the voting eligible population (VEP), was the highest in recent years. The closest comparable number was 62.5% in 2008. However, other factors in 2020 may have been at work. New Hampshire, one of three states that does not allow early voting, had a VEP in 2020 of 73.96% while Pennsylvania, which allows 50 days of early voting, had a VEP of 69.93%. One wonders: With so much attention lavished on the election by the media, why is turnout not higher? 

 

As the reader might suspect I am not a fan of early voting, though I do believe in the necessity of absentee voting, (and I am a big fan of the study of civics in school). For years, while having my residence in Old Lyme, Connecticut, I would spend weekdays in New York. During those twenty-five years I always voted absentee – showing up at the town hall on Friday afternoon before election, casting my ballot, putting it in the proper envelope, and handing it to the registrar. I voted, knowing that if new information came out over the next two or three days I would be unable to change my vote. As well, I missed the comraderie of going to the polls, being a part of the community.

 

Polarization has made voters’ lives more difficult. With media bias common and with social media ubiquitous and biased, independent, free-thinking voters have a more difficult task than those of an earlier time. Facts and opinions are tossed together like a salad, which has given us disinformation masquerading as fact, relative truth professing to be objective, dishonesty hyped as sincerity. Opinion writers, such as me, are exactly that – putting opinions into words, trying to explain why we believe as we do. But when opinions slip into lead articles on the front page of The New York Times, The Washington Post, or the New York Post, media has abandoned its role as disinterested observer. The New York Times should amend its motto: “All the News WE See Fit to Print.” Fox News is the propaganda arm of the right, the same role played by CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and network TV on the left. The voter is treated, not as an individual interested in learning and capable of making up their own mind, but as a fan rooting for the home team. It is no wonder politicians love early voting: Speak at a rally, with an emphasis on emotion, not facts. Watch your supporters pump their fists; then send them out, like sheep, to the polls, while you move on to the next venue – wash, rinse, spin, and repeat.   

 

In this mad, mad world, we have lost sight of the fact that voting is both a privilege and a duty. It is a privilege because of the good fortune we have to live in this country. It is our duty, because it is incumbent on each of us to use our vote to help influence the direction of the country. And we seem to have forgotten that a core value in our system of self-governance is the right to cast a secret ballot, to protect our privacy and guard against coercion.

 

My advice: Take your time. Don’t hasten to the polls. Read as much as you can, including history for background, but also about the issues our country faces today. Keep things in perspective. Know the opinions of those you read and listen to. Journalists have assumed the properties of the propagandist. Remember, things are never as good as what one person says, nor as bad what another claims. Allow for nuances and never forget that the goal should be that our descendants enjoy the furtherance (and improvement on) of the life we have been privileged to live.

 

So vote, but do so thoughtfully and deliberately, and remember there is no reason why you should feel compelled to tell others what lever you pulled. Take General Powell’s advice: take your time, examine the candidates, understand their policies, and learn of the people with whom they plan to populate their administration.

"Anger"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Anger”

August 4, 2020

 

“Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.”

                                                                                                Aristotle (385BC-323BC)

 

Anger has been a constant in American politics since the beginning. On July 11, 1804, a long and bitter feud between Vice President Aaron Burr and former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton ended in the latter’s death by gunshot on a field in Weehawken, New Jersey. On February 6, 1858, as the House of Representatives debated the Kansas Territory’s pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, Pennsylvania’s Republican Galusha Grow and South Carolina Democrat Laurence Keitt traded insults and then blows. On March 1, 1954 four Puerto Rican nationalists in the visitors’ gallery unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and opened fire on members of Congress, wounding five. When heated political dialogue becomes angry words (or worse), the nation loses. The 1960s were angry years, fed by opponents and proponents of Civil Rights and an unpopular war in Southeast Asia. We are living through another period where anger has become pervasive and political extremism has made the middle way a difficult passage.

 

We are in a summer of discontent, made inhospitable by Covid-19, an economic depression and unprecedented hatred for the President of the United States. Political extremism has always been around, but usually on the fringes. Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace and Lester Maddox once represented right-wing extremists, just as Henry Wallace and George McGovern did on the left. (George Wallace and Maddox were both Democrats, but extreme rightwing in their views). However, they were all marginalized by the far larger center-right and center-left parts of their respective Parties. That is no longer the case. Bernie Sanders, an avowed Socialist, is contributing to the Democrat platform. Like a mutating cell infected with a virus, the country has been dividing and separating, creating extremists on both ends.

 

Anger is defined as strong feelings of annoyance, displeasure and hostility. Anger can be a positive force when used with deliberation. Colin Powell once said, “Get mad, then get over it.” It is when anger emanate from hatred and its manifestations devolve into violence that should concern us. The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25^th spawned understandable protests across the United States, but which rose to incoherent violence in some cities and the rebirth of the Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements. Corporations, schools and colleges were quick to demonstrate their “wokeness.” What that exactly meant is of less interest to them than in how they are perceived. If you aren’t “woke,” you are racist. The lockdown of the economy in response to COVID-19 has made inner cities tinder boxes, with demonstrators protesting government edicts that violate rights to assemble, especially in places of worship. 

 

While rioters call for defunding police, murder rates in the Country’s fifty largest cities have risen 24% through July. Disrespect for law enforcement has abetted property destruction. A July 27 editorial in the Wall Street Journal headlined “A Weekend of Urban Anarchy,” spoke to assaults on public and private property in the cities of Seattle; Portland, Oregon, Louisville, Kentucky; New York; Atlanta, and Baltimore. “Lawlessness begets lawlessness, and in recent weeks we’ve seen reports of vigilantes and far-right activists joining the melee from Richmond to Philadelphia. Local officials are allowing this to happen, and the more it is indulged the worse it is likely to get.” Legal restrictions imposed by the Seattle City Council banning the use of pepper spray caused Carmen Best, Chief of the Seattle Police Department to issue a statement in which she said that in order to protect her officers, she would have an “adjusted deployment” in response to any demonstrations that threaten private property.  She would not place her officers at risk, with them unable to respond.

 

Second quarter GDP numbers showed a preliminary decrease of 32.9% (down 9.5% from the same quarter a year ago), the worst quarterly GDP report on record. Fear of COVID-19 had employed government politicians and bureaucrats order businesses to close, creating unemployment; they urged people to stay home, regardless of economic costs. Their actions were supported by employed media workers. If we persist on this path, more lives will be destroyed, perhaps not by the coronavirus, but by poverty, isolation, bankruptcies, increased drug usage and suicide. Ironically, one of the worst performing sectors during the quarter was the health industry, led by a halt in elective surgeries, fewer cancer screens and less heart monitoring. Government spending cannot make up the difference. No federal or state agency can replicate the efficiency of the free market, comprised of billions of decisions by millions of people. As a nation, we should ensure that the most vulnerable are protected from COVID-19, while encouraging the rest to act responsibly and allow the economy to recover. It is little wonder that the response to the virus, which has been largely political, has given rise to frustration, leading to anger.

 

Mainstream media would have us believe that this anger is the fault of the mercurial Mr. Trump, but, in truth, it did not begin with him. The “Billy Goat” behavior of President Clinton angered those who felt he had tarnished the Presidency. The invasion of Iraq by President George W. Bush was based on allegations that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction. When no such weapons were found, opponents became angered. The IRS targeting of conservatives, lies about Benghazi, Fast and Furious and cash sent to Iran were scandals that enveloped the Obama Administration and angered those who felt they had been snookered. Nevertheless, the vitriol then did not reach levels seen today.

 

Anger is a tool of the inarticulate and bubbles to the surface when reason is absent. Hatred for Donald Trump is ubiquitous; his personality and his promise to “drain the swamp” that links lobbyists to government employees has led to anger towards him. Hatred for those whose political opinions do not coincide with ours has led to anger toward our neighbors. Hatred for our Country is a consequence of dubious claims that “systemic” racism is rampant in the United States.

 

Lost in this anger is an appreciation for how rare is the freedom that was the promise of our Founders more than two centuries ago. As a nation, we are a work-in-progress, but the foundation on which our liberties are built is solid, if we can keep them, as Benjamin Franklin admonished. While some are born into wealthy, two-parent loving families and others have obstacles to overcome, every person born in this Country is privileged. Where else in the world would one have equivalent opportunities?

 

The purpose of government is not to give everyone an easy life. It is to provide the infrastructure that keeps people safe from enemies without and oppressors within – safe to be free and independent, to enact and execute laws that protect property and persons, to ensure against those who misuse power, whether political or economic and to give each person the opportunity through education to improve their lot. Education is the crucible where ideas germinate and tolerance is formed. As former U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R- UT) wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, “Restoring intellectual honesty to our universities is key to rebuilding credibility in the expert class.” So true. Let calm replace anger, so Aristotle’s fool gains wisdom.