Voting for a Living

Dear Daddy:

Well, in your last column, written just before the Election of all Elections, (which still isn't concluded as I write this), you told us to prepare for a bit of learning about the Electoral College. We have all been doing that!

What is your take on just what all this divisiveness and strife means? Is there a chance our nation may be really damaged by "Indecision 2000?"

Worried

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Dear Worried:

You have good reason to be worried about America. Not because of anything that has happened in the last month of Electionmania -- not at all.

Nothing has actually happened that hasn't been happening all over for a very long time.

We are just seeing a clash of basic worldviews -- fought out in public, with something tangible (the Presidency) at stake. And having the pressure of time bring things to the surface.

Many pundits have said that if the situation was reversed, with Bush behind Gore by a few hundred votes, we would see the same tactics being displayed by the Republicans.

I doubt that very much. Not because Republicans are all such swell folks, but because they would not see the basis for such a fight.

With all the shortcomings that the modern Republican party has--the unwillingness to tackle tough moral issues (such as abortion and government homosexuality promotion) there is still a basic philosophy that guides them, the idea that words mean something. That laws have words that at least have to be considered.

The rank and file supporters of the Republican party would not lend much support to such tactics as we have seen the Dems use so unashamedly. Without apparent embarrassment.

Think of all the things that have been challenged by the Liberals in the past few weeks.

The very meaning of:

Vote
Ballot
Election Day
Deadline (for recounts or contests)

Add to this list -- I am sure you can. To a liberal relativist nothing has a fixed meaning -- therefore everything can be challenged, in order to reach an objective. And, in true proved Clintonian fashion, it is best to have so many challenges going on at one time that almost nobody can focus on them all.

The even slightly "conservative" citizen is just aghast at all this. And he seems so shocked and surprised at all this. Yet he shouldn't be.

This is what has been going on wholesale in our courts, in our schools and churches for at least the whole of the 20th Century. It is just being displayed with a bang at the start of the 21st!

The two parties, though much too similar in many important ways, have their supporters line up behind them in basically two distinct camps.

The Republicans have more appeal to those who either work, or would like to think they work, for what they have. And who think others ought to at least give work a chance, too.

The Democrats, on the other hand, cater to those who (as I heard a radio talk show host put it) would like to, and often do "vote for a living."

We were warned about this in the 1830s, by de Tocqueville -- and he sure got it right!

Watch this develop in the next decade, as the Democrats continue to stir the pot of greed and envy. Toss in a dollop of charges of "racism." A pinch of this and a dash of that.

The old folks vote, for example, is now completely seen as up for sale (by both parties). "Gimme my monthly Social Security checks, prescription drug deal (watch the costs go through the roof now)! Medicare, Medicaid" and who knows what else will follow. Scare the oldsters that the other party will take it all away.

They are hooked, big time. They have no other issues that seem to have any meaning to them. Enjoying their last years -- and to hell with what their great-grand children may face.

Most all of the churches are scared to death of losing their precious 501 (c) 3 status. Not much of a peep out of them anymore -- so much for "organized" religion as a factor in helping us peasants see our way through what's going on.

It escapes me right now as to who it was, but sometime back in the 1930s an American writer said something like: "You can't expect someone to understand that which his paycheck demands that he not understand."

Powerful words, eh?

I believe them, and I fight every day to maintain principles in the face of the reality those few words describe. To not get bought off by the hope of living off the sweat of others who have their wealth confiscated by politicians who offer it to me in order to get my vote -- or who threaten to silence me if I rock their little boats.

Polarization? You bet. But it didn't originate on November 7.

Daddy

What is Gunophobia?
Reclaiming Freedom
Loving Correction
Throw Off the Shackles
Death Penalty 'Balance'
Keep Christ in Christmas
Ten Commandment in Schools
The Never-Born and Heaven
Who Do You Serve?
Separation of Church and State
Flag Football
A Letter to Major League Baseball
Diversity of Guilt
Anti-Gun or Anti-Sanity?
Real Creationists
What an Example!
A Jealous Nanny-State
"Feed My Sheep"
Conditioned Response
Allegiance to Pagan Spirits
'Dangerous' Goods?
A Free Press Dream
National Victims
Strategic Blunder
Rejecting the Creator
Congressional 'Living Will'
Taking Stock
Used and Manipulated
An Electorial College Education