Haters gonna hate

We’re just a couple of days from Election Day and the rhetoric and vitriol is ramping up to new heights.  Candidates for every office from Governor to Dog Catcher are telling anyone who will listen why votes for the other guy are bad for everybody…while somehow never getting around to saying why votes for themselves would be good for everybody.  It’s all “Vote for me because the other candidate is anti-everything good and wholesome. ”

Decisions, decisions…

The only problem with that approach is that the other candidate is saying the same thing but from the other direction.  How are you supposed to choose?  If either one said something like, “I’ve got X number of years in government at the regional level and I did A, B and C during my tenure.”…or maybe, “I’ve got a Masters in Economics and consulted with the Treasury Department for the last however-many years.” then you’d have something you could check on to help you make up your mind.

But what we have is just finger-pointing.  Well, that and what they say they’re for or against…and how they say it.  It’s really easy to stand up and say “I’m in favor of” or “I’m opposed to” a political hot-button.  But how they say it can be very telling.

Let’s use same-sex marriage as an example.  If a candidate comes out in favor of  or opposed to same-sex marriage but can’t, or won’t, say why…or maybe just sounds kind of meh on the subject, they might be just pandering to a demographic in search of votes.  That’s pretty much standard fare from politicians.  In that case, the only thing a voter can do is look at their voting record – assuming they have one – and decide as best they can.

But there’s a type of candidate commonly found these days that will express their views in more concrete terms.  And, from what I’ve seen, those terms are usually very strongly AGAINST.  Against a whole bunch of things…and that’s fine.  This is a free Country and everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  But it hides a problem.

The problem with a lot of these candidates and their supporters is that they are not just against certain things.  They appear to actively hate those things and anyone who disagrees with them about it…which kind of flies in the face of that whole, “It’s a free country” thing.  I mean, you’re free to believe any way you want…as long as you agree with me?    That’s not the freedom I grew up with.

Us vs Them

The thing is,  when you hate like that, you generally aren’t willing to talk about it.  Certainly, I’m not seeing a lot of conversation between people trying to come to a common ground.  Hate is dividing us as a country.  This is a bad thing.

And we’re letting the haters do it to us…and that has to stop.  We need to call out any person, politician or not, who is pushing hate as a doctrine.  If someone posts something on social media espousing hate, call them out on it.  If a political candidate pushes an agenda or law that demonizes a group or a right, call them on it, preferably in public and in front of the press.  If a religious leader preaches hate for…well, for anything, call them on it even if it means interrupting church.  The last time I checked, God is love.  It seems to me that hate doesn’t have a place in any faith.

Hate is insidious.  It can sneak up on you and get hooks into you before you’re aware it’s there.  So calling out someone about their apparent hate will bring that out into the open where they have to address it  and deal with it.  What they do or don’t do at that point will often tell you every thing you need to know about that person.  If they admit to it and try to mend their ways, they may just be someone who got snuck up on.  If they deny it or try to spin it or, even worse, admit it and act proud of it, they are probably not someone you want making decisions for you and yours.

And we can’t just point it out in other people.  Remember the old saw – “Whenever you point at someone, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.”  There’s truth in that.  You can’t expect people to change their hate if you aren’t willing to change yours.  Stop hating.  Stop using the word “hate”.  I don’t care if you’re talking about politics or brussel sprouts.  Don’t hate.  Think about alternatives.

Maybe they’re not so bad…

I used to not like brussel sprouts.  I can’t really say I hated them but I certainly didn’t like them.  They were bitter, mushy and gross.  Then I found a way of cooking them that I did like…and suddenly, brussel sprouts are on the menu in our house.  Try to face political and religious differences the same way.

Don’t hate someone because they vote or worship or marry or think differently than you do.  Look for alternatives.  Look for common ground.  If you disagree with someone on the subject of same-sex marriage, maybe you agree with them about health care…or the economy.  Find the things you agree on and use that as a foundation to build a dialog about the areas you disagree on.  And when you come up against something that you can NOT agree on, accept that fact, agree to disagree but also, agree to live and let live…which means neither of you gets to tell the other person how to live.

If they don’t think abortion is a good thing, they they are free to not get one.  If they think same-sex marriage is a sin, they are free to not be in a same-sex marriage.  If they think there are only two sexes, fine.  But no one gets to force their views on anyone else.  This country was founded on the principle that everyone is created equal…which means that everyone gets to live how they want to and no one gets to tell anyone else how to live.

This country was founded on freedom.  Freedom of religion.  Freedom from religion if you so choose.  Freedom to act and think however you want as long as you don’t hurt others.  So don’t hate.  Hate hurts.  Hate hurts us all.  If someone chooses to live a way that you don’t approve of, you have every right to not approve.  But you do NOT have the right to dictate that they live in your approved manner.  That is not freedom.  That is tyranny.  That is slavery.  That is hate.  And that is not America.

Here we go again…

Hi!  Remember me?  I know, it’s been a minute.  I was hoping that the next time I got the urge to jot down my thoughts, they wouldn’t be politically oriented but I guess that didn’t happen because…

It’s Election Season…again

Voters guide for the 2022 Election for Berks County PA residents

Yay.  Yippee. Woo-hoo.

If I don’t sound too enthusiastic, it’s for a reason. In a season when I’d like to be walking through piles of bright colored leaves, I’m walking through a cesspool of hate, lies and vitriol. Between the candidate signs everywhere, the political ads all over the internet, the SPAM emails and the veritable forest of dead-tree crap delivered to my door, I’m ready for Fall – this one, anyway – to be DONE!

Politics in this country are less about what each party thinks is best for America and more about garnering and keeping as much power for themselves as they can.  Oh, on the surface, it doesn’t seem that way but anyone who can read a headline knows the truth.

Both sides want to WIN!!! And they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make sure they do. Politics in America has always been something of a free-for-all but, for the last several years, it’s gotten more and more vicious.  This year, I don’t recall seeing a single ad saying why I should vote FOR someone.  All I seem to see are ads telling my to vote AGAINST <insert candidate’s name here> because he/she is a lying bag of shit who wants to <insert dog-whistle slogan here> which will destroy the <country/state/county/city/family/whatever>.

If the sides were evenly matched, it might not be so bad but things are definitely not even. Getting the Democrats/left/liberals to do anything as a single group is like trying to herd cats on acid. The Republicans/right/conservatives are much better at all pulling together. The only problem is that they are all pulling has hard and as fast as they can toward a cliff.

Worse still are the basic issues defining this election. One the left hand, you’ve got a very unorganized bunch of people pushing for what boil down to basic human rights – healthcare, equality, freedom of choice, freedom of self-identity, bodily autonomy. On the right hand, you have a much more focused and organized group pushing hard to impose what amounts to a theocratic state where, if you don’t believe right or worship right or have the right gender identity or the right skin color…or if you have a uterus, you don’t get to have any rights.

The way it seems to me, the left wants everyone to get and give the best they can while the right wants to control who you are, who you can be and what you can do or get. Yes, this is a gross over-simplification…but it gets the point across.

The great divide…

Every Democrat/left/liberal politician I’ve heard wants women to have bodily autonomy, wants people to be able to decide for themselves what gender they do or do not identify as, wants everyone to have healthcare, wants people to be treated the same regardless of what color their skin is.  They want to be/stay in power the same as their opponents but the agenda they are pushing is based on giving people more what they need to live (as opposed to survive), making the corporations and the rich pay their fair share and doing what we can to make sure there’s still a planet to live on a generation or two from now.

By the same token, every Republican/right/conservative politician I’ve heard wants to control women’s bodies and make blanket decisions about their healthcare rights in spite of the fact that every single medical professional and healthcare organization says that’s a bad idea. They want to limit what gender someone can be even though science and history both say that more than two sexes exist in nature. They want to Make America WASP Again, ignoring or rolling back the hard won progress this country has made toward true universal equality. They want the Government to be based on Christian principles even though this country was formed on the fundamental belief in religious freedom, religious tolerance and the separation of Church and State. And by the way, the “Christian” principles they espouse sound more like they came from Mein Kampf than the New Testament.

The ad is mightier than the sword!

The problem is, with the right ad campaign, anything can be made to look good. If you phrase something right, with the right visuals and sound track, you can get people to help you commit mass murder. Don’t believe me? By any chance have you ever heard of the Nazi death camps?

Hitler preyed upon people’s distrust of strangers. He blamed the bad German economy on Jews. He promoted an Us vs. Them feeling in everyday life and then gave the people a convenient scapegoat. In the end, a charismatic madman with a lust for power had talked an entire country into killing six million people.

Make good choices…

Election 2022 - 9 & 10 News

That’s easier said than done.  Who do you believe?  How do you figure out who is lying?  How do you decide who to vote for?  Or against?

“If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Frankly, I assume that every politician is a liar.  They want to get elected and they’ll say whatever they need to in order to make that happen.  My yardstick to decide where to cast my vote is to look at what they say. (Wait!!!  What?  You just said they’re all liars.)  Yes, I did.  But what a candidate says and how they say it can tell you a lot.

Are they pushing an agenda that includes people or excludes people? Do they want to help people or hurt them? Do they talk about all of us together or us vs them? Do they preach love or hate?  Are they willing to compromise with their opponents or is it “my way or the highway”?  Finally, if they have held office before, what is their voting record.  

There is no way I’ll agree with everything a left/liberal/Democrat – or any –  politician says.  I don’t trust the Democrats any more than I trust the Republicans. But for now anyway, the Democrats are not trying to divide us as a nation. They’re not trying to exclude.  They’re not trying to divide.  Oh, they still want to be large and in charge, just like the right/conservative/Republicans but they’re doing it by pushing programs that help people. I’ll vote FOR inclusion and helping people and love every time.  Just like I’ll vote AGAINST exclusion and hurting people and hate every time.

Sheep or goats?

Oh, and I’m aware that my intention to vote Democrat will undoubtedly get me called a “sheep”.  Here’s a question for all the self-proclaimed Christians out there who don’t want to give people health care or feed the poor or welcome strangers…look in the mirror and answer yourself honestly…are you a sheep?  Or are you a goat?  If you want to call me a sheep, that’s fine.  I’ll thank you for the compliment and try hard to live up to that standard.  Will you do the same?

Parable of the Sheep and the Goats

Matthew 25

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

And a new day dawns…I hope

Kamala Harris Endorsed Joe Biden This Morning – Mother JonesAs I write this, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States.  Hopefully, the day’s proceedings will continue to be completely uneventful and we can start getting things back on a more normal footing.  That said, however, there are some things that need to change…and this is where it gets interesting.  Not everyone is going to want the same changes…or like the changes that eventually do get made…or even agree that we need to change anything at all.

Still, I’d like to take a minute and throw out my own personal list of “Things That Need To Change” as an open letter to our incoming President and Vice President, Speaker of the House Pelosi, Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell, Senator Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Rashida Tlaib, Representative Ilhan Omar and the rest of Congress.

Current Events

Anyone who participated in the insurrection and attempted coup on January 6th, 2021 should be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  This should include any and all Elected Officials who helped instigate the unrest by attempting to overturn a lawful election.  Any Senators and Representatives involved should be ejected from Congress and put on trial immediately.  And frankly, they should be held to a harsher accounting than the people who actually stormed the Capitol.  Our Elected Officials MUST be held to a higher standard.  They profess to be our “Leaders”.  Time to put up or shut up.

Former President Trump should be impeached and held FULLY accountable for his actions in instigating the Capital assault and for his inaction in trying to halt it – see my previous comments about Elected Officials, Leaders and higher standards.  Furthermore, he should be stripped of any and all benefits that a former President would normally receive and he should be barred from ever holding public office again.  Finally, any protections he might get from Civil or Criminal prosecution should be removed.  If he broke the law, he should be held accountable.

Put simply, we can not…MUST NOT…have one set of rules for Elected Officials and another set for everyone else.  This is America, where “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” and everyone is held equal under the law.

And I don’t want to hear about forgiveness and moving past all this and letting bygones by bygones.  If someone steals a car, they should be charged with stealing a car.  If someone murders another person, they should be charged with murder.  If someone takes up arms against our government, they should face appropriate charges for that, too.  I trust I won’t have to dredge up the old medical maxim about having to cut out the infection before healing can begin.  But the goal here must be equal justice under the law, not revenge.

The Past

I used to be a Republican.  I registered as a Republican when I was 18 so that I could vote and that’s how things remained until a few years ago when I changed the party affiliation on my voter’s registration.  No, I did not register as a Democrat.  I registered as an Independent.  My wife, formerly a Democrat, also changed her affiliation to Independent. 

There were several reasons for this: Democrat Super Delegates who ignored the will of the people and cast their votes for Hillary Clinton, the DNC’s unfair treatment of Senator Sanders in that same election, Republican scare tactics and denial of scientific fact and their absolute refusal to deal at all with anything proposed by President Obama and so much more.  What it all boils down to is partisan politics at the expense of the American people and the United States as a country. 

My wife and I were not the first to do drop our party affiliations…and we most certainly will not be the last.  In fact, we seem to be part of a trend.  The Democrat and Republican Parties are suffering a death of a thousand cuts…and they are doing it to themselves. A weekly Gallup poll running since 2004 spells it out.  Both major parties are losing people.

‘My way or the highway’ politics needs to end.  Extremist politics from either party needs to end.  Self-serving politics at the expense of the American people and the country needs to end.  Moderation, working together, compromise and cooperation, whole-hearted, devoted service to your constituents and your country – this is the only way forward.  Anything else is a National suicide pact.  I would remind you that a synonym for holding elected office is “Public Service”.

The Senate Oath of Office reads, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

The House Oath of Office reads, “I, <name>, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Members of Congress, can you honestly say that you are honoring your oath?  Can you honestly say that you are serving the people you swore to represent?  Can you honestly say that you are putting the welfare of your constituents and your country ahead of your own ego, personal welfare and power?  Honor, integrity, personal accountability and personal responsibility are not just words.  They are the cornerstone of public service and they are principles that helped found and form this country.  If you cannot honestly answer all three of those questions with an unreserved “Yes” then you need to look in the mirror and examine the soul of the person looking back at you.

The Future

This is the important part…where do we go from here?  If we don’t learn from the past and put aside our partisan ways, the only direction we will go is down.  Personally, I would prefer to avoid that.  But there’s no easy path to a better tomorrow.  There are a few things we can do to get started though.

Put an end to partisan politics.  That has done nothing except bring us to the brink of ruin.  We have to work together if we want to get anything done.  We have to be willing to compromise.  We’ve just had four years of “the only way I win is if everyone else loses” and look where that left us.  How about we try a little something I like to call Bipartisanship?  Maybe if the Democrats and the Republicans work together we can get something permanent and positive done. 

Partisan politics gives us a few years of one way followed by a few years of the exact opposite.  Two steps left, two steps right and you end up right back where you started from with no one any better off.  Two steps forward followed by two more steps forward sounds like a much better idea.

Embrace science.  Don’t base policy on internet memes and gut instinct.  Science is a thing.  Science is real.  It works.  It’s proven.  It helped make America great in the first place – you remember…that whole man on the moon, “One small step” thing.  But this means accepting a few truths like: global warming is real, vaccines don’t cause autism, face masks work.  It also means that we need to…

Educate our children.  Raise education standards, never lower them.  Increase funding to public schools so that school systems can hire more teachers, make classrooms smaller, raise salaries and provide teachers with the materials they need to do their jobs. 

Make higher education free to everyone – whether it’s college or trade school.  You don’t have to have a college degree to get a good job.  If we don’t have plumbers, electricians, welders and carpenters, where will the college graduates live and work?  A functional society has to have a strong mix of both blue and white collar jobs.

Cancel student loans.  When I started college in 1978, my first year’s tuition was around $500 or $600 total.  That covered in-state tuition and books.  I was living at home so I didn’t have to pay for housing but friends who did have that extra expense still weren’t going into years of massive debt.  A summer joe-job would take care of most of it. 

My sons both paid somewhere north of $15,000/year for in-state tuition and housing.  This required student loans.  Books and meal plans took the totals even higher.  Both boys worked part-time jobs while they were in school.  Also, my wife and I pitched in with Parent Plus loans – I should have them paid off a couple of years after I retire.  My kids hope they’ll have their loans paid off by the time they retire, too. 

Just a final note about this…it’s kind of hard for a young person just starting out to save up to buy a car and a house and a big screen TV and etc. when they’re paying so much in student loan payments they can barely afford to pay their bills and buy food.  So if you want the economy to work better, this might be a place to start.

Fix taxation.  Right now, there are American companies that have moved their headquarters to other countries to avoid paying US taxes.  And I don’t think that should be against the law…as long as the entire Board of Directors of said company is willing to give up their US citizenship, move to the preferred foreign country and forfeit all their financial holdings in the US to pay for the privilege.  Oh, and I almost forgot…forced corporate divestiture of all US assets at 10% of market value.  There’s an old saying – “You’ve got to pay to play”.  So some other company that is willing to pay their taxes can buy up the assets and make a pile.

Consider putting tax rates from the Eisenhower administration back in effect for personal income tax.  All the dot-com billionairs would still have more money than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes.  But all that money put back into the economy would do the rest of the populace (and the economy) a world of good. 

And while we’re looking at Eisenhower era policies, how about setting the rules back so that companies that plow profits back into the company (instead of into shareholders pockets) don’t have to pay taxes on those profits.  Throw in some verbiage about domestic vs foreign assets and a lot of those jobs lost to overseas sweatshops will come back home which means lower unemployment and higher GDP.  

Fix insurance and health care.  Yes, I mean Socialized Medicine and Universal Healthcare.  No, I don’t mean turning us all into good little communists.  So first off, stop conflating Socialized Medicine with Socialism and Communism.  We already live in a Social Democracy.  We have public libraries, roads, schools, fire departments, colleges, universities, police departments, military, welfare, unemployment and more, all funded by public funds.  Funding Universal Healthcare won’t change who we are as a nation anymore than funding public schools did.

In all honesty, I feel I should point out that a healthy populace where everyone has the health care they need actually will change us.  For one thing, it will save us an estimated $99 Billion dollars each year…and since that estimate is from 2001 I’m going to guess that the number is a bit higher now.  Plus, wouldn’t everyone sleep better if they knew that no one would die because they had to choose between buying food or buying insulin?

Some of the costs for Universal Healthcare could be taken care of with a couple of simple policy changes.  Just as an example, let Medicare/Medicaid negotiate for drug prices.  That’s just sound capitalism.  If the government told private industry that they couldn’t use competitive bidding for their purchases, how long until the entire economy collapsed.  The entire government already uses competitive bidding.  Why can’t Medicare?  And please do not give me an answer that boils down to, “Because big Pharma would lose a buck”.

Most of what I’ve said up to now had been aimed at Congress.  But I don’t want this to be one-sided so I have some suggestions for the President, too. 

Don’t govern by fiat Executive Order.  Yes, I know that they’ve been around since George Washington and yes, I know that sometimes they’re necessary.  But Executive Orders are NOT laws.  They’re not permanent.  We’ve just had four years of Trump reversing Executive Orders enacted by Obama.  And you’ve already said that you’re going to reverse some (all?) of Trump’s.  Just remember that whoever comes after you is likely to reverse yours.

Instead, why not work for bipartisan solutions that will have backing from both parties to put permanent changes into effect.  Since Vice President Harris is the swing vote in Congress, this should be easier for you than it was for President Obama.  Of course, this will require bipartisan cooperation from Congress so it’s not all on you.

Install Department and Agency Heads that actually know how to do the job.  And avoid anyone with industry ties that will lead them to make policy benefiting business at the expense of the citizens.  I’ll point out the recent heads of Education and Communications as the type of candidate to avoid.

And don’t skip a good candidate just because they are from the opposing party.  If the best candidate for a given post is Republican, show some of that bipartisanship I mentioned earlier and give them the job.

Continue to diversify the government.  Your choice of Vice President Harris as your running mate is an encouraging first step.  And your choices for some of your cabinet would indicate that this is your policy and not just paying lip service. Keep up the good work.  But try to get more young people involved in your administration.  Frankly, I’m sick and tired of seeing nothing but a bunch of old white guys in government…and I’m an old white guy.

Final thoughts

Who am I kidding.  These aren’t my final thoughts on this subject.  I’ve had four long years to think about this plus I can armchair quarterback our government as well as any American.  So I’ll  probably circle back around to this at some point.  That’s for later, though.  For now, I’ve rambled enough.  But I will be watching and hoping…and expecting our President, Vice President and Congress to do everything they can to live up to their oaths.  They have a responsibility to US…and to the U.S.  And we have a responsibility to make sure they do their jobs.

Is Your News Feed Killing America?

Quick question…what’s in your news feed? Maybe you use Google News, maybe you use Flipboard. Maybe you still have a landing page in your browser that has news feeds in it. But what news feeds are they?

I’m not asking if you’re Liberal or Conservative. And I’m not going to get into which news feeds cater to Liberals or which ones cater to Conservatives. What I want to know is, do any of those news feeds disagree with your stance on politics? I’m betting the answer to that question is, “No”.

The age of personalization

This is a wonderful time we’re living in. Think about it. You can buy fresh fruit from the other side of the globe. You can order doodads and thing-a-ma-bobs from all over the planet and have them delivered to your door in just a couple of days. You can stream music or TV or movies to your phone pretty much anywhere you go. You can subscribe to blogs, podcasts and websites for any interest you may have. And you can have a personalized newspaper available to you every minute of every day.

Every bit of it can be customized to your specific tastes. Want to listen to nothing but pre-White Album Beatles? No problem. Want to see the latest episode of your favorite sitcom? Just stream it. Want to read up on all the latest trends in hair care, craft brewing, microbiology or whatever your particular interest is? There’s a blog or website or podcast out there just for you. Want to read the news without all that annoying stuff from the other party that you just don’t want to wade through? A custom news feed is just a click away. But that custom news feed may be a problem.

You are what you read

When I was a kid, every night at 6:00 my Dad would tune the TV to the CBS Evening News. Walter Cronkite would be there to tell us what was happening in the world. Maybe other families watched David Brinkley…or maybe just their local news. There weren’t as many choices back then so you could be pretty sure that anybody watching the Evening News was watching either CBS, ABC, NBC or the local channel. And maybe you liked it, maybe you didn’t…but you trusted that it was the truth.

I’m not saying that the news was completely unbiased. One network might lean a little more toward the Democratic side of things while their competition might tend to be more Republican oriented. But regardless, the news was reported in a reasonably unbiased manner. If you watched Cronkite and you were talking about the news the next day to a co-worker who watched Brinkley, you’d have both heard pretty much the same news, reported in very similar fashion.

If Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley both looked at the same dog, both would report on the dog. One might comment more on how big the dog was while the other might focus more on the length and color of it’s coat but there’d be no doubt that they were reporting on the same dog. Your water cooler conversation may be about the relative merits of Black Labradors vs Beagles (Black Labs win that one, BTW) but regardless, you’d be talking about dogs because dogs were what every network was reporting on.

Compare that with today where, if MSNBC and Fox both looked at the same dog, MSNBC would tell you about a fish and Fox would tell you about a bird. If you’re more a fish person, you’re going to be all-in on MSNBC. But if you’re think that fish drool and birds rule, Fox is where you’re going to go for your news fix. The only problem with that is that we complete lose track of the fact that we’re actually talking about dogs.

You read what you are

Today we have news sources that is decidedly biased one way or the other. We also have technology that makes it insanely easy to tailor a news feed that caters to our individual biases and opinions. On the face of it, it sounds like a fine idea. I can read/watch/listen to news that is oriented to my interests. If my interest is business news, I can see that without having to wade through sports news or personal interest stories. Great! Fantastic!

But what happens when we check political news? Suddenly, you’re not seeing only political news without having to wade through business news or sports. You’re seeing only political news that conforms with your own biases and beliefs without having to wade through different opinions. If you’re a Liberal, the majority of the news stories you’ll see in your personalized feed will be Liberal stories from Liberal sources. By the same token, if you’re a Conservative, the majority of the news stories you’ll see in your personalized feed will be Conservative stories from Conservative sources.

OK, so what’s wrong with that?

Again, on the face of it, it sounds fine. “I don’t have to listen to those idiots over there. They’re wrong anyway so why waste my valuable time on them? I’ve got better things to do besides listening to their sheep-like bleating.”

Except that listening to nothing but what you already think closes your mind to everything else. If you never see or hear a different opinion you’ll never have a new idea. You’ll be doomed to live the same political day over and over and over again without any hope of it ending. It’s Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day but without the learning and growing and, most importantly, without the redemption in the end. Nobody gets the girl. Nobody lives happily ever after. Everybody just wakes up tomorrow and it’s exactly like today. Forever.

When I was a kid, politicians were Democrats or Republicans but they thought more for themselves. They at least made a pretense of supporting their constituency. They would ‘cross the aisle’ and vote for a bill from the other party because the bill was good or necessary. They didn’t do it all the time but it happened often enough that it wasn’t worth more than a casual mention on the news, if that.

These days, Democrats and Republicans are scared to do anything not officially blessed by their Party. Crossing the aisle is a major thing and could cost you re-election. With everyone only seeing their own opinions and never seeing anything else, we’ve become an Us vs. Them country. If you agree with me, you’re on the side of the angels. If you don’t agree with me, you’re more evil that Satan.

And it’s getting worse every day. The news sources for all those personalized feeds have to keep one-upping every story. And the networks with their polarizing spins do the same thing. If they don’t, they lose readers or viewers. A story that was a 5 alarm fire last month wouldn’t be worth mentioning this month because “HAVE YOU SEEN THE LATEST THING THAT THOSE EVIL BASTARDS OVER THERE HAVE DONE TODAY?!?!?!?”

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So what’s the solution?

Frankly, I doubt that there is one single solution. But, in the interest of proposing solutions to problems and not just complaining about them, I’ll lay out three options: what I want to see happen, what I hope happens and what I do myself.

What I want to see happen is for News reporting to go back to a time when reporters only reported the news. They didn’t try to make it. They didn’t spin every sentence to try to make it sound like their side was nothing but Good Guys and the other side was nothing but Bad Guys. I’d like them to report the news without actively, blatantly, aggressively having a side. I’d like to see more factual reporting and less opinion. I don’t see this happening anytime soon. Maybe one day that pendulum will swing back the other way but I’m not going to hold my breathe.

What I hope happens has nothing to do with the news sources and has everything to do with computer programmers. Let me explain. You have a personalized news feed because of computer programmers. They wrote programs that looked at what news sources you read most often, how long you spend reading their content, how quickly you click away from other content, etc. Then they took that information and gave you a news feed based on where you clicked the most and what news you spent the most time on. It’s pretty much the same thing that Spotify does with your music feed and Netflix does with your movies.

But when it comes to politics, I’d like the programmers to program in some equal time. For every three Conservative stories in your feed, they throw in a Liberal one. And vice-versa, or course. This won’t do anything for the Luddites who don’t get on the Internet and only watch whichever TV news channel feeds their biases. It would however, make sure that just about anyone under the age of 40 would be exposed to ideas different from their own. Maybe if that happened, the next generation would be more open and accepting … assuming we survive that long.

What I do myself – or try to do at any rate – is look at a bunch of different news sources of all stripes from HuffPost to Fox. I listen to Liberal and Conservative pundits ( sorry, I’m having a hard time calling them “Reporters” ). I read foreign press including the BBC and Al Jazeera. Then I think about what I’ve read and heard. I talk to other people about it – specifically including people who vote differently than me. I do some research and try to double-check the alleged facts that have been “reported”. And finally, I try to make up my own mind.

I don’t do all that so I can say that I’m better than anyone else. I do it so that I know what I think is as close to the truth as I can find. I do it so that I am forced to consider opinions and idea that are sometimes wildly different from what I might normally consider. I do it so that my ideas and opinions are truly my own and not just what some talking head told me to believe. Because if I don’t question my ideas…if I don’t hold my opinions up for comparison to differing opinions, how can I know whether any of them are worth a damn?

I’ll ask again…what’s in your news feed? Are you reading and listening to news that challenges your opinions and that forces you to consider other ideas besides your own? Or are you only reading and listening to news that feeds your own biases? Are you trying to save America? Or are you trying to kill it?

My Constitutional Amendment Wish List

It’s the Christmas season and there’s a certain wish list I’ve had for years now – a couple of decades really – that I hope to see passed as law in this land someday.   I don’t really expect to get any of them – especially since they would all require Constitutional Amendments – but I still hold out hope.  Let me share it with you.

Congressional Term Limitations

The 22nd Amendment states, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”  It was proposed and ratified at least partially in response to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election to a third and then a fourth term as President.

The idea behind it was that if any one person spent too much time in office, their power would grow too great.  If he had lived, FDR would have served sixteen years as President of the United States.  Meanwhile, according to this list, there have been over 100 Senators and Representatives who have served over thirty years in office.  Robert Byrd of West Virginia served for over 57 years and John Dingell of Michigan served for over 59!  How come it’s dangerous for a President to serve more than eight years but not for a Congressman?

A Presidential Line Item Veto

My reason for wishing for this can be summed up in one word.  Riders.  In case you want to skip the Wikipedia definition, a rider is a bad bill that gets tacked onto a good bill because the good bill has a better chance of passing.

There are two reasons for this.  The first is that it’s an easy way to get an unpopular bill passed since it’s riding on the coattails of a popular bill.  The other reason is to kill the popular bill by tacking poison pill riders onto it until it dies. If enough crap gets tacked on, the best bill in the world won’t pass.

Either way, a line item veto would clear all the dead wood off of those ‘good’ bills and stop a lot of bad legislation from becoming law.  It wouldn’t stop the poison pill riders from stopping a bill but it would help clear up a lot of the cruft that gets attached to other bills.

A Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution

On the surface this sounds pretty straight-forward – don’t spend more money than you have.  After all, I can’t so why should the Government be able to.  Except that I can spend more money than I have.  Yes, you and I indulge in deficit spending just like Uncle Sam.  We do it whenever we buy a car or a house or buy something with a credit card.

I don’t know about you but I don’t have $20,000.00 or more just lying around so I can buy a car for cash.  I have to get a car loan…or a mortgage if I want to buy a house.  The thing is, there are rules on how much I can borrow.  If my income doesn’t leave me enough room to make the car payments, the bank won’t give me the loan.  And if we do get the loan, we have to pay it back on time with interest if we want to preserve our credit rating and be able to get more loans in the future.

Uncle Sam doesn’t have to meet those same criteria.  He can pretty much say, “I want to borrow eleventy-seven gozillion dollars.  I’m good for it.  I’ll pay it back someday.”  and he gets the money.

Yes, I’m simplifying this a LOT.  And no, we couldn’t just say, “Starting tomorrow, we’re balancing the budget.”  That’s just not workable.  We would have to have a mandatory yearly reduction in deficit spending phased in gradually over 10 or 20 years until we get to the point where the budget is balanced.  That would give us time to adjust.  And it would keep our grandchildren from having to pay for our decisions…literally.

While we’re on the subject…

…there are a few other items I’d like to add to the list.

Congressional salaries (and raises) should be based off of an established, public economic indicator such as the Gross Domestic Product index or something similar.  If the GDP goes up, Congress gets a raise.  If the GDP goes down, Congress takes a pay cut.

A more extreme suggestion I’ve heard on this subject include putting every financial asset owned by a Congressman and Spouse into a blind trust keyed to the GDP.  When they leave office, they’re cashed out and they make or lose money based on the economy.  “Sorry about your vacation home and your kids college, Senator.  Maybe you should have voted FOR that Jobs Bill.”

Another wrinkle is to make it illegal for any sitting Federal elected official to have any overseas financial assets or investments.  This might make them a little more interested in the health and stability of the US economy.

How about we just roll all of these into the Term Limitations Amendment to keep it nice and simple?

Congressional Pensions.  The rules for Congressional pensions are complicated but one rule is that if a Congressman is 62 years old and has served at least 5 years, they can receive a full pension.  In 2002, the average pension payment ranged from $41,000 to $55,000. I wish I could get that kind of deal in my job.

The thing is, a Senate term is 6 years.  That means that I can run for the Senate at age 57, get elected and serve out my term sitting on my butt.  Then, when I get voted out of office I can still collect a full pension.  Hmmm…I’m gonna have to think about this one.  A Common Man for Senate, 2018.  Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Outlaw Super PACs.  There are precious few restrictions on where Super PACs can get their money from or how they can spend it.  There’s just too much room for private interests to play fast and loose with things here.  Which means that the rich and powerful (both people and corporations) can assert undue influence over our political system.

Outlaw Paid Lobbyists.  Please note that I specified “Paid Lobbyists”.  If someone wants to volunteer their time to push a political agenda, they have every right to do so.  In fact, the Bill of Rights makes that Right unassailable.  But Paid Lobbyists are beholden to no one and nothing except whoever is paying them.  That might be The Boys Scouts of America.  Or it might be Big Business.  Or it might be a foreign Government.  Regardless, there is too much room for abuse.  Limit it to volunteers and carefully controlled and regulated non-profits.

That’s it…at least for now.  Let me know what you think.  Did I miss anything?  Do you agree?  Let me know in the comments.