This past week has been a strange and sad week. If you have followed me for some time, you can probably guess my political orientations by my life outlook. Over the years I have become much more apolitical because I don’t believe that either party has my best interest at heart.
My view of voting has really changed as well. I went from red blooded, eagle scout to non-participant. I got in a ‘light’ debate with one of my family members about the fact that I wasn’t going to vote. Her attempted position was that I was setting a bad example for my kids. In fact, I believe the exact opposite, I am not brain washing my kids to believe every vote matters.
Take my state, Oregon. I actually voted as an experiment. I voted a ballot where every candidate of the choices best represented my values. Only one out of the entire ballot won their election and that was on the county commissioner position. Almost all of them lost by a landslide, it wasn’t even close except for state senator and state representative. You tell me that my vote mattered.
I want to go back to the dichotomy. I know people that are refusing to except the presidential election results. I didn’t know them at the time, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they thought Obama was not a citizen.
I also know people that called to rejoice that their candidate won, how great and historical this was, etc. These were the people that claimed Trump stole the election and cried when George W Bush was elected.
None of these people are bad people. I know them all, but they are blinded by their beliefs to the point that they are willing to hold fast to out and out nonsense. Don’t get me wrong, With hundreds of millions of votes, a few are bound to be erroneous, fake or suspicious. But what everyone is missing is that the system is getting over on them regardless of who wins.
This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I want to use some other examples of how this works. Take a person like Rush Limbaugh, he is a master of the same craft that Trump has used. Say something outrageous, let everyone get into their galvanized camp and use your supporters to make you more money. I do believe that Rush is sincere in his general positions but he is a master at manipulating his strong supporters and detractors for his own gain.
This is almost every politician on the national level and it is definitely pushing down to the state level. At the lower level it is often not monetary, but policy.
Has anyone been to a restaurant or bar lately? How foolish is it that you are required to wear a mask to enter but as soon as you sit at the table you are now in some sort of bubble where masks can be removed. It has got to be one way or the other. The mask needs to be on or it needs to be off.
Notice what is happening from a political standpoint. Both sides know that they cannot strangle the social aspect of the economy. They have made rules that make no sense and are not effective to appease the mask vs. no mask crowds.
Take football. Why is it that the NFL is fining coaching staff when caught with their masks off and the players are playing like normal? Could it be virtue signaling? Don’t the coaches go through the same testing regimen as the players? Is there such a thing as acceptable risk? It all makes no sense to me. We have another half in and half out situation here.
If you think that INS is keeping kids in cages or that dead people swung this election, you need to slap yourself in the face. Trump out trumped himself. He turned off people that were lukewarm in the last election and he certainly motivated people that weren’t engaged in the last election and lost by a very slim margin. Now, slap yourself again because regardless of the election results, we are just going to stand around while we lose our freedom at an accelerated pace. That is where the outrage should be.
I will leave with one more thought. Why do you think Trump did not want to release his tax information? Because if he did, the general public would find out that he is not ‘paying his fair share’. Meaning, the people that write the rules don’t write them for themselves, they write them for everyone else. Why else would insider trading be illegal for everyone but congress people? It is the most egregious and in your face example of a double standard as there is. They literally make the government contracts that can legally enrich there own pockets that is illegal for a citizen to do so.
You have heard of the saying ‘What is good for the goose is good for the gander’? There has been a lot of show over not releasing tax returns, but in the end none of them want the real game exposed – at least while people are paying attention.
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