Greetings and Salutations.
I apologize for the long silence, but, the chaos of life rose up and kept me away from posting. The following is, I admit, rather long…but I hope it is useful and I, for one, believe it is worth a read.

on July the 4th, #45 signed the budget reconciliation bill which the spineless bastards in Congress passed by a simple majority. Needless to say, this has caused quite an uproar amongst the rational adults in America – in other words the educated liberals. One of the people I am friended with posted the following comment about this obscenity.

“They passed it. For the poor, I say to you, I did everything I could here- to tell you Trump was going to hurt you. And he has. You will feel it soon enough. We all will.

I haven’t seen anything this sad and painful since the Vietnam War. To think the poor would dance to the tune of the rich following like lemmings off a cliff, makes me double over in pain. I am so sorry this has happened and I am so very sorry if it touches you. I am so sorry.”
This kicked off quite a lengthy thread of rational discussion about how this particular bill, now law, will affect a majority of Americans.

One of the folks in the thread, posted this heart-felt cry of frustration and pain:
“I am sick. I don’t know whether to cry or be angry. I think i am both right now but angrier than I have ever been. It is unconscionable and I am sick over all the people this will hurt in ways we don’t know yet. I am so sad for this country. Where did all this hatred come from???”

In the following dialogue with her, I found a topic for a blog essay, and now it follows!

As I observed in my comments to her, the answer to her question is not a simple one. There are many facets to it, so, I thought I would pick up and look at some of them. I do not address them in the order that she did, but, I think I do hit most of the important points.

Where did the the atmosphere of hate that has engulfed our country come from? I lay a great deal of the blame for this at the feet of Newt Gingrich. Before he took office and began spreading his poisonous ideas around, the Republicans looked upon the Democrats as opponents but not enemies. And of course, the Democrats looked upon the Republicans as being misguided and focused on some of the wrong issues. However, his continual spewing of lies and hate about the democrats caused a big change in attitudes. The Republicans moved from simply disliking Democrats to actually hating them and looking upon them as enemies That scummy sob started bad-mouthing Democrats the day he started campaigning, and gradually increased the rhetoric to paint them as the spawn of Satan out to destroy America, eat their dogs and rape their “wimmenfolks”

I will give Gingerich a point. He did an amazingly good job at deluding and brainwashing the gullible in America into adopting a blatant lie as a reflection of reality. As the Nazis did, he demonstrated that a big enough lie, presented enough times, becomes “the truth”. The end result of his unending spew of hate, lies, and calls for violence against Democrats has brought us to today’s world. A place and time where many Republicans are actively calling for Democrats to be executed, or, be rounded up and either put in concentration camps or deported to another country. They have been so thoroughly brainwashed and deluded that they no longer accept anyone who does not have an “R” next to their name as being human, equal to them, and having a view of reality that has validity. Their mindset reminds me of the same attitude that slave owners in and before the 1800s had towards the people of color that they kept in slavery.

To make one editorial interjection here, I say that there is no way to adequately describe what a filthy and evil piece of maggot infested manure in the shape of a man Gingerich is. It would not matter how he is punished, it will never be enough.

However, Newt was simply one facet of the problem. An issue that is more or less ignored, but I think had a great deal to do with where we are at now, is how society has evolved in the past 40 years.
The Advent of the computer, and its rapid growth from a fantasy of science fiction, to becoming an ubiquitous part of society, has altered the pace of society by a huge amount. One of the far less positive changes brought on by technology, and computers, is that changes in society seem to hit us at the rate of hundreds of thousands a day, instead of the leisurely four or five changes per year that we lived with for decades. In a very real sense, society is moving at the rate of a Concord airplane flying at supersonic speeds now instead of the much slower pace of a horse-drawn carriage. This evolution of the computer from being an expensive toy only for the few, to being so common that our wrist watches are actually fairly powerful computers, was a warning, symptom and cause of this acelleration of change in society. The fact that technology changes so rapidly has fueled the fire of the perception of how rapidly things are changing.

Now, why is this a problem? Well, simply put, most people do not take change well. Sudden change is pretty much guaranteed to upset a great number of people. Most people like a level of stability in life. Let us look at our own lives as an example of a basic need for some level of stability in our lives. How many of us make an effort to take a different route every few days on our drive to work? A vast majority of us follow exactly the same route, day in and day out, to get to work. How many of us go to the same restaurant for a bite to eat, and end up ordering exactly the same thing (or possibly one of two or three items) on the menu that we are familiar with? I believe the answer to these questions is ” most of us “. Instability brings along with it anxiety which causes stress and generally a negative reaction to outside events in the world. Sometimes, the instability that today’s society seems to bring generates deep feelings of fear and anger. And, for a variety of reasons, it seems as if most people today are not dealing with those feelings in a positive way. Rather, they’re looking for a scapegoat to blame for their negative feelings. Whenever we are hit with these feelings though, we can either learn to deal with them and find a positive way to convert that energy to a better cause, or we can let ourselves be controlled by these feelings – which of course ends up with us looking for that scapegoat I mentioned to blame for our problems.. Too many people, (specifically the republicans) have chosen the path of allowing those emotions to control them. Their actions are not taken based on rational thought, but of fear of the change of society that may knock them out of their privileged position and put those people who have been oppressed into those positions of power. This adds fuel to their anxieties, because they often believe that people they have mistreated will mistreat them when these folks gain power…

After decades of observing the emotions and thought processes of NT humans, I have come to the conclusion that hate seems to be a very easy emotion for people to dive into. And, far too often, they will pick a random target for that hate. Because confronting what they are actually hating is frightening to them, or they simply refuse to look at it and admit what they are frightened about, they focus on the scapegoat and try to get relief by oppressing or injuring or denigrating, an innocent target.

To get back to my analogy of today’s society, this is why change is often a generator of random hate. While we can hate change all we want, we cannot make it stop, or reverse, because of that hate. So, a great many people refocus that hate on a scapegoat. Today, the scapegoat is the citizen who does not fit the hater’s narrow definition of “normal”. Since America’s entire existence is rooted in slavery and the attitude of the slave owners that people of color are not human, but cattle, that makes anyone who is not a white Anglo Saxon Protestant into an easy target of hate. The LGBTQ community is another easy target for these haters.
Over the years, the fears that white folks have about losing status, privilege, or authority have been reinforced and amplified by the lies used by the Republicans. They are very good at using these techniques to Gin up hate to get their base out to vote (often against their own self interest) The Republicans have collected a following of people who they can manipulate and do the bidding of their “leaders” without worring that this base will be thinking too much. I’m sorry to say these have been very successful at creating a group that will vote out of emotion, rather than rational thought. Today’s society is a perfect example of this.

Now then, having ranted on about the problems in America for a while, I ask myself “what could we do as a people to correct the path we are on, and try to return to a more tolerant, caring, society? ” I will take a moment here, to say that I believe a majority of Americans are good people, who have empathy for the troubles of others, and will be very helpful and friendly. However right now we’re in a situation where a small minority of puritanical fanatics have taken over our government, and are getting all of the publicity by the mainstream media. This bad situation means that they appear much larger and more powerful than they really are. This is not to minimize the dangers of the path we as a society, are on, and stop working to change the road to self-destruction.

So, the first thing that I would suggest doing to help America get back to a path of rational thought, sanity, and being a country that people look up to instead of consider to be a rogue nation…a severe danger to the world, is for the Fairness Doctrine, which was killed by the Republicans, to be codified as law, not just an FCC policy. On top of that, I would say that the FCC should be given some power to actually enforce a fair reporting of news. For example, the agency should, after due process is followed, have the power to block any major broadcaster who claims to be a news source, but actually lies more than 80% of the time, and has been adjudicated in court to be not a news network, but an entertainment Network.

I have come to believe that term limits for all elected officials should be the rule of the land. The exact length of time that a given politician May hold office is likely to be negotiated later, but I think anyone who has been there for more than 20 years, should be retired whether they want to be or not. Part of the problem today is that both parties are run by very elderly people who, while they may have a lot of wisdom (at least on the Democratic side) tend to be more risk averse, and unable to evolve to deal with today’s society.

I would like to see the tax tables returned to the pre-Reagan days. The vast wealth Gap that exists in America and is still growing, is something which may be good for a tiny number of people, but for society in general is a very, very bad thing. We are rapidly approaching the society of the French revolution, where the royalty lived in unimaginable luxury and everyone else lived in mud huts and fought daily to keep from starving to death. That did not turn out well for the royalty, and unless this is addressed here, history tells us that it will not turn out well for the ultra rich in America.

I would like to see us get back to a constitutional separation of church and state. Religion or religious doctrine should not be a part of a public educational system or, The legislatures who determine what society is like. People can be Christians and I have no problem with that. I would like to hope that Christians would be more ethical, tolerant, and loving. And, if they are this it should be reflected in the programs and laws that they support. But to have religious texts published and hung in classrooms, to have religious icons in state legislatures, and, the government supporting one particular religious view over All others, should never be a part of our society. This does not mean I believe prayer in schools, or Bible studies should not be allowed on school grounds. It does mean that NO person working for the government (teacher, administrator, support staff, etc) may lead any such activity. If students want to do this, then they can be accommodated…and I remember from my days as a school boy…there were often fervent and honest prayers being prayed by students….

I would like to see the educational system evolve to a point where it is focused on teaching children how to think, and how to examine the world skeptically, and to always be alert to how topics are presented. Students should be taught the research tools to enable them to find out what the truth is. Right now it seems that most of the school year is focused on pumping facts into little heads to be regurgitated on standardized tests. This is not education it is simply recording and playing back data that means nothing to anyone. This change in the educational system is, I believe, a major factor in why we have so many gullible voters in these United States. I will say, in passing, that I understand there is a lot of rote work required to understand and integrate a given subject in their heads. However, without the ability to look at the bigger picture and see more than one side, memorization is a waste of time.

I would like to see some political changes also. For example, I think that the supreme Court should reflect the demographics of the country. And, that it should have a nearly equal number of representatives from both Republican and Democratic parties. I only mentioned two Parties because, at this point in time, there is no third party that has got enough political power to have any influence in government. The history of third parties in America is not particularly impressive, mainly because they are chaotic little explosions of frustration by small groups of people. I’ve discussed elsewhere what it would take to create a viable third party in America, and so far, I have not seen one person attempting this path.

I would like to see some changes in election rules. First off, the Draconian changes the Republicans are trying to push through to require extensive and difficult to obtain voter IDs, and, the ability to randomly challenge voters, should be eliminated.. These changed being pushed are a solution in search of a problem. The voting system in America is very secure, and has a number of cross checks to make sure that every vote cast is legal. I saw a report after the 2020 election that found that, out of billions of votes cast, only a few thousand were found to be questionable. The changes the Republicans are pushing are not designed to build confidence in the voting system and catch malfeasance, but, are being put in place to make it less likely that people who do not vote Republican are disenfranchised. The changes are focused more on voter suppression rather than supporting the citizen’s right to vote in free and fair elections. This may be one reason why in the last election over 60% of the valid voters did not cast a vote.

I would like to see the winner take all laws that some states have for electors in the presidential contests be removed from the books. I think that the electors should be apportioned to each candidate running, based on the percentage of votes they get and only that way. The “Winner take all” laws make it less likely that people will vote, and, as history shows us, often benefit the Republicans more than the Democrats. If the votes were apportioned as I mentioned, it would become very clear that a majority of citizens do not support the Republican goals.

I would like to see the method of laying out congressional districts be revamped. Right now it is an incredibly partisan process, with which ever party in charge after the census controlling exactly how the districts are created. This leads us to gerrymandered districts and in most cases the politicians choose what voters they want to have voting for them, instead of how it should be, with citizens deciding what politicians they want to vote for. There are some excellent computer programs out there that are designed to create Fair districts with out the really gerrymandered issues that come up when humans do it. I would suggest a bipartisan group in each state use the computer software to create a new map of districts.

I have come to appreciate the idea of ranked choice voting. I have been iffy about it for years, but the more I see, the more it seems that it ensures that in a majority of the time, the candidate acceptable to a majority of citizens is selected for the Post.

Finally, I would like to see fact-checking done on the statements issued by politicians in their campaign. And, the penalty for basically lying all the time would be getting banned from running for office. All one has to do is look at the elections over the past 20 years or so to see a distinct trend of lies being accepted and allowed, and because of this a deluded public voting people in the office who do not have the needs of the voters in their agenda, and who are not trying to make their life the best it could be.

Finally, I hope that in the near future, a democratic administration can hold office long enough to implement a number of laws that back off the unlimited power that hashtag 45 has managed to push through his hand-picked and spineless group of minions. He is suffering from a common misconception. He believes that he is the emperor put in place by God to lead the country of his worshipers to the promised land, and to separate out and remove the heretics. If he was bright enough and literate enough to read and understand the Constitution, and the writings of our founding fathers in The Federalist papers, he would understand that he is not the leader, the people are. He is the clerk that we hire for a few years to implement the programs that we have decided will be best for the country. Since this lesson has been forgotten, well, you can see the outcome today. It is up to us as citizens and not subjects or slaves, to remind our elected officials of their position in the world, and, to make sure that they remember it.

Be safe, wear your mask, get back vaccinated, and fact check everything!

Bee man Dave