Here Are the Some Questions For the Candidates

It is very annoying to get one of those phony political surveys in an official looking package that claims to be interested in gaining your opinion on a list of self serving questions.  Then, as you reach the point where you are ready to submit your opinion you find that they want a political donation for $50 to $500. Off course it is the donation, not your opinion,  that they really want. It is easy to visualize them ripping the check off your opinion submission and throwing the opinion part into the trash.

We know the characteristics we wish to find in our elected representatives but they never seem to be there in our two party offerings. This year I intend to return the following note to each of the “surveys” I receive:

Thank you for your interest in my views on items which our critical to our county.  I have taken the liberty to provide a listing of a few of my specific issues along with a few explanatory comments.  If you or your office would respond that you plan actions that are in essential agreement with these items I would be very likely to support you with my vote and contribution.

I am looking for a candidate who would:

Push the government to take aggressive actions to revive the economy.

When there are trillions of dollars worth of necessary investment grade infrastructure works to be done and millions of people looking for the work there is no excuse for the government not to arrange the financing.  That the work remains undone is a tremendous failure on the part of the two party system, Congress, and the Administration.  This past failure may preclude my voting for an incumbent.

Not be a believer in some ill thought-out austerity program rather than economic growth.

Knee jerk cost cutting based upon political rather than economic goals is the only kind of deficit reduction this Congress knows.  Having accomplished outrageous damage to our present economic environment Congress is now preparing to destroy the future.  This must not happen.

Maintaining a carefully managed defense that cannot be directly challenged by any totalitarian government but not unwisely used.

We must continue to apply the very hard lesson from our WWII experience where lack of preparedness allowed unthinkable tragedies to occur while the allies were building up the arms required to stop a psychopath dictator.  During the early period of unchallenged German success 15 European countries were occupied and over 50 million people killed as a result of Nazi actions.  In addition millions of the conquered populations were placed in concentration camps and slavery to the German war machine.   “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirir is recommended reading that documents the horror of showing any weakness in dealing with an aggressive psychopathic dictator. 

We performed the same preventive service in the defeat of Japan, and the Soviet Union.  We were the only democracy powerful enough to have stopped these identified aggressive and expansionist fascist regimes. However, if the opposition would be fighting on its native soil against an “invader” US the chance for lone term success is small. We must learn to avoid the responsibility of wars of this latter type no matter how noble our intentions.

 Strong on reforming the financial sector

We are letting the financial sector buy into aggressive activities that do not support useful growth.  This is placing hardships on the citizens and wasting our resources.  It must be stopped and the financial sector returned to its appropriate supportive role.

Do nothing that will reduce existing rights of citizens 

Our country is defined most strongly by its respect for personal rights. They must be continually defended as our greatest treasure.  Our 2nd amendment stands out as a strong example of a unique right of the US that is under continual attack. There is no reason to give up any personal rights to our current government.  My expectations are to keep 2^nd amendment rights free of any United Nations interference and a strict policy of protection of all other constitutional citizen rights

 Minimum government involvement in Gay marriage

There is nothing in the Constitution or discussions among the founders that would support having the government define marriage.  If secular, marriage between gays should be treated like a normal contract between adults.  If religious, the church should decide on its’ specific religious components.

Revision of the special privileged practices of Congress

You cannot find a citizen that is not outraged at the special privileges and ego boosting management privileges that Congress has voted itself.  The candidate should strongly support proposed any amendment that precludes special privileges for congress.

Runs a truthful campaign with a career record of honesty

Without truth we can never make wise decisions.  Candidates who falsely direct our actions using untruthful information must not be elected.

As a special note I am sure you realize how our non-performing Congress has become a serious problem to our democracy. I don’t believe that our Founders anticipated that Congress would ever be run by an entrenched two-political party system whose primary interest was in itself rather than the country.  This has been true for over 100 years but the situation has come to the point that is doing severe damage to our democracy. We have elections as the way to correct the situation, but need candidates which are independent thinkers.  I hope you will be one.

Convictions Are More Dangerous Enemies of Truth Than Lies

The quotation in the title is by the philosopher Nietzche.  It clearly explains what has happened in the US political environment.  Our two-party system is devoted to creating convictions that are displacing truth.  We are being served convictions consisting of self-serving lies and misrepresentations with an absolute minimal backup of truth.  It is almost impossible for the citizenry to pick out the pure truth that is necessary for wise decision making.  They are confused.

It is difficult to imagine how the country will finally work itself back to health without a major influx of truth into our political campaigning.  However, neither the political parties nor the media seem interested in this happening.

 

One site, .FactCheck., founded in 2003. and supported by the Annenberg Foundation is a leader in focusing on examining modern political statements for truth.  It does this by applying tough journalism and scholarship to both parties’ releases.Spend some time at the FactCheck site and you will be amazed at the level  of misleading information  detected in releases by both parties that is not challenged by the traditional media. Also impressive is the effort of FactCheck to remove bias from their analysis.

The lock the political parties have on our election process is very harmful to our country. Congress must be turned independent.  This will be difficult if the public only receives confusing and self serving information from the two parties.  That is the situation now.

There are those who feel that lying for political gain in no less serious than lying for financial gain or to a federal agent, both of which are illegal.  On the other hand it is very disturbing to have the government involved at all with regulating political speech.

 

Like most reforms, the only solution is a more diligent and better informed citizen. Maybe someday politicians will issue their statements accompanied by a FactCheck stamp.

When Your Leadership Causes the Problems

If you are looking for a perfect example of a society that makes its own problems look no further. You are living in one. Being blessed with abundant natural resources, an innovative population, and a tradition of freedom you could expect our success in the basics of life. We have a booming agriculture that feeds other parts of the world as well as ourselves. We have a defense so strong that no other country dare threaten us, and a historical gift of basic principles of governing from our founders. Yet somehow, here in the early 21st century we find ourselves in a shameful and innocent mess of national governance. It has robbed our citizens of their national pride and disgraced the American dream. This situation was not brought on by nature or military invasion, but by the efforts of our elected leadership.


So what happened? If you take a broad view, and don’t get bogged down by all the hot air, it is a pretty clear picture.

The national debt was not caused by the American working population unable to directly supply the services and materials from their own work. The farmers continue to plant crops and the factory workers continue to work and generate real wealth wherever allowed. Over the last 25 years, however, the elite ruling class and their bean counters have focused on moving large amounts of that wealth to themselves through worthless financial ploys. They have now greatly overplayed their hand and killed the golden goose by selling much of the nations real wealth creation capabilities overseas.

So the producing members of the economy, who are the only force that can create new wealth along with the basics of living, are now faced with not only fixing the productivity machine but also with addressing the debt that was carelessly accumulated while they were stealing from us.

What have we got to work with? First we have to understand that the “government” is really two organizations. There is the political half which consists of elected leadership plus the special interests that finance them. Their only qualifications are the ability to sell the voting public that they should be elected. Then there is the operational half which carries out the policies and legislative actions set by the political half. This is made up of workers who are a typical cross section of Americans. Their positions have technical qualifications which must be met by the employee. These people are faced with implementing the changing and inconsistent requirements of the elected and their appointees who are election winners of our two party election process.

It is easy to pinpoint which group is to blame for our sorry state. The elected representatives have severely failed in their obligations to the citizens. Their corruption and incompetence have created the serious problems that we now face. Although the operational workers do sometimes make mistakes they do not have the embedded corruption of the elected elite. It is the elected elite that must be decisively improved. People who rail against “the government” without understanding this distinction are misguided.

The only tools we have for correction are the election process, our numbers, and our thoughtfulness. As we have posted many times we must somehow reintroduce ethics, truth and intelligence into our elections. These traits are not common in either party. It will require much closer attention to the quality of political candidates. The citizen voter must make the difficult effort to sort ethical behavior from dishonesty, truth from lies, and intelligence from stupidity. There is no single ideology to substitute for these basics.

Ethics, Truth and Intelligence: Three Characteristics We Must Have in Those Who Wish to Govern Us

To be specific here are working definitions from the dictionary:

Ethics: the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.

Truth: the property of being in accord with fact or reality.

Intelligence: the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations

That these characteristics in no way describe much of our current governing elite is to our shame. The founding fathers closely fit this representation but over the 250 years we have allowed its’ deterioration. Some pessimists claim that this is the inevitable progression of a democracy.

It is undeniable that ethics, a respect for truth, and a little intelligence would have prevented a majority of the problems that are haunting us now.

The sub prime financial meltdown and associated recession had the lack of ethics in the financial industry and elected government as its very core. Truth was not even present. To say that intelligence was weak would be an understatement.

Uncontrolled export of manufacturing jobs and associated unemployment and trade deficits shows an inability to deal with new situations, a shortage of practical intelligence plus a lack of ethical behavior toward the American worker.

Transfer of undue government power away from the productive sector to the financial sector has been a disaster based on lack of both ethics and intelligence.

An expensive war based on non existing weapons of mass destruction was a massive mistake based on lack of respect for truth.

Unfortunately it is apparent that if ethics, truth, and intelligence are to become a larger part of the governance of the nation it will have to be forced on new governing elite by the citizens. The existing elite benefit too much from the current confusion. The voters have a very dense fog to cut through.

The two party system we now have makes this is a very difficult task The only ethic of either party is to get elected and keep their goodies. They are therefore very loose with the truth. Their intelligence is focused on manipulating the voters and satisfying their financial supporters. Actions that may be good for the citizens but interfere with winning an election or are against the wishes of their financial supporters are given little attention. We are seeing that this is not a formula for the American dream.

We must vote in a leadership that embodies the three critical characteristics. This will require every voter to put in an extra effort before voting.

If there is any concern about ethics, withhold your vote. Do not vote for an unethical candidate who has a record of favoring special interests in opposition to those of the citizen. A candidate or his/her followers who blatantly lie in the campaign should be rejected regardless of the issue. Attend face to face town hall meeting and ask questions to judge the candidates’ intelligence and ability to think past one minute sound bites.

Hopefully, there will still be some candidates standing.

Please Truth, Come Set Us Free

The truth shall set you free. Religion, history and philosophy agree that knowledge of the truth is an important component of enduring freedom. Dictators and oppressive governments rarely have an interest in talking truth to their citizens.

It therefore appears logical to think that a society that values freedom, such as the United States, would be very good at detecting lies and deceptions and strong on the truth. Our forefathers, through our constitution have given us powerful freedom of expression rights that strongly support the pursuit of truth.

Then why is the US awash with such a confusing mess off half-truths, deception and outright lies?

One night, after a particularly painful evening of trying to sort out truth from the cacophony of noise from TV, the internet, politicians and just plain conversation my mind was exhausted. I tried prayer as I went to sleep.

“Please God, we are so confused. Could you intervene and help us know truth?”

To my surprise I had a dream that night with a reply. Not directly from God, but from a spirit who identified himself as the Apostle of Truth. I know that skeptics will attribute this to an overactive imagination or midnight pizza but I choose to take it as a legitimate answer.

It started as a light entered my bedroom and a voice began speaking. After introducing itself the voice offered the reason it could not intervene.

“As you know, your universe is special in that it is very complex and tightly balanced. God is reluctant to make changes. I knew he would not allow me to directly intervene for you. I did describe your prayer and he was glad to see you were working hard in the right direction. He also gave me permission to pass on to you the explanation he had given me a long time ago

About one million years ago God decided to give man the very precious gift of creative thinking. After a short time I noted that your species (humans) were abusing the gift. You were overwhelming my presence with your own imagined fabrications. God said that the gift of creative thought was absolutely essential to reach the high goals he had set for your species. Under no conditions would he limit this power. He had provided balance, however, by adding higher cerebral functions to your brain. With this power you can search the universe for information and apply reasoning that allows you to identify the actual truth over imagined events. These processes had only been in place for a short time. Natural selection would eventually strike a balance between the two competing processes and those based on truth would surely do well.

So God has given you the tools you need to win. Diligently use your cerebral processes to seek out the truth. Win your debates by truthful statements in which you can have confidence, not lies. You must put great effort into it if you are to be really free.

The United States is a great favorite for those of us who have been watching you from this side of the black hole. Although we have been a little disappointed in you recently, we think that you will eventually replace the people and their values that have weakened you. You will once again be great. Even though you have many friends here, however, you must do it yourselves.

Good luck. We will be following you with hopefulness.”

The light slowly dimmed and I was again in a darkened room. I was awake and apprehensive. This was advice that it was reasonable for us to follow. But would we?