The People versus the Politician, a Nation at Stake
Recent Election Facts
Here is a fact. 239 million people were eligible (registered) to vote in the 2020 presidential election. Less than the total voted and it was reported that approximately 66% of those eligible actually voted. Those are the numbers that could vote in the presidential election for one person. That same body of voters vote in their States for their Representatives. When all the votes are counted there’s an overwhelming number of people that are voting for very few people, and that very few number of people, make the decisions that affect the lives of every American. They are the ones that decide to tax you and me. They are the ones that pass regulations that create hurdles to open a business, or even to keep businesses closed. They are the ones (Governor Murphy, NJ) that can take the bank account of a gym owner for not following the elected officials Covid lockdown rules, whether on not they make sense or follow the science. That small body of people makes decisions that affect all of our lives. They regulate, they favor their cronies, they support those who financially gave them significant dollars so they can be elected, they follow their own ideological agenda, they have egos that want name recognition on street signs and buildings, and they are generous to their family members. What do they do for you and me? Isn’t that important to you? It should be important enough to properly consider, fully informed when doing so, who you vote for. Will your elected representative represent you, or just themselves. So many names come to the fore as selfish egotistical persons in Congress. There is Schiff, Swalwell, Max Waters, Whitehouse, Nadler, Pelosi, AOC, Tlaib, Omar, Schumer, DW Schultz, and the list goes on and on. Why do these people continue to get elected?
Ratio of Voters to Elected Officials
Everybody in our nation needs to think about the reality of our political system and our populace. America has over 300 million citizens. The voting age is 18 and there are, let’s say, 300 million people that could possibly vote, but many are not registered. This voting base has a significant responsibility. On a State by State basis they elect members of the House of Representatives (currently 435) and members of the Senate (currently 100). On a national basis they elect the president and vice president. The ratio is approximately 400,000 to one.
The responsibility of the voters have is significant when you consider the numbers, especially as a ratio. As many as 300 million are voting for 536 representatives that then make all the decisions that impact their lives. Voters need to take their responsibility seriously. To do so they must be informed and find for themselves how to get news that is unembellished with or by opinion. They also have to find a way to uncover news that may not be reported that is important to making their voting decisions. Turn the channel on you TV, buy newspapers with opposing views, consider the people behind the news, their history or honesty or simply opinion, also their subjectivity or objectivity.
There are many journalists today that know the extent to which they can influence their audience, be they readers or listeners, and take what they report as factual. They are the manipulators. The voter in doing his own homework must be able to discern the extent to which the reporting provided is factual or modified in anyway, or if they are being handled. Are they being directed in the wrong direction, as lemmings? Are you a lemming? The modifications can simply be through omission, or exclusion, or intentionally slanting what actually took place, thus altering reality.
An example of reporters muddying the waters, or not providing all the information to a potential voter so they can make an informed judgment, happened with respect to the first attempt at impeaching President Donald Trump. There was a single whistleblower that was used as the steppingstone to the actions taken by the media and several congressman to push their agenda to discredit the president and have him removed from office. What the voting population did not properly hear or view were the over 1000 affidavits that provided total credibility to the actions Trump took which would have dismissed any practical reason for proceeding with the impeachment. The impeachment process is burdensome and costly, taking time, energy and dollars needed to complete the process. The representatives involved are then not focused on matters of policy regarding We The People. But it’s important to note that the decisions made here were not the voter’s, it was the political persons whom the voters elected. I say this for a reason. The voters should know the people they elect can stray from what the voters would prefer their elected representative be doing.
Another example, an attempt to alter history, is the 1619 Project, where revisionist history to the founding of America, composed by a NY Times reporter, immediately gained traction by racist theorists and the liberal MSM. Efforts included having this subjective article be included in school curriculums. If you page down at TomBalderston.Blogspot.com (or find the year and month on the right side of the first page) you will find my discussion on this program. (July 15, 2020, “White Black America”)
The Grave Mistake
As a nation what is the greatest error we can make? The answer is a condemnation of those who vote for someone whom they have no idea who they are. Choosing someone that is an unknown provides no clarity. It shows the minds of they who cast their ballot as being weak and possibly corrupted. But the worst of it all is that a great nation ends up with a captain at the helm that may steer the ship in the direction he chooses knowing they never said where they would lead us, or lied. The deception worked. The voices of those shouting, be aware, went unheard or distorted or just ignored. The weak allowed themselves to be fooled. The captain will bring onto his vessel people to whom he is beholden and loyalists. The agenda will not be the agenda of the citizen-voter, but that of the crew upon the ship of state. It is not progress. It is regress. The crew will then take the treasures of those that comprise this country and apply it to their will, and not the will of we the people. If allowed to continue too long it can only alter the society, the culture, of what once became the most prosperous beacon of hope for the universe.
Vetting Politicians - Term Limits
It seems many politicians today have never really held a job that has produced a good or provided a service to Americans. Many in Washington are lawyers. One recently elected to Congress was only a bartender before becoming a congressperson. How many other people elected then find their purpose, in large part, to become elected again and again and again. Term limits can only be put into affect by the voters.
It only makes sense that a Senator or House person will not vote to limit their own terms or ability to profit by their office, or the power they have as a member of the federal government. Greed, self interests and power more often supersede what the people, the voters, actually need. And when I say a member of the federal government I’m talking about the elected members of the federal government. Employees of the federal government are a different matter. However the tenure of a government employee and the ability to fire the government employee is a decision made by your Congressperson.
Just about anything a voter would like Congress not to do can be petitioned to be put on the ballot so that the voter can vote in such a way that the Congressperson cannot do that. For instance put term limits for Congresspersons on the ballot; the voter can have that happen; then vote and engender change. Congress persons can’t do anything about it if the people vote for it.
What I’m saying simply is the power is in the people. And the power that is in the people must be taken seriously. Americans need to be informed. Unfortunately the education system that we have today, due to our voters, has become its own center for creating a mindset of citizens that lean in one direction. Are we being brainwashed from the early school grades? They have become less objective and more confused as to the history of America, the importance of our Constitution, the meaning of our Constitution, the merits of our Constitution, the originality of our Constitution and its intent, and students today, indirectly, have helped liberal governments perpetuate the myth that they can do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.
Do our students know American History, the names of their elected representatives, the branches of government, the history of Presidents and the true story of the founding of this great Nation? What do they understand of emancipation, and how America progressed when it did not even have income taxes. Before 1900 America was prosperous, no taxes. Capitalism worked. A new Nation in less than 150 years became the greatest Country in the world, and the most democratic. How did that happen? And what about Presidential history? The contributions of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt; the actions of the good Presidents and the bad ones, and the impact they have on everyone.
‘Liberallis’
Have the liberals, which without question have become the bias of education in America from grade one through college, the Democrats, dumbed down America to the extent a majority do not read, comprehend, or are willing to seek information needed to make proper decisions? And when they listen are their ears shut except for the din of the mantra of the left and the hate for conservative values, even capitalism which is the engine that drives the train to the station of America’s achievements. Is it more important to know who makes the music, stars in the picture shows or on TV, or sports figures, than our government leadership, past and present? Has identity politics to have minorities placed in the forefront of all political policy led to a weakening of the fabric of our society? Is it more important to have a racial balance, a sexual balance, to include newly invented sexes, than to have the most competent, most capable, most experienced officials heading the critical posts of our Government.
Government since the start of the 20th Century has actually done less for Americans. Government entities, it can be argued, have done more harm than good. Regulation, taxes, corruption, inefficiencies, pandering, and self-interests have overburdened the system. There is a systematic problem in America, it is our system of the proper education of our voting populace.
An interesting comment from Tucker Carlson, Fox News (2-12-2021), “Why are the Democrats so angry? They seethed for years while they were out of power, but winning seemed to enrage them even more. You would have thought they'd get to work fixing the country they inherited, as they promised. Instead, they set about breaking things and hurting people.” They attack conservatives, and now freedom of speech (verbal, written, even tweeted), travel, and the ability to go about one’s daily life as they wish, to work, exercise, associate and play. In office they are attempting to use their power to quell opposing voice and criticism. It has an Islamic tone to it. “The Ottomans destroyed the cities they captured, though there was never a good reason to do this. They did it because they enjoyed it.” Beware the power of the politician when in the wrong hands. Small minds can do much harm. Call it what it is, ‘censorship,’ and the Biden voters may now be getting what they did not anticipate. You may see the evil, hear the evil, but say nothing about it.
The Democrat’s Printing Machine
There are those in Washington that simply want to run a printing press 24 hours a day, printing money. The deficit doesn’t mean anything to them. And a reason to print money is the tax revenues are not sufficient enough to do the will of the politicians; the will of the people being less essential. But what they are doing to us all is creating a future for our children and grandchildren that will be dismal. It will create inflation and cause even greater divisions between the elite and the non-elites. And when I talk about elites it is becoming such that the elite class is the political class. During the Covid crisis you must realize that the politicians, not just in Washington but local politicians and state politicians, had their salaries continue during the whole crisis while many of the hard working tax paying citizens were out of work. And ask yourself, why do voters allow the politicians to do such things to them. A clear answer, voting for the wrong people.
The Power of the Politicians, when Unchecked
Here is a current example of the power of the elected officials. A body of 100 was asked to decide whether Trump can run again in 2024. That is all that could result if Trump was impeached. Democrats in Congress and the Senate were seeking to impeach a man who in no longer the President. Why, so he cannot run again, having only served one term and thus remains eligible for a second. Over 70 million people voted for Trump. Shouldn’t they be the ones to decide if he will be elected, even put on the ballot, in 2024. Could such action lead to impeaching potential presidents that the opposing party simply do not feel fits the Oval office. This activity to condemn over and over, even when out of office, a President because he disrupted a political establishment, first by defeating a Clinton that had more baggage than the Queen Mary on a full cruise, and then using capable people to aide him, but actually lost due to his egotistical bullying personality, and tweets, is not rational. It is more a portrait of leftist hatred that actual bleeds. And the bias of the elected is not supposed to overwhelm their productivity. It does and it has for Democrats.
Listening to a news broadcast today questions were being asked about Biden’s immigration policy, that of releasing immigrants, not deporting them, who have committed felonies, even DUI’s, stealing, and causing harm, including murder, to American citizens. A liberal journalist, or ‘opinionista’, said it is too soon to judge Biden, only two weeks in office, but the plan is clearly one “to create a better racial balance in our Nation; deporting these minorities does not help that objective.” But it does make Americans less safe. Yet what is being said; that does not matter.
Do Not Be Intimidated by Information
Being informed, again I stress, is essential in choosing your elected officials. The candidates must be vetted. How do they stand on issues? What is their plan if elected? What did they accomplish in the past. How forthcoming are they? Well, Biden offered little of this information, even totally avoiding press conferences. How could anyone have known what he was going to do? And he often, now we know after the fact, lied. He lied about fracking. He lied about jobs. He lied about what he would do immediately to stop Covid. He lied about the excessive use of Executive Orders, suggesting on CNN that any who do so are ‘dictators.’ He said what he felt could gain votes, regardless of the truth or his true intentions.
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain. But then consider how you got there! Elected by like minded idiots, voters that could not see through the smokescreen of false rhetoric, MSM fabrications and empty promises.
We Can Do Better
Americans, we can do better. Unfortunately the current Administration will make that difficult. Because doing better as the majority of Americans would prefer is not in the interest of this Biden/Harris Administration. They want a global, border free, racial balance, that uses air and the sun to drive and fly, and need not work as their taxes are in a stash that the government has hidden and can use at will. They are hypocrites.
Lest we not forget how governments work, like a train. The engine needs fuel, enough fuel to pull their cars, their load, the distance. It would be great if the fuel is not spilled so as to prevent the train from reaching its destination. The fuel of government is that percentage of earnings by productive Americans that goes to our government. It is not the taxes paid by government employees, or Union representatives. It is the butcher, baker, candlestick maker, the car manufacturer, the pilot, the oil rig operator, the construction worker, the health care professional, the industrialist, the restaurateur, the pipeline maker, the office worker, the grocer and the retailer, among many others. When the productive sector is regulated, taxed, and otherwise burdened to be less productive or inventive, it hurts our economy and provides less to fund our government. But, you and I both know, the Government is not the one that asks itself to cut back. No. And that makes no sense. The government alternative is to increase taxes or regulations (that generate fees to the be paid to the government to overcome), not to be more efficient.
We can do better. Trump had the right ideas but the wrong personality. We need to learn from the good and discover persons with similar good intentions so in the future we can elect them. We need a candidate for tomorrow without the distortions, the distractions, and the persona of Trump, to do like Trump, but not be like Trump. It was the non-politician in him that made America greater.
Let’s learn to love and not hate, and grow from experience. Seek all the news that is fair and balanced. Remember it is the people, you and me, that decide on the politicians. We need more statesmen and fewer career politicians to curb the runaway train that is now crossing our Country and borders.
by
Thomas W. Balderston
Author and Blogger
As an admission. I am a patriot, a nationalist, a capitalist, a conservative, believe in fiscal responsibility, a smaller government, the right to work (Unions not mandated), free speech, civility and the right to choose wisely. I love America.
