Insurrection

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As only the Left calls January 6^th, 2021, in Washington, DC an Insurrection or Sedition, I will refrain from using either of those words, I will not begin my essay with a partisan conclusion.

I want to talk facts – incontrovertible facts, facts that we all agree on – not conclusions.  Only if the facts demand a specific conclusion will I travel that road.

So, here goes.

A Different Health Care Paradigm

What if I told you:

• that you will no longer pay healthcare premiums. Nor will your employer.
• that your employer will add to your salary the amount that he now pays to provide you healthcare insurance coverage.

Opinions

I would love this to be the last time I write about “opinions,” but I am sure it will not be considering the American obsession with “I have a right to my opinion” and “my opinion is as good as anyone else’s opinion.”

The most famous quip ever about opinions belongs to NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927 - 2003).  It goes, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”  Opinions look like facts, like declarations of the truth (“This statement is true”); but unlike factual statements, opinions are never provably true or false.  Indeed, not all factual statements are true, some are statements that are false.  But opinions are statements that are never demonstrably true or false.  BELIEFS and POINTS OF VIEW, on the other hand, may consist of opinions and/or factual statements.

Joe Manchin, Democrat

Democrats – moderates and Progressive alike – have been cursing the evil heart of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia for not giving them what they want, a YES vote on H.R 5376, the Build Back Better Act.  

But Democrats ought to be kissing the back of Joe Manchin’s right hand for being a Democrat.  Senate Democrats, rank and file Democrats and especially President Joe Biden ought to be embracing him for partying with Democrats.

The Perils of Democracy

Republicans are 100% correct: our revered Founding Fathers did not intend that America should be a democracy (where “the people” rule).  Most of the so-called evidence that our Founding Fathers did not favor a democracy can be found on conservative websites with an anti-democratic agenda (it is only recently that Republicans or conservatives seem to be drifting away from the ideal of democracy).  But consider – from the gitgo, from the ratification of the U.S. Constitution – who had the right to vote was up to individual states.  Most states had a land-owning requirement, only one state allowed women or African Americans to vote, and only a few gave the vote to Catholics or Jews (atheists were not even a “thing” back then).  Everyone who sat in on the Constitutional Convention were white men of means, the aristocrats of their day.  And they did not intend that the “people” (as we see the word today) should rule themselves.  So, partisan Republicans are quite right.

However, …

The Fight Against Inequality

Republicans talk about “inequality” more often than Democrats. Republicans’ talking point is that Democrats favor Equality of Outcomes while Republicans favor Equality of Opportunity and consequential Inequality of Outcomes. This is, of course, political posturing, as NO Democrat (not Robert Reich, not Bernie Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren, not even AOC) has ever suggested that he wishes for Equality of Outcomes; and when they have had the power, Republicans have never advanced any legislation to address Equality of Opportunity for disadvantaged persons.

Time Travel

Hold on, folks, we are going for a short ride through recent American history, to the presidential elections of 2000 and 1992, years when third party candidates nearly sunk our electoral system.

Let’s travel back to the year 2000 AD, when George W Bush won the presidency from Al Gore, by an Electoral College margin of 5 votes, 271 to 266, where the election was decided in Florida not by a measly 534 votes out of nearly 6 million, but by the Supreme Court’s five Republican justices. Many remember that Ralph Nader, running as a Green Party candidate, won 97,000 votes in Florida, a wee bit more than the margin of Bush’s victory there; and Democrats everywhere have faulted him ever since for spoiling the election for Al Gore, whom they supposed would have received Nader’s votes had he not run. What is less known is that Nader won more votes in eight states (with 72 Electoral College votes) than what separated Bush and Gore. Another way to say this is that 72 Electoral College votes went to a candidate who had not won 50% of those states’ votes.

Ranked Choice Voting

While the biggest problem in our democracy is the undue influence of big money in elections and in legislation, the second biggest problem is the two-party system.  This electoral reality is nowhere forced upon us, it is not mentioned in the Constitution; it is just there.

“I don’t like my choices; I like neither the Republican nor the Democrat, but I do like the Libertarian / Green party candidate.  But if I vote for him, I will be wasting my vote as he has no chance to win.”

When we go to choose a candidate for a particular elected office, we are often faced with three or four or even five choices.  But we know that we are “wasting our vote” if we vote for a candidate of a minor party, not a Republican or a Democrat.  Even worse than that is our sense that our third-party vote may contribute to the loss of the major party candidate whom we dislike less than the other major party candidate.  So, we reluctantly vote for the major party candidate (“the lesser of two evils”) who is not our first choice, as we dare not help elect the other major party candidate.

Doomsday Democracy

What is a Democracy?

The word “democracy” derives from the Greek “demos” (the people) and “kratia” (rule).  Even though WE honor the expression “the people,” the Greeks meant “the common people” or a “mob.”  Our Founding Fathers meant “the people” to rule, but they meant people like themselves, aristocrats in today’s vernacular.  When WE ask who are “the people” –  who should rule – we mean ALL of us (over 18 years of age).

The Greek philosopher, Plato, was not a fan of democracy as the Athenian democracy had sentenced his mentor, Socrates, to death.  But those who made up the "democracy" of Plato’s day were aristocrats of their time, not the common people.  Plato favored a “philosopher king,” an extraordinarily knowledgeable man who would never – from his own ambition – seek to rule others.  We Americans, on the other hand, elevate ONLY those who would seek to rule others!  Plato would not have approved.

Dems ... Losing ... Messaging ... Socialism

I spoke this unforgettable quip years ago, maybe more than ten years.  “What do Democrats do best?  They lose elections.”

"But they own the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.  So how can you say that?”

Indeed, they “stole” the White House from the most reviled presidential candidate in U.S. history, they took the Senate by a few Georgian hairs' breadth, and they lost thirteen seats in the House while maintaining a slim majority of seats.