A Patriots Manifest Sept. 16 2008
William White
Politicians everywhere face similar problems. You get to the top in order to get more nookie and thus more offspring because females of every species want children by high status males. Nice simple situation for a primitive tribe with three problems: warlike neighbors, backstabbing subordinates and the occasional leader with more charisma than brains/sanity.
Voting takes care of much of the problem of backstabbing distractions and generally results in a less idiotic/lunatic boss being chosen than would otherwise rise to the top. But elections lead to other problems such as lower access to women than would otherwise be the case. Jefferson, Cleveland and Harding all had problems with claims of illegitimate children but generally the difficulty is that the workload interferes with the fornication and birth control reduces the payoff. So elections tend to reduce the reproductive sanity of those who rise to the top and for that matter their sanity in general.
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How bad is this problem? Lincoln was probably a depressive with episodes of psychosis as was Churchill. Sherman who issued the statement “If nominated I shall not run, if elected I shall not serve” was not merely a great general he had been treated for lunacy most probably bipolar disorder. However he was not a megalomaniac so he did not want to be president. Even though he could have won easily due to his popularity with the veteran’s group, the Grand Army of the Republic giving him a campaign network advantage better than that of any president except Washington he wasn’t that crazy.
So in the modern era public office is filled with borderline psychotic megalomaniacs and this too is not new. Gen. William T. Sherman may have clung to enough sanity to stay out of the White House but his even crazier brother got into the Senate and brought us the incoherent Sherman Anti-Trust Act. As confirmed by the Supreme Court this act makes it illegal to have prices higher than competitors (evidence of monopoly); prices the same as competitors (evidence of collusion); or prices lower than competitors (predatory pricing intended to establish monopoly). This decision on ALCOA is one of the many reasons that Truman had problems in the 1948 election.
So let’s go over the sanitized version of how voting is supposed to be run.
First off who the voters are must be determined. In the US all non-lunatic and non-felon citizens over the age of 18 who register can vote. Depending on the state the restoration of civil rights to former lunatics and felons who have paid their debt to society can be easy or hard but sometimes just moving across a stateline to where no one knows that the individual in question was released from an institute for the criminally insane will do the trick. Fake out of state id can be converted into authentic in state id to conceal age, criminal, psychiatric and/or citizenship history. Preventing such abuse requires police state tactics to catch anyone but an amateur and upsets nearly everyone when attempts are made to correct the problem.
Arizona’s proof of citizenship law has caught at least two probable citizens and the main requirements are a birth certificate and photo ID. No birth certificate, no voter registration. According to people online who reside in AZ registration is not that big of a deal in their state but voter rolls have shrunk as a result. Such laws are spreading throughout the nation state by state. This upsets the people at Obama’s get out the vote organization: ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now). Just so you can profit from the reading of this column try to get a betting pool together at work based on how many members of ACORN get convicted of voter fraud this cycle. (Hint: take the over.)
Such verification laws meet with regular protests by Public Allies. Go to the protests and watch your tax dollars at work Public Allies includes Ameriforce, a tax supported public works program. The validity of that last statement may change as more taxpayers complain to their congressman but it is true now as I write. Now as an aside I need to address the issue of partisanship: why am I picking on the Democrats? I’m not, in it’s 180 year history the Dems have been in power a total of 80years and 20% of that total was won by FDR. Subtract that outlier and what is left is only a 39% success rate, with FDR the winning percentage only gets up to 44%.
For one party in a two party system that includes the Republicans that is incredibly bad. From the second Lincoln held his first inaugural the Republicans have been corruption central. Shoddy for example originally meant cloth decent enough for field uniforms at least until Republican bureaucrats started taking kickbacks from everyone in sight. Credit Mobilier is still famous as the finance mechanism for supposedly military railroads such as the transcontinental railroad that did loop de loops in the high deserts of the west. The Teapot dome scandal is also still famous. More recent Republican scandals have also been common. With opposition like this a 67% winning record would only require very minimal competence which apparently the Democratic party lacks.
So the Dems specialize in voter fraud of any and every kind. The Reps generally do not engage in voter fraud but do get accused of doing so. The Republicans do act to keep 3rd parties off the ballot and quite sensibly so. How could they possibly gain a better foil than the Democrats? If for example the Libertarian, Constitutionalist and Green parties cracked 5% this election what would happen to both majors? Well the Democratic party ranges from Republican lite to Green lite so those two parties would absorb the Dems and the Democratic party would vanish. When either the LP or CP showed competence and bouts of honesty the Republicans would go bye-bye too. While the Republicans might break up first a provably competent and less corrupt alternative would have to exist which the Democrats are provably not and no 3rd party provably is so I don‘t consider the Republican party dies first alternative credible.
The way the Republicans manage to reduce ballot access is usually to find some Dem supporting some restriction on campaigning or getting on ballots and enable them to get some monstrosity entitled campaign reform passed. Sometimes they can get governors to pull a stunt of some sort such as happened in North Carolina when it was proposed to tighten ballot access considerably and a firestorm resulted. However the choice between a pack of crooks and a pack of arrogant incompetents is wearing quite thin the patience of the American voter so this too may change. But for now the electorate would prefer more of the same rather than radical change because it is far from clear what type of radical change would work best.
The breakpoint will most likely not be reached until 1/3 to ½ of the population is forced to live hand to mouth out of their cars while the Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting unemployment at 9.9% and the Dept. of Commerce is reporting trivial but still positive economic growth. If you look at the record of George Bush and then go to any Electoral College map site it is becoming increasingly likely that McCain will get four more years for the Republicans simply because the Democrats can not field competent opposition again. If the Perot gift of two victories for Clinton are discounted then it has been 32 years since the Dems have fielded as even marginally competent a candidate as Jimmy Carter. Not much voter fraud is needed by the Reps and the Dems haven’t figured out how to do another 1960 in almost half a century. As long as the Republicans can keep the Dems out front in restricting ballot access they’re cool.
The views expressed by William White are his and his alone and may not be the views expressed by A Patriots Manifest. Thank you .... Michael Roller...