Note to Rep. Pete Stauber (MN-8)

Are you for res publica or res donalda?

Res publica is Latin for public things.  I am all for a political party that puts the public before special interests. Sadly, I have seen few examples of Republicans who put the public before special interests.  Since 2016, I have seen few Republicans who put the public before the interests of Donald Trump.

I once was a Republican precinct finance chair.  I even was 3rd in fund raising of 13 precincts.  But Ronald Reagan’s nomination over John Anderson was a disappointment.  The only Republicans I was interested in after that were Bill Frenzel and Arne Carlson.

George Washington in his Farewell Address warned about factions.  I hope you will take the time to read his address.  You can find it on the Senate website (https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf).  You can also find the Constitution on the Senate website (https://www.senate.gov/reference/Index/Constitution.htm).  Please note that it calls for three equal  branches of government, not a government for the interests of the President.

Sent to Pete Stauber, Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith 2019-12-04

I had a dream

No, my dream was not as profound as that of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It was much more prosaic.

I dreamt that an online prayer site was concerned that another online prayer site had move visits than it did.  I wondered what difference the number of prayers would make in obtaining the desired outcomes.

Then I thought about Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address.  I didn’t watch it but I wondered if he would end it with “God Bless America”.  But what difference would God’s Blessing make in correcting all the mistakes of government that have been and will be made by politicians, no matter the party?

Abortion: Judgment or Compassion

“Beta O’Rourke May Benefit From an Unlikely Support Group: White Evangelical Women”, Elisabeth Dias, New York Times, 2018-10-09

This shift is that these women are seeing O’Rourke as a “stark moral contrast to Mr. Trump.”  They are seeing other moral values that Trump does not have; values that are just as important as opposing abortion.

The problem with abortion as a political issue is that it ignores many problems that are not controlled by an “unwilling” mother.

Shall a teen-age girl be responsible for a child fathered by force, whether by a known or unknown male?

Shall a woman of any age be forced to bear a child whose birth will kill her?  What would that do to any previous children she had?

We really cannot make any sweeping pronouncements about abortion without knowing all facts in each individual case.

If we make all abortions illegal, who will be punished?  Will it be the unwilling mother?  Will it be the “back alley abortionist”?  Will it be the not present father?

Ironically, some of these “value” voters are supporting a party that is quite willing to cause unwanted abortions in other countries.  How many pregnant women are killed in wars?  How many of these pregnant women even support the wars in their countries?  And some of these politicians with the “big buttons” are quite willing to obliterate large numbers of women and children.

Shame on Wisconsin stay-aways

In the election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge, Rebecca Dallet, a Democrat, beat Michael Screnock, a Republican, 56 to 44 percent.

No matter what your party affiliation is, this is very  bad news.  The turnout was 22 percent!!  This means that just over 12 percent of the voters supported Dallet with their time.

Stay-aways gave the election away

We really should pay attention to the stay-aways who might have given the election away.  Were there more “Democrats” who stayed away because Hilary Clinton was not the best possible candidate, or were there more “Republicans” who stayed because Donald Trump was the worst possible candidate?

My comment to  “Trump King of Chaos” at  http://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/opinion/trump-king-of-chaos.html?comments#permid=26207463:26212200.

Also scroll down for “Quote of the day” to
“Remember no drama Obama---how I long for those days.”
ACJ, Chicago
2018-03-05

“Real Republicans”

Should we even call “Republicans” “conservatives”?  They certainly aren’t concerned with “Res publica” (public things) and the only thing they want to conserve is their power.

I think real conservatives from Edmund Burke to Dwight Eisenhower would not want to be associated with them.  Remember Eisenhower’s warning about the “military-industrial complex”.

Posted as a comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/opinion/the-force-of-decency-awakens.html?comments#permid=26131193:26134931.

Quote of the day (Misuse of the Bible)

“When Christians cite the Bible to defend child molestation, Jesus should sue for defamation.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/opinion/roy-moore-sexual-assault.html

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 2017-11-10

See also "Real Christians exist, they just rarely make the news". 

Don’t throw your vote away. Vote on 11/6

Odd year elections are decided by turnout more than the even year elections.  If you stay away, you are even more likely to get your least liked candidate.

If you live in Virginia, this applies very much to you.  It is a election that will be decided more by who stays away than by who shows up.  If you don’t live in Virginia but have friends or relatives in Virginia, please remind them to vote.

My wife, an election judge, thinks I am too negative with this sentiment.  But if I don’t shout it from the rooftops…

Ralph Nader stealing votes

Blaming Ralph Nader for Al Gore’s defeat by George W. Bush is an issue that will probably never go away.  It came up again a few weeks ago in the Letters section.

The figures below for the 2000 election are from www.electproject.org/2000g and Wikipedia “Spoiler Effect, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect

In 2000, Florida had a voting-eligible population of 10,666,193.  5,963.110 ballots were cast for a Presidential candidate.  Ralph Nader received 97,421 of those votes.  That was only 2.07% of the no-shows, not much above those who didn’t even vote for a Presidential candidate, 1.6%!!!

We can only guess how the no-shows would have voted.

I would say that we had something similar with the 2016 election.  Turnout for the Presidential vote was 59.3%.  How would the 40.7% who didn’t show up have voted?  We really didn’t know.

It is too true for election after election:

The only way
To throw your vote away
Is to stay away.

Remember to vote for local offices on November 7.  The local results often affect us more directly than the national elections.

Published in Reader Weekly, 2017-10-23 (as far as I can tell, letters are not published online).

For a deeper analysis, see https://www.truthdig.com/articles/dont-fall-for-it-the-nader-myth-and-your-2016-vote/.

Content of character over party

Many commenters are calling for a change in or a replacement for the Democratic Party.  Isn't partisanship one of our problems?  You're either conservative or liberal, right or left.  And then there are degrees of conservative and liberal or right and left.

Maybe we should have people without labels who run for office.  Taking advice from George Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr., we should avoid factions and judge candidates on the content of their character.  We need candidates who consider the common good above special interests.  And we definitely need candidates who can change their minds with new information.

Posted at http://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/sunday/trump-resistance-radicals.html?comments#permid=24540138.

Partisanship: quote of the day

“It’s not a partisan issue.  We are working for our republic, and not for Republicans."
- Charles Fried, solicitor general under Ronald Reagan






See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/us/politics/prominent-republicans-urge-supreme-court-to-end-gerrymandering.html

Political sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander

The Republicans are up in arms because Sen. Al Franken, MN-Dem has put a hold on the nomination of Judge David Stras to the Eighth Circuit Court because he considers him "too conservative".  See Star Tribune, 2017-09-06 for more details.

I don't know what the beef the Republicans have with Franken.  After all, they held up Obama's nominee for months in the hope of a Republican president appointing a Justice of the Supreme Court more to their liking.  They held up Judge Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court from March until Donald Trump was inaugurated.

Quote of the Day: Ideas vs. Ideologies

“What unifies [a large social movement] is ideas, not ideologies.  There is a difference between the two; ideas question and liberate, while ideologies justify and dictate.” - Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming: Paul Hawken, ©2007

Unfortunately, we seem to have politicians who have ideologies rather than ideas.  A great deliberative body cannot have ideologies.  How can one deliberate when one has fixed ideas and doesn’t want to be confused with the facts.

Wasn’t it Pete Seeger who sang about the best politicians money can buy and that we elect them again and again.  Not quite: “What did you learn in school today" has “elect them again and again” but not “money can buy”. See http://lyrics.wikia.com/wiki/Pete_Seeger:What_Did_You_Learn_In_School_Today%3F.  It was Morey Amsterdam who said, "Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy.”  See http://likesuccess.com/topics/3033/finest.

http://www.blessedunrest.com/ hasn’t been updated since 2008.  However, see http://www.paulhawken.com for current updates about his activities.  The homepage features his latest book: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.  Maybe I’ll read it when I finish Blessed Unrest.

When the World Is Led by a Child

Comment to New York Times article by David Brooks (note: Brooks is considered a conservative)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/trump-classified-data.html?comments#permid=22518785

George Washington warned about the abject support of Trump by the Republicans:

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”

Every year on Washington's birthday, a member of the Senate reads Washington's "Farewell Address". And every year the Senate ignores his advice by dividing itself along party lines. We now see almost lockstep support of Trump by Republicans and lockstep opposition to Trump by Democrats.

Maybe someday the the voters will grow up and elect grown-ups to political office.

Is there a Common Sense Party?

A Google search put a British Common Sense Party at the top of the list.

As far as the U.S. goes, almost every link I found did not find a current Common Sense Party.

https://ballotpedia.org/Common_Sense_Party had a rather hard-nosed idea of common sense, sort of casting blame all over the map.  The “Official website” link gave “Server not found”.

http://www.commonsenseparty.org/home.html has lots of common sense quotes, but the website is for sale.  It is copyright by the Common Sense Party who will consider all serious offers.  It can be reached through its contact page: http://www.commonsenseparty.org/contact-us.html

The Centrist Party seems like a believable alternative.  Its website is http://uscentrist.org/ which is currently active.  The latest blog entry is dated 2017-03-28: http://uscentrist.org/news/the-common-sense-blog-the-ins-and-outs-of-congress

Its philosophy does use unclear definitions of “free market, limited government and individual liberty” but does call for “protecting the common good”.  We should consider that the balance between the two goals will always be unclear.

A Stanford student, Kyle D’Souza, gave a reasonable call, “The common sense party” http://www.stanforddaily.com/2017/01/13/the-common-sense-party/.  This was in January. It only had one comment which I thought was off the wall.

The American Common Sense Party seems to be a one-person party on Facebook, the last entry being 2016-03-09.

The Common Sense Party also is on Facebook.  It’s latest entry, 2017-03-22, was a link to Washington Post article of the same date: “Ex-Colo. GOP leader said only Democrats committed voter fraud.  Now he’s charged with voter fraud.”

There are other recent articles about a “Common Sense Party”, but my quick scan showed that some are only local, not national or even state-wide.

Like the then moderate Republican Party arose from the Whig Party, maybe a true moderate party will arise from the current non-Lincoln Republican Party.

Health care, RINO's and rhinos

I posted the following to the New York Times article "Yes, Senator, You Wouldn't Want to Lose Your Mammograms – or Women Voters".  See http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/yes-senator-you-wouldnt-want-to-lose-your-mammograms-or-women-voters.html?comments#permid=21906167

I think we should stop calling "Republicans" Republicans.  They definitely are not the party of Res Publica (public things).  They either are corporatists or stone throwing sinners.

I always wonder where the party I once was a precinct officer of would have become if John Anderson had won the nomination in 1980.

- End of NYT submission

Around the time Ronald Reagan became President the term RINO started being used heavily: Republican in Name Only.  It was used to cast out those who believed in the "big tent" that both parties claimed to be.

But I often wonder if the term shouldn't be "RHINO", a big, lumbering mammal with poor eyesight and a willingness to attack anything it sees as a threat.  Which is just about anything that moves.

Spending money saves money

Too many “budget cutters” think that taking benefits from one group of people will save lots of money for a few other people.  Actually taking benefits away will just transfer costs elsewhere.

Take for example health care.  “Conservatives” think that spending less on Medicare and Medicaid will save billions.

No, it will just transfer costs to somewhere else.  Corporations will have to spend more on employee healthcare or risk having more sick employees.  States will have to pay more for healthcare, if they so chose.

If people can’t afford health care, they will be less able to work and have less taxable income.  They will also have less money to spend on all the goods and services companies provide.  If there are fewer buyers, then there will be fewer goods and services sold.  If there are fewer goods and services sold, then there will be less profits.

“Conservatives” should be careful what they ask for.  They may just get the opposite.

Call to Sen. Al Franken

I recited the message below to Sen. Al Franken's Duluth office.  Supposedly, a call is more effective than a letter or an email.  Surprisingly, the office worker didn't take my name or address.  Maybe the caller ID on her screen showed that I was local.

I hope you can keep up your opposition to Donald Trump.

I hope you can convince some of your more realistic Republican colleagues that it is not in their interest to give Trump carte blanche.

I enjoyed your books “Lies and the Liars Who Tell Them” and “Why Not Me”.  When I finished the latter I thought that a comedian would make a far better President than a clown.

I hope you, dear reader, can think of something similar to send to your Representative or Senators.

I plan to call something similar Rep. Rick Nolan and Sen. Amy Klobuchar later.  It kind of exhausted me just to say the above.

See also http://magree.blogspot.com/2017/01/thousands-of-phone-calls-are-better.html.

I live in the best house in the world

Originally published in the Reader Weekly 2004-06-03.

I live in the best house in the world.  What?  You think your house is better?  Your house has a warm basement; your house is bigger; your house is on a lake?  Oh well, my house is my house, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

I live in the best neighborhood in the world.  What?  You think your neighborhood is better?  Your neighborhood has block parties every season; your neighborhood has no thoroughfares running through it; and your neighborhood has a convenience store two blocks from your house? Oh well, my neighborhood is my neighborhood, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

I live in the best city in the world.  What?  You think your city is better?  Your city has more frequent bus service; your city has fewer potholes; and your city has a warmer climate?  John Lescroat, detective fiction writer, thinks that “San Francisco [is] the best city in the world”  (The Mercy Rule).  Oh well, Duluth is my city, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

I live in the best state in the world.  What?  You think your state is better?  Your state has mountains or is on the ocean; your state has a lower crime rate and a better education system; and your state has lower taxes? Oh well, Minnesota is my state, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

I live in the best country in the world.  What?  You think your country is better?  Your country has a better transportation system; your country has free health care for everyone; and your country has less pollution. The Swedish National Anthem exclaims “I will live and die in the North.”  Sounds like many Swedes think Sweden is the best country.  Or Bedrich Smetana wrote “Ma Vlast (My Country)” about Bohemia, now the core province of the Czech Republic.  Oh well, the United States is my country, I like it, and I’ll probably stay in it for many more years.

Why is it that so many people have to have the “best” whether it is a car or a country?  The Ford-Chevy divide is one of the most ridiculous of the “best” arguments.  Why is it that some Ford owners have to put down Chevy owners or vice versa?  Can’t they accept that people make choices for a wide variety of reasons, both logical and illogical?  I have owned one Chevy (my first car) and five Fords.  I can’t tell you why I never bought another Chevy or another GM car or never even considered them.  I have rented GM cars many times and they have performed satisfactorily.  But to purchase Ford has been my choice and I shouldn’t feel a need to put down Chevy’s or their owners.

Sports teams are another “best” that so many get caught up in.  The emotional involvement that some people have can be destructive, both personally and socially.  They feel like the world has come to an end if their team loses, and a few of these feel like they have to go on a rampage.  I know, I got all excited when the Twins were in the Series in 1987.  But I cheered some of the Cardinal players, and I felt sorry for them when they left the field as “losers”.  But hey, they won the National League playoffs and for the most part played quite well.  The 1987 World Series did not make Minnesota a better state than Missouri.

Countries are the “worst” of the “best” attachments.  Not so much that it is wrong to take pride in one’s country, but that the idea that one’s country is “best” can lead to exclusion of other ideas, bad foreign policy, and even war.

One exclusion of other ideas that I’ve always marveled at was that the “best” medical system in the world did not have many computerized patient records until recently, except financial records.  When I worked for Univac in Sweden in the early ‘70s, Univac had a special group that worked with hospitals; this group helped European and South African hospitals implement systems that kept track of patients’ medical records.  My colleagues in that group joked that the only thing that American hospitals kept track of on computers was how much the patients owed them.

Many think that the U.S. is the bastion of freedom and therefore knows “best” how to export it to other countries. "We need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts -- a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy -- by force if necessary.... Liberty cannot be laid down like so much Astroturf."   - Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kans., quoted by George Will, Duluth News Tribune, May 30, 2004.

Let us remember that Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss was wrong, this is not the best of all possible worlds (or countries or cities or neighborhoods or houses).  But let us make the best of what we have and work to make it better.

If a clown can be President, why not a comedian?

Now that Trump with all of his distortions of truth has officially become the next President, we should consider having a comedian as President.  A comedian shines truth on the antics of the powerful.

Think Jon Stewart.  He got Obama to laugh at himself.

Better yet, how about two comedians on the ballot in 2020?  What about pairing Jon Stewart with Al Franken?

Republicans skewered Franken as a comedian, unfit to be a U.S. Senator.  Now they have turned around and supported a clown for President.  I think Republicans disliked Franken because he exposed their hypocrisy.

We just dug out of our bookshelves “Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right”, Al Franken, 2003.

Oh, yeah, he is still married to his first wife.

In 1999 Franken wrote “Why not me?: the inside story of the making and unmaking of Franken Presidency”.  I have ordered it from the Duluth Public Library.

When I had a telephone modem with unlimited access, I watched a lot of Jon Stewart on Facebook, I think.  Although his twirling his paper was tiresome, I found his skewering of the powerful, no matter their politics, delightful.  He used their own words to reveal contradictions.

If you want a sample how thoughtful Jon Stewart can be, watch his appearance on “CBS This Morning”, I think it was November 17, 2016.  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUkv_jPgTeg.  Also look up on You Tube  his Twitter war with Donald Trump.

See also "Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?"