Religious Americans who believe war is murder shouldn’t be forced to fund it

This my counter to “Religious Americans who believe abortion is murder shouldn’t be forced to fund it”, one of the opinions in “Should the new Congress defund Planned Parenthood”, Duluth News Tribune, 2017-04-02.

It boggles my mind that those who want to ban abortion seem to have no qualms of supporting a party that is all to willing to go to war wherever they think “American interests” are at stake.  War causes many unwanted abortions, abortions the victimized mothers would not want if they had survived the bombing or gunfire.  Even if the mothers had survived, would the stress of war caused spontaneous abortions in some of them.

These anti-abortion, pro-war “religious” seem to forget “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.  - Matthew 5:9.  They also seem to have ignored “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.” Peter I 3:8.

Donald Trump came in third, not second

Forrest Johnson’s latest column in the Reader Weekly stated that Donald Trump came in second ("Dear President-Elect Donald the Clown").  The reality is that Trump came in third; the real winner was a de facto “None of the above”.

Wikipedia gives the following figures:

Turnout - 55.3%
Trump -  62,979,879 45.95%
Clinton - 65,844,954 48.04%

Neither received a majority of the votes, but Trump is acting like he has a mandate.  In almost every election (too many) where a candidate doesn’t get a clear majority, the winner acts like he did.  If we didn’t have the Electoral College mucking things up, Clinton probably would act like she had a mandate.

In this year’s election, Trump received the votes of 25.4% of the electorate.  Clinton did only slightly better with the votes of 26.6% of the electorate.  This is not the way to run a “democracy”.

Few candidates have the humility to admit that more people didn’t show up than voted for him or her.  This holds for local elections as well as national elections.

It is far better to show up and leave a slot blank than to not show up at all.  In the first case your vote “counts” because you are part of the electorate.  In the second case your “vote” will never be counted.

The Election Project has slightly different figures, but the result is just as bad for democracy.

Turnout - 60%
Voting Eligible Population - 231,556,622
Ballots - 138,884,632

We will only have a democracy is when all eligible voters truly believe the following:

The only way

You throw your vote away

Is to stay away!

Elections – Congratulations and condolences

To all those elected or re-elected yesterday all across the country, congratulations on the support you received from voters.  May you serve wisely.

To all candidates, elected or not, condolences on the poor support you received from the people. If Duluth is any indicator, turnout was probably a third of the registered voters.  That means two-thirds of the registered voters did not show support for any of the candidates.

If you lost and are willing to try again, get a larger number of supporters who will turn to get even more voters out on your next try.  If you are successful, may you have received the votes of a majority of registered voters.

If you won, may you have the humility to realize that more registered voters did not support you than those who did.  If you run again, get a larger number of supporters who will turn out to get even more voters on your next try.  If you are successful, may you have received the votes of a majority of registered voters.

Surveillance Allowed Days

In its first 24-hours, "No Surveillance Allowed Days" had only seven page views, fewer than most of my other blog entries.  I guess it is not a very popular idea.  I'll consider keeping to some of its tenets on No Surveillance Allowed Days, but I won't be rigid about it.  Sort of like paying cash for most of what I buy, I'll pay with credit or debit card when it is more convenient.

I should have known better.  "No Surveillance Allowed Days" had as much chance of success as my attempt to get 90% voter turnout or better at every election.

A strong antidote to political posturing

"The antidote to Political Fatigue. Click Here for Immediate Relief. [Video]"

This is a BBC Mundo interview with Jose Mujica, President of Uruguay, "The Poorest President in the World".

Winning candidates, be humble!

Most of the election results are in, and once again the "largest party" came in first.  The "largest party" is the party of no-shows, the eligible voters who chose to stay away.  The turn out figures are estimated to be around 60 percent.  In order to come in "first", a candidate would have to have about two-thirds of the votes cast.  Few, if any, have received this level of support.

Well, maybe in pockets here and there.  For example, Obama may have received 75 percent of the votes in Boston, but throughout the country, he received just over half the votes.

Some claim can be made that the Hurricane Sandy lowered the vote in New York and New Jersey, but  Sandy can't account for 19 percent fewer votes in Arizona and 25 percent fewer in Alaska.  Voter ID laws may have had some effect, but not that big in Alaska.

What would be interesting to know is how many 2008 Obama supporters stayed away because Obama didn't do all they wanted and how many Tea Partiers stayed away because Romney wasn't "pure" enough.

At least at the top of ballot, both Romney and Obama are acting humble.  Their speeches this morning were filled with gracious remarks.  Let's hope that these attitudes are shown by those down the ranks.