Slicing and dicing clichés

One of the most used clichés used is “The Media” as if all news programs, all newspapers, and all magazines were all alike and not presenting the views of the speaker.

The use of this cliché is most strange.  Those who consider themselves “conservative” complain about “the liberal media” even though they get their news through the likes of Fox News or the Wall Street Journal.  Those who consider themselves “liberal” complain about “the conservative media” even though they get their news through PBS and the New York Times.

Maybe the truth is that most “media” present a wide variety of news, including what a “conservative” says and what a “liberal” says.  The “media” is “biased” because some of the news includes views that the complainer disagrees with.

And maybe the complainers watch too much TV news and don’t read enough newspapers.  Most papers include a variety of columnists and a large variety of opposing view in their letters columns.

If “The Media” has any bias, it is partly “laziness” and partly lack of resources.  It is rare that we see on the front page “Joe Blow” came in second to a de facto “none of the above”.  That is, Joe Blow received 55 percent of the 55 percent turnout, giving him a “landslide”.  Huh?  55 percent of 55 percent represents a tad over 30 percent of the registered voters; it’s even worse if you consider eligible voters.  Come on, almost 70 percent of the voters didn’t care to vote for Joe Blow, but “The Media” tells us a different story.

“Two party system” is used almost as if it were were written in the Constitution.  It is just a fiction of convenience. If you think about it, we had a de facto “three party system” in the middle of the Twentieth Century.  There were the Republicans, the Northern Democrats, and the Southern Democrats.  The two parts of the Democratic Party came together on many issues, but if the Southern Democrats detected any threat to “States Rights” they were agin’ it.  The miracle was that a Southern Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, broke the log jam.  Now many of those Southern Democrats are Republicans.

Now Southern Republicans and “Tea Party” Republicans have all but drowned out “moderate” Republicans.  “Moderate” Republicans being those who want to work with Democrats to solve real problems.  What’s a “real problem”?  A problem that affects the “General Welfare” as called for in the Constitution.  That is, how do we make government work for all of our people, not just a chosen few.

This impasse many call a “dysfunctional Congress” and blame each and every member of Congress for this problem.  Interestingly, some commentators point out that in almost every district or state, a sizable number of people don’t think their Representative or Senators are part of the problem.

Along with this view many say that “government is the problem”.  But it is “We, the People” who have voted for this government.

However, some of the same people who think government is inefficient think that the United States should and can solve all the problems of the world.  Worse, they think the United States should use force to do so.  Ah, another cliché, “Leader of the Free World”.  Who in the “Free World” outside the United States had a vote in selecting the President of the United States?

When those who want to exercise their will on other countries with military force, they call it “defense”.  But defense of what?  Defense of our homeland?  Or defense of their view of the world?  A thought experiment: if we hadn’t “defended” ourselves in Afghanistan, Iraq, and dozens of other places, would there have been a “9/11”?

“Greedy corporations” is a cliché used often by the “Left” as if all corporations were the scum of the earth.  Interestingly, many of them find out about meetings complaining about corporations on their computers and cell phones and drive to the meetings in their private automobiles.  In other words, they depend on large corporations to complain about large corporations.  It makes me think of a Lenin quote, but I don’t think it quite fits: “A capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.”

Just like we have good government and bad government, we have good corporations and bad corporations.  For every hidden recall, how many public acknowledgments of corporate problems do we hear?

The latest effort at corporate responsibility is by General Mills.  Because of the various sources of grain it has, it makes every effort to make sure its products are what they say they are.  To ensure gluten-free products they use expensive machines to separate wheat from other grains.  As with all human systems, stuff happens.  As soon as General Mills found out about the problem, they recalled supposedly gluten-free products.  Interestingly, it may have been the truck of a small, independent contractor that had the mixed grain.  For more details, see the Star Tribune of 2015-10-10.

To end on a negative note, I’ll fault General Mills for deceptive packaging.  We had Golden Valley Nut Bars as a snack this past Sunday.  The nut bars ended at the border between the clear part of the wrapper and the opaque part.  Even considering the need to seal the top of the package, three quarters of an inch more of bar could have fit in the package.

Also published online in the Duluth Reader, 2015-10-15 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/10/14/6089_slicing_and_dicing_clich_s

Hubris is ruinous

Hubris is overreaching pride and arrogance.  Many Greek tragedies have the gods punishing those like Oedipus.  Shakespeare tragedies have circumstances punishing those like MacBeth and Othello.  It seems that rarely do the electorates punish those with overreaching pride and arrogance.  They do it by not voting and those with hubris never count the non-voters.

Scott Walker is one who is showing overreaching pride and arrogance in his abilities.

He touts his electoral success but ignores that he won with a low turn-out.  Many other newly-elected Republican governors won with higher vote counts (of those who bother to vote). Those who signed the petition to recall Walker but then didn’t show up to vote were also arrogant.

He talks about the “invisible hand of the free market”, but ignores Adam Smith’s admonition of trusting those who live by profit.

He is proud to have passed a “right to fire” law, but ignores Smith noting that the masters could organize to keep wages down but it was illegal for the workers to organize to raise wages.  If workers can refuse to pay union dues, is there a complimentary law that businesses can be part of Chambers of Commerce without paying dues?

He thinks that facing down demonstrators qualifies him to take on the likes of ISIS.  Facing demonstrators armed with pizzas is not same as facing a few thousand jihadists armed with AK-47s, rocket launchers and more.  Also, he ignores the history of meddling in the Middle East; it has always backfired, maybe not right away, but within a few years.

I only have my keyboard against Scott Walker’s many microphones.  If you are a Wisconsin voter who didn’t show up in one of more of Walker’s election “landslides”, please show up the next time.

Many politicians other than Walker cite their belief in American exceptionalism.  Sorry, but many people in other countries, well-governed or not, believe their countries are exceptional.  The difference is that many of these people don’t think their exceptionalism gives them the right to tell other countries how to conduct their own affairs.  Those who believe in American “exceptionalism” refuse to see how often the “gods” have punished this hubris: Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and more.  The proponents of the “domino theory” seemed to have ignored that a game of dominos can go off in unexpected directions.

The hubris of the jihadists of ISIS and other terror groups make the hubris of American politicians look like a parlor game.  The jihadists claim they are doing Allah’s will, but how do they know this other than repeating it to each other?  Where is their forgiveness to others that Allah gives them?  And if they believe “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”), can’t Allah right these “wrongs”.

If God could flood the entire world, killing thousands of pregnant women and their unborn children, couldn't God send a lightning bolt to strike “blasphemers” dead?  If God could destroy the tower of Babel, built out of bricks, couldn’t God bring down the skyscrapers of steel in all the cities of the non-believers?  If God could destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because the residents were sinful, couldn’t God destroy all the much larger cities of today where there is much “sin” according to purists who believe in an Almighty God?

The greatest hubris of all is that of countries with nuclear weapons.  They want to prevent other countries from having any capacity to build nuclear weapons, but they seem very disinclined to reduce the number of their own nuclear weapons.  These nuclear countries are ready at a moment’s notice to cause more death and destruction than the God of the Old Testament did from the beginning of the world.

Mel wishes the pen were mightier than the sword far more often than it has been.

Do you give elections away?

Are you going to be in the 40% who lets the 31% decide who's going to be elected?

If you are among those who stay away in elections, then a majority of a 60% turnout is less than 31%.  Too many media outlets use "landslide" when the victor receives 55% of the vote.  If the turnout is only 60%, then the victor only received 33% of the eligible vote.

If these figures were reported more often, then maybe the "winners" would have less hubris when they take office.

Always vote because all votes count!

Is Hugo Chavez more popular than U.S. presidents?

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezeula, won a fourth term.  Compared with his previous elections, he had a tighter race.  However, like U.S. presidents should do and never do, Chavez should consider that he did not receive the support of the majority of voters.

The turnout was about 80%, far higher than any one state in the U.S. ever got recently and Chavez received about 55% of that.  In other words, only 44% of the voters turned out to support Chavez and 56% of the voters either supported someone else or didn't care.

Consider that the turnout in U.S. elections has not been over 60% since 1972.  For Reagan's "landslide" in 1984 the turnout was 53.11%.  Reagan had 58.77% of the votes cast, which means that he had the support of only 31.2% of the voting age population.  In percent of votes cast, Reagan did better than Chavez, but in the support of all the people Reagan didn't fare as well.

The lesson for every election is that those who show up determine the results.  Too often elections are given away by those who aren't completely satisfied with the losing candidate.

Mandate? Landslide? Let's count ALL the voters

Frank Rich used "Reagan" and "landslide" many times in his article, "Let Obama's Reagan Revolution Begin", 2011-01-09.

I was going to post the following as a comment, but I was too late as comments were already closed.

Please stop using the term "landslide" to describe Reagan's win of the 1984 election.  Forty-three percent of the voters didn't even show up, indirectly voting for "none of the above."  Ronald Reagan did receive 58.7% of the votes of those who did show up which is impressive.  But if one considers the no-shows, he had the backing of only 33.5% of the people.  In other words, he came in second to none of the above.

If we reported elections with all the relevant data we could either stop winners from declaring a "mandate" or get more people out to vote the next time.

See also "Voting is not a horse race" and "If you don't vote, you have only yourself to blame".