An Inconvenient Form Of Democracy

In all of my years, I don’t think I’ve heard or seen as much talk about democracy as I have over the past couple of years. Even my ancient history prof didn’t talk as much about it when he was droning on and on about the ancient Greeks and he was very good at droning on and on.

Everybody, well almost everybody, seems to have an opinion about democracy and those opinions, often including my own, are about how it’s being undermined. In Canada, the liberal media are positively beside themselves over how the Conservative government is a threat to democracy and people on social media are positively poetic (in a very loose definition of the term) in their outrage about it.

At its simplest, democracy is simply government by the people for the people and government is formed based on elections where the majority rules. This, of course, is agreeable to everyone until their particular candidate, political party or issue loses and then democracy becomes quite inconvenient.

At that point we start hearing phrases like “tyranny of the majority” and accusations of undermining the democratic process. When those fail to work out to well for those who have their underwear in a twist because their side lost the election, an allegation of political corruption or electoral fraud always seems to gather some momentum.

It is no secret, if you are a regular reader of this blog, that I have very little respect for the political process in general and politicians and their strategists in particular. I consider political parties to be the greatest threat to our democracy because they are not about governing; they’re about winning and holding power.

But, we the people are willing contributors to the erosion of our democracy because we the people don’t respect the democratic process any more than political parties and their Slick Willies working the phones in the war rooms out back. We the people prefer a convenient form of democracy; one that gives us what we want and screw everyone else.

Unfortunately, democracy is a messy business and it’s hard. It takes effort and, sad to say, more than just a little thought; more thought than many are willing to bring to the table. Consider these two examples.

In the United States, a recent poll clearly showed that more than 60% of Americans believe the United States is on the wrong track and it needs to change direction in order to recover. One would tend to believe that would be a pretty strong indictment against the current administration, whatever administration that might be.

You’d be wrong.

In fact, the latest electoral polls show the current administration leading in popular support and that would be a basis for criticism of the American system if it wasn’t for the fact that Canadians are even more confused.

The current Conservative government was elected with less than 45% public support and is routinely attacked in the media and online for being undemocratic and a threat to the fabric of Canada (whatever that might actually mean). This despite the fact that:

This government has piloted the country through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression landing Canada at the top of the G7 in terms of economic stability and prosperity

Canada is ranked #2 in the world in terms of wellness, health and satisfaction according to   Deepak Chopra's  latest Gallop study

Of the ten cities in the world with the cleanest air, eight of them are in Canada

Despite allegations of electoral fraud, the only charges that have been laid for breaking the rules were laid against the opposition parties. The Conservative government has been charged with nothing.

Introduced a motion to recognized Quebec as a nation within a nation and not only restored the cuts to health care funding by the former Liberal government but has provided a long-term guarantee of annual payment increases.

A majority of Canadians are quite unhappy with their government nonetheless and continuously castigate it for its nefarious ways even though they are living in the most stable country in the world because of that government and there really aren’t any nefarious ways over which to be all that upset.

It is democracy, however, and we the people are entitled to voice our displeasure, no matter how irrational that displeasure may be. It appears that both Americans and Canadians never seem to have time to step back and actually consider the contradictory nature of what they want and what they say they want before they form their opinions or vote.

A majority of Americans don’t believe they have what they want or need but appear to be doggedly determined to on voting for more of it by supporting the administration that provided caused that dissatisfaction. Canadians, for the most part, have pretty much what they want and need but would like a different government anyway.

I believe this is what happens when thinking is replaced by feeling; when the ability to think critically, objectively or analytically is overruled by emotional knee-jerk reaction. Feeling is easy because it happens naturally. Thinking is hard because you actually have to make an effort.

Sometimes it's the result of focusing on a single issue without any understanding that in today's economy, all issues are inevitably linked at some point.

Americans like Barrack Obama. He’s charming most of the time, somewhat hip and cool, fairly intelligent, witty and he’s African-American. He’s stands as a symbol that their country has finally overcome the racial divide, at least politically and that anyone can, indeed, become president. The fact that he is an incompetent leader who has put America on a track with which a majority of Americans disagree is irrelevant to how the majority seem prepared to vote.

Canadians do not like Stephen Harper even though he is competent, focused, reasonably intelligent and efficient. He has provided solid leadership on most files anticipates events well and is consistent. But, and there is always a but, he isn’t very friendly, can be quite vicious in his attack on his political opponents, has the charisma of a tax auditor and his hair never blows in the wind. If Canada were a two party system, Mr. Harper would lose the next election despite his good governance and solid performance.

We don’t stop there, however, in our never ending search for convenient democracy. The definition of the democracy we want shifts from issue to issue.

We all claim to want our elected representatives to vote their conscience and that of their constituents rather than the party line but, as we saw recently with the vote in Canada on a motion to examine when life begins, that idea of democracy becomes quite inconvenient.

Rona Ambrose, the Minister for the Status of Women, voted her conscience. She voted in favour of the motion. This has outraged the Sisterhood who, even though the motion was soundly defeated, are calling for the minister’s head or at the very least, her resignation from cabinet. Winning the vote wasn’t good enough, the mere fact that Minister Ambrose voted in favour of something with which the Sisterhood disagreed is sufficient to toss the idea of democracy aside and gather the lynch mob together for a hanging.

It's pretty confused democratic activism that fights for the rights of women and then get's it's lingerie in a twist when one of them actually exercises that right and votes against how the Sisterhood thinks they should. The fact that the Sisterhood doesn't speak for all women, let alone all Canadians and that this is a democracy, is quite irrelevant to them. It is democracy at its most inconvenient so just grab the rope and find a tree.

Teachers’ unions in Canada and the United States have thrown their support, sometimes quite aggressively behind this this political party or that, in order to provide better education for the children through higher salaries and benefits to teachers. When the cupboard is bare and the existing government they supported introduces the concept of economic reality to them, teachers take to the streets and then throw their support to the next party only too willing to promise them a piece of the moon if they’re elected. What the government may have done in a broader sense is irrelevant. Teachers vote en mass against the government that is now undermining the classroom by freezing teachers' salaries or not providing them with the raises they want.

And that, Kids, is what we call convenient democracy. The idea of we the people agreeing on something by majority rule is only convenient when our team wins, or in the case of issues like ‘when life begins’ not even when our team wins. Then it isn’t enough that ‘our side’ won the day, there has to be repercussions against those who exercised their democratic right and voted against us.

Even children have a better understanding of democracy than we do but then, children aren’t as sophisticated as we are and they have too much integrity to understand the intricacies of the real world. For kids, it’s about forming a consensus, making a decision and getting on with playing; either that or simply throwing a hissy fit in order to get their own way.

And doesn’t that last bit sound like a lot of what the big folks do these days?

For grown up kids now, it’s about throwing a hissy fits when we lose the vote and then hammering away at every issue until the resolution is convenient for us. The problem, of course, is that when that happens it becomes quite inconvenient for someone else and so we start the silliness over again.

Perhaps one day we might learn that democracy is at its best when we recognize that it is not always convenient but that the decisions taken by the majority are necessary to move us forward as a nation. Until then, I’m afraid that for many of us, democracy will be little more than a hammer to try and force others to our way of thinking at worst and a parody of a results show for American Idol or X Factor at best complete with screaming fans, lots of television coverage but unfortunately without the charm of Simon Cowell.

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A President's Words. A President's Actions

"...true democracy – real freedom – is hard work.”

-President Obama

On September 11, 2012, violence directed against American diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya erupted without warning or at least, that was the official position of the Obama administration. It is now clear that there was not only reason to anticipate something happening on the anniversary of 9/11 but there were warnings as much as 48 hours in advance.

Four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya were killed; an unnecessary loss of life due to nothing more than careless indifference to the safety of diplomatic staff in this troubled region.

On September 11, there was no statement from the White House regarding the attacks and indeed, later in the evening while appearing on the David Letterman Show, the President was mute about what was happening in North Africa and the Middle East. Mitt Romney spoke out against this silence and was criticized by the administration and the mainstream media for politicizing the issue.

Politicizing the issue?

I think there has been a great deal of politicizing of this issue but it hasn’t come from Mitt Romney or his campaign.

On September 12, President Obama gave a short, terse statement denouncing the attacks and showing firm resolve at bringing those who had committed the attacks to justice. He reiterated that these were spontaneous, random attacks that had nothing to do with terrorism and took no questions. President Obama is very good at the delivery of wonderfully crafted statements but has been proven time and again that he isn’t very good at living up to his words.

Subsequently, violence erupted across the Muslim region with protests and demonstrations against the United States. There were even demonstrations in Australia and other democracies. The cause, the world was assured, was a fourteen minute video that ridiculed the prophet Mohammed and which offended Muslims. Even if that were true and it now appears that it is not, so what? There are millions of Muslims around the world who did not riot, protest or threaten the lives of Americans. They accept, like most civilized people, that freedom of speech includes the right to offend.

President Obama has devoted much of his response to the attacks to apologizing for and condemning those who offended Muslims but it was only in his speech to the United Nations that he ever made reference to all of the offense directed at other religions by others, including his own supporter Bill Maher.

In a democracy, freedom of speech means exactly that; the freedom to speak your mind and voice your opinion even if it offends others. The President felt it necessary to apologize rather than defend that basic American right until it became clear that Americans were outraged.

The video was a convenient excuse for both those who consider the United States an enemy and who are constantly looking for a reason to attack it, as well as, for the administration itself.

By blaming the video, the administration did not have to take responsibility for either its lax security arrangements or having ignored the advance warnings it received from governments in the region.  It didn’t have to acknowledge that it didn’t put any particular plan in place to increase security at is embassies in anticipation of potential threats at its missions in the Middle East and North Africa on the anniversary of 9/11.

Instead, the President and his administration blamed it all on a crudely produced video and characterized all of the violence as nothing more than a spontaneous event. Blaming others is something at which this administration has become quite accomplished.

Nothing is ever this administration’s fault. The economy is the fault of the previous government or the recession. The unconscionable increase in the budget deficit, indeed the lack of a budget in four years, is strictly the fault of Congress despite the fact that the President had a Democratic majority in the senate for two years. Neither the President, nor his supporters, gives any consideration as to whether or not the President had a responsibility to lead and build consensus rather than throw up his hands and simply point fingers at others.

The administration takes no responsibility for anything except what it perceives to be popular successes and then, they are only due to the courageous leadership of the President.

Since September 11^th, that courageous leadership has run television ads in Pakistan apologizing for the independently produced video, denied intelligence information to the house committee for national security that it had in its possession and has yet to send in the FBI to undertake an investigation into what happened in Benghazi. Indeed, so much time has passed since the attack that the FBI no longer sees the value in going to Benghazi as the ‘crime’ scene has been so tainted it will tell them virtually nothing.

So much for the firmly spoken commitment to find those responsible and bring them to justice.

Now, it appears that despite public pronouncements to the contrary, the administration knew within 24 hours that what happened was a planned, terrorist attack and it wasn’t the only one. Attacks took place in other places including America’s largest military base in Afghanistan. It was a coordinated effort by Al Qaeda and its supporters including the Taliban which the administration denied publicly until yesterday.

None of this information has been forthcoming from the President or the State Department but rather from media who are on the ground in the region, doing the job the administration should have ordered done two weeks ago. It is the media who for once are doing their job that forced the administration to admit the truth. I doubt the whole truth has yet emerged but clearly it will and this pitiful attempt at covering up the truth lest it interfere with the President’s reelection will be exposed for what it is.

Recent polls show that support for Barrack Obama’s reelection is increasing which is a tragic and dangerous endorsement of style over substance. Considering his ineffective leadership in every area of the presidency but in particular in foreign policy and national security, it amazes me that he has any support at all.

I can only attribute the President’s success in the polls to the dismal campaign being run by the Republicans.

The President has failed to demonstrate the leadership that would find agreement with Congress on fiscal matters, has defended the only Attorney General in American history to be found in contempt of Congress over the Fast & Furious scandal which cost more Americans their lives and has implemented a mandatory health care plan that is so poorly conceived that it has divided the nation and requires  taking $750 billion from Medicare to properly fund it.

The President’s redistribution of wealth now appears to include taking from the elderly to give to others.

Jimmy Carter did far less and accomplished far more than this president and yet remains mocked and vilified for his presidency by Democrats and Republicans alike. The fact that so many have refused to consider what their support of the past four years will provide them over the next four if they continue that support is a telling indication of just how little thought is being applied to this election campaign.

Many may discover too late that emotion is a poor substitute for analytical thought when it comes to deciding the future government that will decide your personal future and that of your family.

There is an old saying that the people get the government they deserve but once reality hits after the election and the debt, unemployment and confused foreign policy continue, it will be too late for anyone to change their mind. If the past four years are not enough to make people stop and consider the record of this administration, surely to God it’s performance and response to the attacks against Americans and American diplomatic missions in the past two weeks should at the very least give them pause for thought.

If not, God help them.

In his speech to the United Nations, President Obama said, “...true democracy – real freedom – is hard work.” Yes it is. We can agree on that. It is unfortunate that for this president they are too often only words; words that many cling too in the hope and failed belief that this time he will follow through on them.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The Not Quite Knute Rockne Moment Of The Romney Campaign

"Play like you're positive on the victory, even though
they're leading big now." 

- Knute Rockne

In sport, the coach usually has an inspirational talk with his team before sending them out on the field. Typically, he and his assistant coaches have also spent more than just a bit of time pumping up the media and fans before the big game.

In that vein, this letter has been sent to the mainstream media and other interested parties by the Mitt Romney campaign in advance of the first Presidential debate. Give it a read and then we’ll chat.

From: Beth Myers, Senior Adviser

To: Interested Parties

Date: September 27, 2012

Re: 2012 Presidential Debates

In a matter of days, Governor Romney and President Obama will meet on the presidential debate stage. President Obama is a universally-acclaimed public speaker and has substantial debate experience under his belt. However, the record he's compiled over the last four years – higher unemployment, lower incomes, rising energy costs, and a national debt spiraling out of control – means this will be a close election right up to November 6th.

Between now and then, President Obama and Governor Romney will debate three times. While Governor Romney has the issues and the facts on his side, President Obama enters these contests with a significant advantage on a number of fronts.

Voters already believe – by a 25-point margin – that President Obama is likely to do a better job in these debates. Given President Obama's natural gifts and extensive seasoning under the bright lights of the debate stage, this is unsurprising. President Obama is a uniquely gifted speaker, and is widely regarded as one of the most talented political communicators in modern history. This will be the eighth one-on-one presidential debate of his political career. For Mitt Romney, it will be his first.

Four years ago, Barack Obama faced John McCain on the debate stage. According to Gallup, voters judged him the winner of each debate by double-digit margins, and their polling showed he won one debate by an astounding 33-point margin. In the 2008 primary, he faced Hillary Clinton, another formidable opponent – debating her one-on-one numerous times and coming out ahead. The takeaway? Not only has President Obama gained valuable experience in these debates, he also won them comfortably.

But what must President Obama overcome? His record. Based on the campaign he's run so far, it's clear that President Obama will use his ample rhetorical gifts and debating experience to one end: attacking Mitt Romney. Since he won't – and can't – talk about his record, he'll talk about Mitt Romney. We fully expect a 90-minute attack ad aimed at tearing down his opponent. If President Obama is as negative as we expect, he will have missed an opportunity to let the American people know his vision for the next four years and the policies he'd pursue. That's not an opportunity Mitt Romney will pass up. He will talk about the big choice in this election – the choice between President Obama's government-centric vision and Mitt Romney's vision for an opportunity society with more jobs, higher take-home pay, a better-educated workforce, and millions of Americans lifted out of poverty into the middle class.

This election will not be decided by the debates, however. It will be decided by the American people. Regardless of who comes out on top in these debates, they know we can't afford another four years like the last four years. And they will ultimately choose a better future by electing Mitt Romney to be our next president.

It’s a damn good thing that Ms Myers is not a football coach because Knute Rockne she ain’t. Imagine any football coach contacting the media and advising them that his team was probably going to lose on Sunday because the other team had better coaching, a better quarterback and….well….were just better at it the game than his team even though their record sucked.

While she did take the obligatory shots at the record of President Obama, she spent as much time positively fawning over his rhetorical and debating skills, even detailing his past successes.

Everything Ms Myers wrote is true. President Obama is an experienced debater and an excellent orator. It is equally true that his record in office is one of the worst in modern history. It seems to me that if you want to win the election, you just keep pounding away on that record rather than laying down in front of the world and admitting that your ‘boy’ doesn’t stand a chance in the big game. You might just as well toss in the towel and admit that your campaign is done.

I’m  wondering why in hell anyone would be supporting someone they think is going to get the stuffing kicked out of them in a debate with his opponent. Does Ms Myers lack confidence in her candidate to the point where she believes he is incapable of holding his own against President Obama? If that is the case, how could she possibly believe he could hold his own with Congress or world leaders, especially with the likes of the President of Iran? (I’d use his name but I can’t pronounce or spell it properly.)

What would ever possess an election campaign to publicly undercut its own candidate and lower expectations of his performance? I suppose some will think that it is a devilishly clever strategy to create a bit of over-confidence in the Obama ranks with the intent of blind-siding him during the debate. Give me a break. If that was the strategy it was clearly poorly thought out and the result of desperate over-thinking…..or perhaps not thinking at all.

I’m also wondering how Mitt is feeling after this underwhelming public endorsement from one of his senior campaign advisers. Imagine that metaphorical football coach getting the lads together in the locker room and telling them they were about to get the Bejesus kicked out of them on Sunday because they weren’t as good as the other team. That’s definitely not one of those inspirational speeches that gets recorded for posterity or that drives a team to strive for victory.

Hollywood doesn’t make too many movies about coaches who announced in advance of the big game that their team didn’t have the experience or measured up to the other team; so for pity’s sake, don’t expect much from them.

It continues to amaze me at just how bizarre this election campaign continues to become.

Personally, I think the entire problem with elections is exemplified by this presidential campaign. There is too much money, too much spin and too much strategy. What is lacking is a rational discourse on the record of the current president and specifics about policy to get America back on its feet from his challenger. Somehow that doesn’t seem important though. There is so much focus on winning that the actual purpose of the election has been long forgotten.

It’s more of a popularity contest now than a process to select the best person to govern the country. It’s like an America’s Got Talent audition without the good will, the humour or the talent but an overabundance of stage moms behind the curtain.

Churchill was right. Democracy is the worst form of government, it’s just better than all the rest. Isn’t it a shame that it’s the best we could come up with? I hate to admit it but some days, dictatorships and monarchies start to look attractive to me. Even if kings, queens and dictators didn’t govern all that well; we wouldn’t be any worse off than we are now and at the very least we wouldn’t have put up with a year-long circus of division and stupidity at horrendous expense.

I think we should just elect a king or a queen and divide the $10 billion being wasted in this election campaign amongst everyone. Those in favour raise their hands and say aye. Those opposed can go ahead and tune in to the debates next week although we already know who will win; the Mitt Romney campaign has made that clear.

You don’t think Ms Myers actually is a Democrat do you? Nah, me either…but….

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The Power Of Silence

Every day, without exception, social and the mainstream media offer up reasons for voting against Barack Obama or Mitt Romney; the same reasons over and over and over and over again. God! It is so tedious and inane most of the time that it leaves me with the same disgusted shiver I get when I hear someone drag their fingernails down a blackboard. 

Most of them are tweeted or posted by people who have never looked beyond their political bias at simple things like facts, political records and the real details being promised by both party platforms. Indeed, some of the most strident comments come from people who haven’t got a clue what is being offered by either party. They never allow objective analysis of the country’s economic or foreign affairs situation to get in the way of what they tweet or even what they believe.

Obama is black and cool, therefore he should be president. Romney is conservative and has nice hair; therefore it is he who should be president. The country would be no worse served if both names were simply put in a hat and one drawn to become president.

The rhetoric and hyperbole has has gone beyond partisanship and become blind fanaticism in many cases.

There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Barack Obama but these aren’t them even though they are the most often offered up by Twitter:

- He wasn’t born in the United States and is not an American

- He is a Muslim agent of Iran

- He is secretly gay and has had gay affairs while in the White House

- He’s stupid

There are also plenty of reasons not to vote for Mitt Romney but none of these are any of them even though they are offered up daily but those who support the President.

- He is wealthy and earned his money by raiding companies and firing people

- He wants to give more money to the rich at the expense of the middle class

- He has initiated a war on women

- He’s a racist

What a crock this stuff is. None of it is true for either candidate and none of it is relevant to deciding for whom to vote. It is noise and invective that is designed to bolster weak and prejudiced opinions that have no factual basis or to distract the opposition from exposing the weakness of the candidate they support and, quite frankly, there are more than enough weaknesses to go around.

Barack Obama is an intelligent, well-intentioned person who has simply failed to deliver on the promises he made in the 2008 campaign. The American economy is a disaster that can no longer be blamed on the previous administration, recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have underscored the weakness of his foreign policy and the country has become more divided and angry under his administration than under any that went before it.

Unemployment is too high, America’s credit rating has been downgraded again, and the national deficit has increased by $6 trillion in four years compared to the $4 trillion over the eight years of the Bush administration. In other words, it is accelerating.

Mitt Romney is an intelligent, well-intentioned person who stumbles from one gaff to the next. He is caught between the radicals and the pragmatic within his party and hasn’t figured out quite what to do about it. His approach to leadership is timid and weak. He lacks vision. Consequently, his policy initiatives also lack clear direction or consistency which becomes clear every time he opens his mouth. His economic policies are as rooted in the failed ‘trickle down’ theories of the past as Obama’s are rooted in some fuzzy concept of redistribution of wealth.

Neither candidate is Satan but neither is very good. It’s amazing to me that a few billion dollars in campaign funding can’t produce better than what either the Democratic or Republican parties have offered to the American people this year.

I’m conservative and I make no apologies for it but I am not an idiot nor am I so partisan that I would rather sink and drown because I voted a failed conservative ticket than voting for a liberal ticket that actually made sense. The problem in this election is that neither platform makes much sense nor is either candidate offering much hope for the next four years.

The Obama Administration is a record of failure and lack of direction and is offering a continuation of the policies that created that failure. The Romney platform is a confused mish mash of economic and social policies that are out of date and will simply continue the downward slide of a great nation. 

Neither party is addressing the real issues facing the United States today.

More than 26 million Americans go to bed hungry or without knowing where their next meal will come from. Half of them are children. Where is the candidate who has a plan to deal with that level of poverty in America, let alone even thought about it?

More than 23 million Americans are unemployed. That is 2/3 of the population of Canada. Where is the plan to stimulate economic growth to produce jobs and not the low income and part-time jobs that have been produced over the past three years but real jobs; jobs that can sustain families?

Where is the commitment to reform taxation so that all pay their fair share? Both candidates are promising to tinker with taxation again but it will only add more complexity to the already 22,000 tax regulations that exist at the expense of one or another group of voters over another. It isn’t tax reform; it’s the same political pandering that has been going on for decades.

Where is the focused and comprehensive approach to foreign policy that goes beyond dreaming about past glories and continuing to make the same mistakes over and over again at the expense of American prestige and the lives of American citizens? How much longer will the leadership of the United States continue to pour billions of borrowed dollars into countries that have no respect for America and wish it harm? Where is the candidate who recognizes the failure of that stupidity?

The American people were promised change you can believe in during the 2008 election. What they got was more of the same confused leadership that bounced from issue to issue without much thought or direction and obstructionism from the opposite party at the expense of the people.

The simple fact is that American politics are now more about elections than governing. More effort, money, time and energy is spent getting candidates elected than in having elected candidates do their jobs. The President of the United States has spent more time traveling to and from campaign events this past week than in leading his people through the chaos of the latest radical Islamic uprisings.

For his part, Mitt Romney has criticized to varying degrees (depending on the latest news commentary) the actions of the President but always from some campaign event and never with any hard-core, specific alternatives offered.

It’s small wonder that those who would harm America don’t take the country seriously. They see a weak, confused leadership regardless of who gets elected. They see a super power that conducts itself like an adolescent with a huge military at best or standing like deer caught in the headlights at worst. 

More than a decade has passed since 9/11 and all that has changed is that Americans are subject to more intense security at their airports than is seen in many American embassies and consulates around the world.

All of that makes me wonder why so many people spend so much energy and are so aggressive in trying to prop up one or the other candidates for president. It seems to me that the nation would be better served by Americans, regardless of political affiliation, coming together and demanding better from the two main parties rather than supporting one of them as they are now.

And I do mean demanding.

How? What if they held a campaign rally and nobody showed up to cheer and chant? What if they asked for campaign funding support and nobody wrote a check?

What if they held an election and nobody showed up to vote?

What indeed! Revolutions don’t always have to involve guns and guillotines. Sometimes the most revolutionary acts are a simple refusal to continue to play the game or to be pawns in the games being played by others.

Every time someone supports their candidate by calling supporters of the other candidate a liar, a racist, a fascist, a homophobe or any one of a hundred other ridiculous and inaccurate labels that I’ve seen on social media over the past week, they support the game and perpetuate the downward slide.

Every time marauding gangs of virulent supporters try to shout down or overpower legitimate criticism of their preferred candidate rather than engaging in a reasoned and informed discussion, they only support the further decline of their government leadership.

It’s like cheering for cancer rather than working to save the patient.

Imagine what would happen at both campaign headquarters if Twitter and Facebook suddenly went silent about the election. Imagine what would happen if people just stopped talking about the candidates and refused to publicly take sides.

Imagine what would happen if Americans refused to tell pollsters how they were going to vote or the mainstream media who they were supporting. Imagine what would happen if Americans simply refused to play the game anymore and stood silently until the political class took its head out of its ass and finally came to its senses.

Imagine what would happen if nobody showed up to vote because they were so disgusted by the alternatives being offered to them they refused to participate or be treated like morons as they are to a great extent now.

Imagine what would happen if people suddenly realized that freedom of speech include the freedom to say nothing at all.

It won’t happen, of course, but just imagine how much power there would be in that for the people compared to how little power is in all this absurd bickering, accusation and noise. Silence isn’t just golden…..

......it often has far more power than noise ever will.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

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The New Jerusalem - An Intolerant World Where Opinion Rules Fact

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a
chance to get its pants on."- Winston Churchill

I’ve received lots of tweets, emails and blog comments in support of the things I write but I’ve also received some that take exception to it. I don’t have a problem with that. As I have written before, I welcome debate and differing opinions but while the odd differing opinion has been reasoned and thought through, most of it is simply to call me an idiot, or words to that effect.

Today I was called a capitalist 'lickspittle' and even if I wasn’t 100% sure I knew what a capitalist lickspittle was, I was pretty sure it was much more than simply being an idiot.

I have noticed, over the past while, that people who feel their opinions are threatened increasingly turn to name calling rather than debate on the issues or the facts, as the best they can do in response to something with which they don’t agree.

It isn’t unique to any one group and is as prevalent in the 1% ad it is in the 99%; on the left and as it is on the right.  I consider it less an insult and more an indication of how poorly thought through on the issues most name-callers are and how insecure they are about their position. Either that or it is simply a belief bordering on fanaticism that makes them so intolerant and strident.