Monday Morning Rant 60

If you have to search the day’s news for something to bring your blood to a boil you are clueless, callous or brain dead. Demagoguery has reached an apex which exceeds anything I could have ever imagined since I first pulled the handle for Dwight Eisenhower. One of the most serious scurrilous attacks I witnessed at that time was a front page photo of Adlai Stevenson with his feet on a desk exposing a hole in the sole of his shoe. I never was entirely certain what that was supposed to represent: poverty, carelessness, personal sloth or just a man who had walked too many miles with no chance to visit a shoemaker. Nevertheless, it made all the papers.

Today, any trace of civility has swirled down the drain and been replaced by innuendo, personal attack, and mindless criticism for its own sake. All of this is taking place when serious questions about vital issues are being ignored in favor of ridiculing candidates for office on a personal level. Rather than explanation and defense of policies, the lowest denominator is sought and then exploited to the maximum. It is childish, demeaning to the process and just plain bad citizenship. It is also an admission of the ignorance of the electorate—or at least the campaign’s evaluation of them—if they are swayed by these vile attacks.

By the time the election takes place, whichever candidate wins, hundreds of millions will have been spent to convince half of the voters that the guy who won is an immoral idiot. There is an answer to this problem which you will never see implemented. The Zion Beckons solution would be to have a new set of election laws which advocate the following:

No candidate may file any announcement of intention—including incumbents—more than five months in advance of the general election.

Three months prior to the general election, on the second Tuesday of August, every state shall have a primary with a “winner take all” banning “super delegates” with no caucuses.

A set equal amount of allowable expenditure be assigned separately for each candidate in each state in proportion to the previous general election’s actual vote count.

Persons in absentia would be required to obtain absentee ballots in advance of each election from their local offices prior to their departure.

Governmental employees out of the country would apply for absentee ballots through their chain of command whether civilian or military.

Each voter would be required to show proof of citizenship and photo ID to obtain a certified registration card. That card must be presented in order to vote and be marked by the election officials after its validity is established.

Persons running for any office as part of their filing should have to submit a candidacy application for vetting to the FBI and be confirmed as eligible—i.e., verifiable American citizens.

Persons not eligible to vote should not be eligible to run—convicted felons!

These points would provide equity of time, money and eligibility for both the candidates and the voters. There is nothing in the Constitution which states that voting is a right. In addition to the savings above, I believe it would not encourage frivolous use of valuable resources to the deprivation of purposeful presentations of each candidate’s reasons to seek the offices.

I further believe that violation of the points listed above should be punishable by incarceration and banishment from seeking office or voting for the life of the perpetrator.

Our people really need a reminder that whether seeking office of making a choice is serious business and these tenets would reinforce their attitudes.

Don’t worry; none of this will ever become law. It’s just the ruminations of an old man. If it ever did, you can at least say you saw it here first.

Speaking of Trivial criticism

I lifted this from the Corner on National Revue. How can these folks claim to be “of the people?”

“The Obama Diet — Not Just Arugula' [Lisa Schiffren]

The 'people's ticket ordered a little snack from room service at the Waldorf, as the N.Y. Post's page Six reports:
While he was at a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Michelle Obama called room service and ordered lobster hors d'oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar and champagne, a tipster told Page Six.

I'd guess the bill for that snack came in at around $350. Iranian caviar ain't cheap — even if you negotiate for it yourself. What the hell . . . Your campaign contributions (soon to be your tax dollars) at work.

Does anyone else remember Gerald Ford toasting his own English Muffins in the family quarters of the White House? Michelle's style is a little more Leona Helmsley, who's ad campaign featured a picture of herself in one of her hotels, with the slogan, 'a hotel fit for a Queen.' Can you do that at the White House?”

Former Fetus Barack Obama

This little jewel was written by Ed Whelan. For those of us who would protect the unborn and for that matter, the newly born with disabilities you may find some food for thought:

“Nearly 48 years ago, a young woman, not yet 18, became pregnant in her freshman year of college. Living in a time and place in which abortion was generally illegal, she proceeded to marry the father of her child and gave birth to a son. Perhaps she would have done so irrespective of the abortion laws at the time, even if, say, she lived in a legal culture that celebrated abortion as a fundamental right. Very possibly not. (I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of pregnant college freshmen who abort their pregnancies, but indirect indications suggest that it’s very high.)

Barack Obama may actually believe, as he stated yesterday, that Roe v. Wade “was rightly decided.” But it may be very lucky for him, as the son born of that woman, that it hadn’t been decided a dozen or so years earlier.

That Obama may owe his very life to a pre-Roe legal regime that banned abortion is, to be sure, not necessarily a reason that he should favor that regime (though I can’t help noting that Justice Thomas’s critics recklessly accuse him of hypocrisy for opposing racial-preference plans that they say he benefited from). But it ought to lead Obama and others to think more carefully about the valuable role that protective abortion laws play.”

That’s enough for this Monday. I’m still enjoying the glow of fellowship from yesterday and the beautiful Fall drive to Oklahoma. We do live in a beautiful land and I thank God for it.

In His abiding love,

Cecil Moon