Every now and then, a charming and charismatic individual comes along to capture the imagination of the simple masses. As a kid, I remember the self-aggrandizing exploits of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who built a religious shrine to himself in my home state of Oregon and attracted a rather large, devoted following of disciples who made up a physical commune called Rajneeshpuram. Of course, it turns out that the Rajneesh was only using his followers and their money to buy himself a lot of expensive toys—namely several Rolls Royces. He was also developing biological weapons to poison people with. But there was no way anyone could have convinced the Bhagwan’s loyal subjects of his deception. The Baghwan could do no wrong in the blind eyes of his followers.
I see many parallels to the Rajneeshi when I regard the public’s reaction toward democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL.
Here’s a guy who was a virtual unknown when he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. He was considered little more than the “flavor of the month” and even dubbed a “rock star” candidate by major print media when the presidential campaign season kicked off in January 2007. In fact, up until this year’s Iowa Caucus, the presumed democratic presidential nominee was New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, a so-called candidate of destiny. Since then, Obama's spark caught fire instantly and his popularity has spread like a raging wildfire.
His public addresses and campaign speeches have the same effect as an aphrodesiac: extraordinarily pleasurable and uplifting. People seem to come away from one of his rallies the way Deadheads left a Grateful Dead concert: high and hallucinating. Traveling peddlers and charlatans got the same rise out of crowds gathered around to see a demonstration of some sort of wonder tonic. So have these so-called miracle healers who place their hands on people’s heads and claim to cure what ails them.
Don’t get me wrong: Hope is a fine thing and a great notion upon which to campaign. But in order for hope to mean anything, there has to be substance behind it. There is nothing but powerful words behind Obama’s brand of hope. He really doesn’t know what impact his plans and ideas will have on the United States of America. But his words sound good, people respond to them, so he has taken the ball and run with it—untouched so far and on his way to the end zone.
I’m just concerned that people are taking Barack Obama more seriously than a presidential candidate; almost as though he is some kind of messianic cult leader. I read a quote earlier this week by actress Halle Berry, who said she would scrub the floors beneath Obama’s feet just to be a part of his campaign.
Now, Obama seems like a decent guy. But a messiah he is not.
He’s a presidential candidate, for heaven’s sake, not a shaman or medicine man. He doesn’t have any magic up his sleeves, no spells to cast and no bewitching potions with which to cure our ills. He’s just a guy; a flesh and blood man…with a law degree.
But you can’t convince Obama’s loyal supporters that he’s got any faults at all, much less any bad ideas. He can do no wrong in the eyes of a growing number of people. Heck, he might as well be the Second Coming. A scary notion is that some people—more than I care to admit—probably think of him in that way.
I suppose the next thing his followers expect is for him to walk on water. To avoid utter embarrassment, though, I suggest Barack attempt it at about an inch depth. That should give illusion enough to fool even the most skeptical of Obama worshippers. Besides, I don’t think their shallow brains could handle deception in anything deeper.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Don’t like McCain? He won’t win anyway
Those who are less than enthusiastic about John McCain as the republican presidential nominee needn’t worry what he may or may not do as president of the United States, because he isn’t going to win.
Sorry to burst the bubbles of “Mac” supporters, but the veteran Arizona senator and war hero is poised to go down in political history the way his long-time colleague, former Sen. Robert Dole, R-KS, did in his 1996 presidential campaign. The republican powers-that-be had decided that 1996 was Bob Dole’s turn at party glory. The presidential nomination was his reward for many years of party loyalty. Like Mac, Dole was also a war hero. But it didn’t suffice against incumbent President Bill Clinton.
This year is evidently Mac’s time to shine after 25 years in the U.S. Senate. But being the pick of the establishment isn’t enough to get Mac elected. And it certainly isn’t good strategy for the Republican Party, which may very well find itself having to compete against the insane popularity of junior Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL.
Even Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, just a few months ago considered the democratic presidential front-runner and more or less anointed as the next president of the United States, now finds herself trailing in polls, delegates and states to Obama and his swelling number of followers.
Mac will have an uphill battle against either Clinton or Obama, but much more so with the latter. Mac represents the status quo of the current administration. Obama, by contrast, has billed himself as the ultimate change agent.
Many people, including republicans, are suffering from Bush fatigue. Mac can be drawn along similar lines as Bush. He has vowed to continue fighting the War on Terror pretty much in the same fashion Bush has thus far—a strategy not all too popular even among Republican Party faithful. He also appears ready to deal with illegal immigrants the way Bush has: by encouraging them to stay illegally.
Unfortunately for Mac, I think enough undecided and swing voters may vote for the democratic nominee out of protest against the status quo and end up defeating him at the ballot box. There will also undoubtedly be a number of conservatives who either strike their ballots for a third party candidate or simply won’t vote at all just because Mac is the republican candidate.
I remember all too well what happened to former President George H.W. Bush in 1992. He lost his re-election bid because conservatives were upset over his “read my lips, no new taxes” gaffe that he unwittingly reneged on prior to the 1992 presidential campaign.
I fear Mac will suffer the same fate as Bush did at the hand of conservative wrath, because of his co-sponsorship of the infamous amnesty bill in 2007, which upset a lot of people.
His only shot at the presidency is if Hillary Clinton wins the democratic nomination over Obama—a task that only months ago seemed a mere formality, but now appears to be a daunting feat.
There may well be more animosity toward Hillary than Mac, by virtue of the rather obvious impression she leaves as a power zealot.
But then again, Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 out of anger. His wife may just as well be, too.
Sorry to burst the bubbles of “Mac” supporters, but the veteran Arizona senator and war hero is poised to go down in political history the way his long-time colleague, former Sen. Robert Dole, R-KS, did in his 1996 presidential campaign. The republican powers-that-be had decided that 1996 was Bob Dole’s turn at party glory. The presidential nomination was his reward for many years of party loyalty. Like Mac, Dole was also a war hero. But it didn’t suffice against incumbent President Bill Clinton.
This year is evidently Mac’s time to shine after 25 years in the U.S. Senate. But being the pick of the establishment isn’t enough to get Mac elected. And it certainly isn’t good strategy for the Republican Party, which may very well find itself having to compete against the insane popularity of junior Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL.
Even Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, just a few months ago considered the democratic presidential front-runner and more or less anointed as the next president of the United States, now finds herself trailing in polls, delegates and states to Obama and his swelling number of followers.
Mac will have an uphill battle against either Clinton or Obama, but much more so with the latter. Mac represents the status quo of the current administration. Obama, by contrast, has billed himself as the ultimate change agent.
Many people, including republicans, are suffering from Bush fatigue. Mac can be drawn along similar lines as Bush. He has vowed to continue fighting the War on Terror pretty much in the same fashion Bush has thus far—a strategy not all too popular even among Republican Party faithful. He also appears ready to deal with illegal immigrants the way Bush has: by encouraging them to stay illegally.
Unfortunately for Mac, I think enough undecided and swing voters may vote for the democratic nominee out of protest against the status quo and end up defeating him at the ballot box. There will also undoubtedly be a number of conservatives who either strike their ballots for a third party candidate or simply won’t vote at all just because Mac is the republican candidate.
I remember all too well what happened to former President George H.W. Bush in 1992. He lost his re-election bid because conservatives were upset over his “read my lips, no new taxes” gaffe that he unwittingly reneged on prior to the 1992 presidential campaign.
I fear Mac will suffer the same fate as Bush did at the hand of conservative wrath, because of his co-sponsorship of the infamous amnesty bill in 2007, which upset a lot of people.
His only shot at the presidency is if Hillary Clinton wins the democratic nomination over Obama—a task that only months ago seemed a mere formality, but now appears to be a daunting feat.
There may well be more animosity toward Hillary than Mac, by virtue of the rather obvious impression she leaves as a power zealot.
But then again, Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 out of anger. His wife may just as well be, too.
Sit this one out…and you may be sitting a while
Here we go again. Whenever conservatives are disappointed by their politicians, they get overdramatic and threaten to boycott elections.
The same conservatives who flooded Congressional offices with telephone calls urging legislators to vote down the infamous amnesty bill of 2007 are many of the same ones threatening not to vote for president in the 2008 general election just because their candidate(s) will not be on the ballot in November.
These same conservatives who affected change just months ago by petitioning their government for a redress of grievances are now talking about sitting this one out, hoping perhaps something so bad will happen that America will have to learn her lesson and correct her mistakes. They think by allowing America to send herself to hell in a hand basket that she will see the errors of her ways and be able to right her wrongs.
Well, last time I checked, hell is final. I sure hope we don’t have to go there first before we realize what we’ve done, because by then, it may be too late.
I know that many conservatives have gotten upset over John McCain all but securing the republican presidential nomination. He isn’t my first choice. Heck, he isn’t even my second or third, for that matter. But I’m not going to sit out the general election just because I’m disappointed that McCain is going to be the republican nominee and not someone more conservative.
The idea of conservatives not voting in this year’s presidential election out of protest is tantamount to a pouting four-year-old who didn’t get his way. Since when do we start acting like the little brats we spank for throwing temper tantrums? While liberals call people names and throw things when they get upset, we conservatives do no better by running off and pouting in the corner.
But worse than behaving like angry little children is the potential fallout that may result from an election boycott.
The number of people who actually vote on Election Day is hovering a little over half of the total population of eligible American voters. This means that roughly one out of every two voters does not vote. In a nation of about 300 million, there are probably around 200 million or so eligible voters. Only about 100 million actually vote.
This means that only about one-third of the total U.S. population actually votes, another third does not vote, and one-third probably wishes it could.
Question: What incentive does Congress have to NOT amend the U.S. Constitution and do away with national elections entirely? Why should the federal government continue to spend money on something that is of increasing disinterest to the public, regardless of whether or not it is constitutional? Perhaps most concerning to me is whether or not most people would even notice or care if their right to vote was suddenly taken away tomorrow.
If conservatives get angry over such trivial matters as a moderate winning a party nomination, then imagine how they will react if Uncle Sam takes away their national voice entirely. Not likely, you say?
Seven years ago, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and its residuals like the Patriot Act, a national ID card and deteriorating border security weren’t likely, either. Fifteen years ago, the Brady Bill was not likely. Thirty years ago, the swelling illegal immigration problem was not likely. And 75 years ago, nobody foresaw the federal government growing as large and mostly autonomous as it has become today.
So don’t tell me that losing our right to vote isn’t likely. Our rights have been slowly eroding, piece by piece, with the passage of every bill. Whenever a new act is codified into law, we lose a little bit more freedom. But such losses are so incremental, so small and so seemingly insignificant that they go largely unnoticed by John Q. Public. The more complacent and apathetic we become, the more likely we will lose our right to vote. It may not happen overnight or in one fowl-swoop, but it can happen gradually, a little at a time until all that’s left are the chips and shavings of a once-proud institution. Sadly, when it happens, there will be very few of us left who care. But once it happens, we will wake up too late wondering where our voices went.
There is a time and a place for boycotts and walk-outs. Elections aren’t one of them. Do you really believe the politicians care whether or not we vote? I think they would prefer we didn’t, because not voting would only secure the power they already have.
To all of my fellow conservatives out there, let me paint you a picture of what the day after Election Day will look like if you do sit this one out: Either Hillary of Obama will become president-elect. Assuming the democrats keep both houses of Congress, we will have a democrat triumvirate in power for the first time since the early days of the Clinton Administration. And we all know how well that one went. Worst of all, the socialists in the Democratic Party will finally have a vehicle for advancing their agendas of radical change. This happened twice before in American history: During the FDR and LBJ administrations. Each time, the reach of the federal government was expanded significantly with social reforms, which have done nothing but create an entitlement culture and succeeding generations growing up dependent on government. Do we really want to see more of that? How much more social reform (i.e., domestic spending) can America’s infrastructure take before it collapses under the weight of overburdening laws, regulatory agencies, taxation and gratuitous deficit spending?
Nobody thought that bridge between Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, would or could collapse until it happened. All most of us could do then was watch others clean up the mess.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be left with only one option where the United States of America is concerned.
McCain or no McCain, I’m voting on Election Day to try to keep the worst from happening.
The same conservatives who flooded Congressional offices with telephone calls urging legislators to vote down the infamous amnesty bill of 2007 are many of the same ones threatening not to vote for president in the 2008 general election just because their candidate(s) will not be on the ballot in November.
These same conservatives who affected change just months ago by petitioning their government for a redress of grievances are now talking about sitting this one out, hoping perhaps something so bad will happen that America will have to learn her lesson and correct her mistakes. They think by allowing America to send herself to hell in a hand basket that she will see the errors of her ways and be able to right her wrongs.
Well, last time I checked, hell is final. I sure hope we don’t have to go there first before we realize what we’ve done, because by then, it may be too late.
I know that many conservatives have gotten upset over John McCain all but securing the republican presidential nomination. He isn’t my first choice. Heck, he isn’t even my second or third, for that matter. But I’m not going to sit out the general election just because I’m disappointed that McCain is going to be the republican nominee and not someone more conservative.
The idea of conservatives not voting in this year’s presidential election out of protest is tantamount to a pouting four-year-old who didn’t get his way. Since when do we start acting like the little brats we spank for throwing temper tantrums? While liberals call people names and throw things when they get upset, we conservatives do no better by running off and pouting in the corner.
But worse than behaving like angry little children is the potential fallout that may result from an election boycott.
The number of people who actually vote on Election Day is hovering a little over half of the total population of eligible American voters. This means that roughly one out of every two voters does not vote. In a nation of about 300 million, there are probably around 200 million or so eligible voters. Only about 100 million actually vote.
This means that only about one-third of the total U.S. population actually votes, another third does not vote, and one-third probably wishes it could.
Question: What incentive does Congress have to NOT amend the U.S. Constitution and do away with national elections entirely? Why should the federal government continue to spend money on something that is of increasing disinterest to the public, regardless of whether or not it is constitutional? Perhaps most concerning to me is whether or not most people would even notice or care if their right to vote was suddenly taken away tomorrow.
If conservatives get angry over such trivial matters as a moderate winning a party nomination, then imagine how they will react if Uncle Sam takes away their national voice entirely. Not likely, you say?
Seven years ago, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and its residuals like the Patriot Act, a national ID card and deteriorating border security weren’t likely, either. Fifteen years ago, the Brady Bill was not likely. Thirty years ago, the swelling illegal immigration problem was not likely. And 75 years ago, nobody foresaw the federal government growing as large and mostly autonomous as it has become today.
So don’t tell me that losing our right to vote isn’t likely. Our rights have been slowly eroding, piece by piece, with the passage of every bill. Whenever a new act is codified into law, we lose a little bit more freedom. But such losses are so incremental, so small and so seemingly insignificant that they go largely unnoticed by John Q. Public. The more complacent and apathetic we become, the more likely we will lose our right to vote. It may not happen overnight or in one fowl-swoop, but it can happen gradually, a little at a time until all that’s left are the chips and shavings of a once-proud institution. Sadly, when it happens, there will be very few of us left who care. But once it happens, we will wake up too late wondering where our voices went.
There is a time and a place for boycotts and walk-outs. Elections aren’t one of them. Do you really believe the politicians care whether or not we vote? I think they would prefer we didn’t, because not voting would only secure the power they already have.
To all of my fellow conservatives out there, let me paint you a picture of what the day after Election Day will look like if you do sit this one out: Either Hillary of Obama will become president-elect. Assuming the democrats keep both houses of Congress, we will have a democrat triumvirate in power for the first time since the early days of the Clinton Administration. And we all know how well that one went. Worst of all, the socialists in the Democratic Party will finally have a vehicle for advancing their agendas of radical change. This happened twice before in American history: During the FDR and LBJ administrations. Each time, the reach of the federal government was expanded significantly with social reforms, which have done nothing but create an entitlement culture and succeeding generations growing up dependent on government. Do we really want to see more of that? How much more social reform (i.e., domestic spending) can America’s infrastructure take before it collapses under the weight of overburdening laws, regulatory agencies, taxation and gratuitous deficit spending?
Nobody thought that bridge between Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, would or could collapse until it happened. All most of us could do then was watch others clean up the mess.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be left with only one option where the United States of America is concerned.
McCain or no McCain, I’m voting on Election Day to try to keep the worst from happening.
Is the alternative really better than McCain?
I understand that John McCain is not the presidential candidate most of us conservatives were hoping for. I mean, if we elect McCain, then we might as well be electing Hillary or Obama, right?
Not in the least.
While McCain seems to have a lot more in common with liberal democrats than conservative republicans—which form the base of his own party—he has very little in common with socialists and communists, against whom he fought and was imprisoned by in Vietnam.
Hillary and Obama are far left of the political center where McCain is. They would just as soon rewrite the U.S. Constitution to suit their own agendas for social change. The democratic front-runners for president are more closely aligned with communist leaders of the past century than with even a liberal democratic patriot like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-CT.
If McCain gets elected the 44th President of the United States, at the very worst, things won’t change, but shall stay the same in Washington, D.C., as they have for decades. Although I’m personally fed up with the Beltway status quo, no change may be better if the alternative is change entirely in the wrong direction. I’d rather have a President McCain keeping things the way they are than a President Obama or Clinton gutting our political, economic and military infrastructures in the name of social justice.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m no McCain fan. But at least he listened when the people spoke up about the amnesty bill that he and Teddy Kennedy were co-sponsoring. He seems to get that the core of his party is opposed to illegal immigration, even if he personally has no problem with it. As president, McCain probably won’t do anything to really fix illegal immigration. But I don’t think he’ll do or let anything happen that would make things worse than they already are. You might say that McCain is willing to at least meet his core constituents in a Mexican Standoff on this issue the same way George W. Bush has.
But if the next president is going to be Hillary or Obama, then we might as well have no borders at all. In fact, we may even kiss what borders we do have good-bye.
Furthermore, McCain will not intentionally harm our economy. He hasn’t done much to keep companies and their jobs from going overseas, but he has supported across-the-board tax relief for all Americans—not just those who would vote for him. He understands that tax cuts to everyone from the blue-collar worker to the corporate CEO not only encourage economic growth, but are also just plain fair. After all, who pays the lion’s share of taxes in America today? Who shoulders the greatest percentage of burden to pay for our government’s largesse?
The rich. The same rich that own the companies employing America. Hillary and Obama threaten to tax even more out of American employers to pay for all of their grandiose social and economic reform schemes. What this means is higher costs to companies, translating into higher costs for the consumers of the products and services that these companies provide. In other words, the cost of higher taxes on the rich eventually gets passed down to you and me.
McCain understands that the reverse is also true—something that neither Hillary nor Obama seem to get. If the tax burden is lightened on the rich, then more money is available for expansion and growth of business. This means more jobs and better compensation packages that did not exist before. In other words, you and me—the American worker—ultimately benefits.
Moreover, John McCain will do nothing to harm national defense. We can count on McCain to keep our military strong, vigilant and ready to respond. I’m afraid that if Hillary or Obama get their way, the military will be rolled back the way it was under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Then, if we suffer another devastating terrorist attack, it will take that much longer to respond because we would have to build up our defenses all over again. This is assuming that we aren’t totally destroyed first.
Both Hillary and Obama have pledged to end the War on Terror by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan entirely, giving the terrorists what they want most: Moral and political victories over their self-proclaimed mortal enemy. All this shall accomplish is increased violence against the United States on or off American soil; not less.
While I’m not happy that our military is engaged in yet another police action conflict, at least we have taken the fight to the terrorists and not let them bring it back to us again.
Finally, John McCain is an ally in conservative stands against abortion and its wholesale practice, while the other two candidates are clearly in favor of its proliferation. McCain’s record is consistently pro-life, and I believe he will continue to be if elected president.
McCain will also neither abide judicial activism aimed squarely at changing our Constitution nor appoint Supreme Court Justices who would legislate from the bench.
I can’t say that I’ve got as much confidence in either Hillary or Obama to appoint fair and impartial justices who are strict constructionists. Chances are greater that we’d get another Ruth Bader Ginsburg or two.
The bottom line here is that for all of McCain’s faults, he is clearly the more conservative of the three most likely presidential candidates. And while he is not really a conservative, he is at least willing to listen and compromise, where Hillary and Obama will not. The latter would just as soon shut up their conservative opposition than attempt to live in harmony with them.
At least I could sleep at night with John McCain in the White House. I may not like it, but at least I could sleep. With the other two, though, I may become an insomniac from worrying about whether each morning I’ll be living in America or Amerika. I may even develop a few ulcers to along with my sleep deprivation.
But at least I would have universal health care.
Not in the least.
While McCain seems to have a lot more in common with liberal democrats than conservative republicans—which form the base of his own party—he has very little in common with socialists and communists, against whom he fought and was imprisoned by in Vietnam.
Hillary and Obama are far left of the political center where McCain is. They would just as soon rewrite the U.S. Constitution to suit their own agendas for social change. The democratic front-runners for president are more closely aligned with communist leaders of the past century than with even a liberal democratic patriot like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-CT.
If McCain gets elected the 44th President of the United States, at the very worst, things won’t change, but shall stay the same in Washington, D.C., as they have for decades. Although I’m personally fed up with the Beltway status quo, no change may be better if the alternative is change entirely in the wrong direction. I’d rather have a President McCain keeping things the way they are than a President Obama or Clinton gutting our political, economic and military infrastructures in the name of social justice.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m no McCain fan. But at least he listened when the people spoke up about the amnesty bill that he and Teddy Kennedy were co-sponsoring. He seems to get that the core of his party is opposed to illegal immigration, even if he personally has no problem with it. As president, McCain probably won’t do anything to really fix illegal immigration. But I don’t think he’ll do or let anything happen that would make things worse than they already are. You might say that McCain is willing to at least meet his core constituents in a Mexican Standoff on this issue the same way George W. Bush has.
But if the next president is going to be Hillary or Obama, then we might as well have no borders at all. In fact, we may even kiss what borders we do have good-bye.
Furthermore, McCain will not intentionally harm our economy. He hasn’t done much to keep companies and their jobs from going overseas, but he has supported across-the-board tax relief for all Americans—not just those who would vote for him. He understands that tax cuts to everyone from the blue-collar worker to the corporate CEO not only encourage economic growth, but are also just plain fair. After all, who pays the lion’s share of taxes in America today? Who shoulders the greatest percentage of burden to pay for our government’s largesse?
The rich. The same rich that own the companies employing America. Hillary and Obama threaten to tax even more out of American employers to pay for all of their grandiose social and economic reform schemes. What this means is higher costs to companies, translating into higher costs for the consumers of the products and services that these companies provide. In other words, the cost of higher taxes on the rich eventually gets passed down to you and me.
McCain understands that the reverse is also true—something that neither Hillary nor Obama seem to get. If the tax burden is lightened on the rich, then more money is available for expansion and growth of business. This means more jobs and better compensation packages that did not exist before. In other words, you and me—the American worker—ultimately benefits.
Moreover, John McCain will do nothing to harm national defense. We can count on McCain to keep our military strong, vigilant and ready to respond. I’m afraid that if Hillary or Obama get their way, the military will be rolled back the way it was under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Then, if we suffer another devastating terrorist attack, it will take that much longer to respond because we would have to build up our defenses all over again. This is assuming that we aren’t totally destroyed first.
Both Hillary and Obama have pledged to end the War on Terror by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan entirely, giving the terrorists what they want most: Moral and political victories over their self-proclaimed mortal enemy. All this shall accomplish is increased violence against the United States on or off American soil; not less.
While I’m not happy that our military is engaged in yet another police action conflict, at least we have taken the fight to the terrorists and not let them bring it back to us again.
Finally, John McCain is an ally in conservative stands against abortion and its wholesale practice, while the other two candidates are clearly in favor of its proliferation. McCain’s record is consistently pro-life, and I believe he will continue to be if elected president.
McCain will also neither abide judicial activism aimed squarely at changing our Constitution nor appoint Supreme Court Justices who would legislate from the bench.
I can’t say that I’ve got as much confidence in either Hillary or Obama to appoint fair and impartial justices who are strict constructionists. Chances are greater that we’d get another Ruth Bader Ginsburg or two.
The bottom line here is that for all of McCain’s faults, he is clearly the more conservative of the three most likely presidential candidates. And while he is not really a conservative, he is at least willing to listen and compromise, where Hillary and Obama will not. The latter would just as soon shut up their conservative opposition than attempt to live in harmony with them.
At least I could sleep at night with John McCain in the White House. I may not like it, but at least I could sleep. With the other two, though, I may become an insomniac from worrying about whether each morning I’ll be living in America or Amerika. I may even develop a few ulcers to along with my sleep deprivation.
But at least I would have universal health care.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Drugs have destroyed the integrity of the game
Up until a few years ago, steroids were not banned by Major League Baseball. Consequently, a lot of professional baseball players were using these substances to get an edge on their competition.
And who could blame them? What with the increased demands of fans and owners to produce and win, who wouldn’t take any advantage he could get in order to keep his job?
Here’s a clue: Work harder, not just smarter.
There’s a place for cutting corners, but not where integrity or quality count. Any professional athlete, in any sport, who uses performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), whether banned or not, is cheating. Bottom line.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines cheating as influencing or leading by deceit, trickery or artifice. Those who take PEDs do so in an attempt to influence their performance on the field via artificial means.
What’s more, not one of these athletes ever openly and proudly admitted to using PEDs before such were banned. If using PEDs was no big deal prior to the ban, then why didn’t athletes come out and defend their use? The reason is because they all knew that doing so was unethical, even if it wasn’t against company rules.
There is an unwritten code of conduct all athletes learn to abide by once they enter competition as youngsters. Chief among an athlete’s professional ethics is to work hard, work honestly and win cleanly. Those who use PEDs violate all three of these unwritten, but oft-spoken and regularly practiced tenets. By taking drugs, athletes are being honest neither with themselves nor others; they begin to think that they don’t have to work as hard to succeed; and they are anything but clean.
Furthermore, staying clean from drugs is a matter of personal ethics not to undermine the honest efforts of other athletes who have either come before and established the standards of integrity upon which sport and competition were built, or who currently uphold those standards. When an athlete chooses to take PEDs for his own personal gain, he spits in the face of all honest athletes who have chosen to achieve success the old fashioned way: by earning it.
Those who use PEDs are essentially trying to purchase success.
I can only wonder, now, whether or not Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, among others, really earned the accolades that have put them at the front of the line to enter the baseball hall of fame—most members of which were enshrined not by cheating, but by having earned their spots honestly through hard work. All of the aforementioned baseball stars and so-called legends have either admitted to using, are being investigated for using, or have been under suspicion of using PEDs.
Both McGuire and Sosa smashed Roger Maris’ single-season home-run record during that memorable and admittedly exciting 1998 season. Prior to that year, Sosa wasn’t even on the radar screen and McGuire had yet to crack 60 dingers in a season. Looking at Big Mac’s home run marks before 1998, you can see a gradual gain in round-trippers that culminated with the single-season record of 70—an obscene nine home runs beyond what Maris had achieved three decades earlier. In the game of baseball, there are a lot of hills and valleys. To have the kind of growing numbers that Big Mac did in the seasons leading up to 1998 should have raised a few eyebrows.
A look at Sosa reveals numbers that swelled following the 1998 season. The guy just kept belting out 50+ home-run seasons after his big debut alongside Big Mac. In fact, he was still in the 60-homer range a whole three seasons after 1998. Again, where were the eyebrows?
But perhaps the most telling tale of PEDs comes from newly anointed home-run king, Barry Bonds, who in 2007 snatched the crown from legendary slugger Henry “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron, who had held the title for 33 years.
I am aware of the old sports axiom that records are meant to be broken. But they aren’t meant to be stolen. That’s, in effect, what Barry Bonds did when he smacked his 716th home run last year.
Bonds, it turns out, committed perjury before a grand jury, lying about his use of steroids. So now, he’s a cheat and a liar. What a wonderful role model to have sitting atop the baseball world, holding its most prestigious record like some sort of royal scepter.
The road Bonds has followed from ordinary player to superstar is one marred by steroids use. You can see the physical transformation that took place on his journey from slender outfielder to heavy-set slugger. Just look at his baseball cards from a decade ago to 2003, when Bonds broke the single-season home run record once held by Big Mac, another PED user. The weight gain was so pronounced and obvious that either he was becoming a voracious eater, or his hormone levels were severely elevated. With his age at the time, it was highly unlikely that he gained that bulk from lifting weights. Past his prime and having become something of a has-been, Bonds would have had to pump three times as much iron as his younger counterparts to add the amount of bulk that he did in such a short amount of time.
His guilt is evident.
So is that of Big Mac, Sosa, and all the other professional athletes linked to PEDs, regardless of whether or not they have openly admitted to using steroids. Their success in such relatively short amounts of time is the big clue. Factor in sudden increases in muscle bulk and weight gain, along with almost immediate results on the field, and you’ve got a formula for steroid use. It isn’t difficult to put two-and-two together and come up with four. Bigger muscles plus bigger numbers minus short duration equals PEDs.
What upsets me most about the whole steroid issue is not so much the use as the acceptance of drugs as part of the sports culture these days.
I can put up with the fact that drugs exist in sports the way they exist in society. They are there, some people use them, and not all users get caught. What I refuse to tolerate is the notion that drugs are just part of the games we play. We should just embrace them as alternative means for improving performance to old-fashioned methods, such as weight-lifting.
Well, excuse me for having practiced the old-fashioned methods of working hard, being honest, believing in myself, playing by the rules and doing what’s right. I may not have made it to the big leagues, but at least I can retire with a clear conscience.
That’s more than today’s high-priced, professional steroid users can say for themselves.
And who could blame them? What with the increased demands of fans and owners to produce and win, who wouldn’t take any advantage he could get in order to keep his job?
Here’s a clue: Work harder, not just smarter.
There’s a place for cutting corners, but not where integrity or quality count. Any professional athlete, in any sport, who uses performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), whether banned or not, is cheating. Bottom line.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines cheating as influencing or leading by deceit, trickery or artifice. Those who take PEDs do so in an attempt to influence their performance on the field via artificial means.
What’s more, not one of these athletes ever openly and proudly admitted to using PEDs before such were banned. If using PEDs was no big deal prior to the ban, then why didn’t athletes come out and defend their use? The reason is because they all knew that doing so was unethical, even if it wasn’t against company rules.
There is an unwritten code of conduct all athletes learn to abide by once they enter competition as youngsters. Chief among an athlete’s professional ethics is to work hard, work honestly and win cleanly. Those who use PEDs violate all three of these unwritten, but oft-spoken and regularly practiced tenets. By taking drugs, athletes are being honest neither with themselves nor others; they begin to think that they don’t have to work as hard to succeed; and they are anything but clean.
Furthermore, staying clean from drugs is a matter of personal ethics not to undermine the honest efforts of other athletes who have either come before and established the standards of integrity upon which sport and competition were built, or who currently uphold those standards. When an athlete chooses to take PEDs for his own personal gain, he spits in the face of all honest athletes who have chosen to achieve success the old fashioned way: by earning it.
Those who use PEDs are essentially trying to purchase success.
I can only wonder, now, whether or not Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, among others, really earned the accolades that have put them at the front of the line to enter the baseball hall of fame—most members of which were enshrined not by cheating, but by having earned their spots honestly through hard work. All of the aforementioned baseball stars and so-called legends have either admitted to using, are being investigated for using, or have been under suspicion of using PEDs.
Both McGuire and Sosa smashed Roger Maris’ single-season home-run record during that memorable and admittedly exciting 1998 season. Prior to that year, Sosa wasn’t even on the radar screen and McGuire had yet to crack 60 dingers in a season. Looking at Big Mac’s home run marks before 1998, you can see a gradual gain in round-trippers that culminated with the single-season record of 70—an obscene nine home runs beyond what Maris had achieved three decades earlier. In the game of baseball, there are a lot of hills and valleys. To have the kind of growing numbers that Big Mac did in the seasons leading up to 1998 should have raised a few eyebrows.
A look at Sosa reveals numbers that swelled following the 1998 season. The guy just kept belting out 50+ home-run seasons after his big debut alongside Big Mac. In fact, he was still in the 60-homer range a whole three seasons after 1998. Again, where were the eyebrows?
But perhaps the most telling tale of PEDs comes from newly anointed home-run king, Barry Bonds, who in 2007 snatched the crown from legendary slugger Henry “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron, who had held the title for 33 years.
I am aware of the old sports axiom that records are meant to be broken. But they aren’t meant to be stolen. That’s, in effect, what Barry Bonds did when he smacked his 716th home run last year.
Bonds, it turns out, committed perjury before a grand jury, lying about his use of steroids. So now, he’s a cheat and a liar. What a wonderful role model to have sitting atop the baseball world, holding its most prestigious record like some sort of royal scepter.
The road Bonds has followed from ordinary player to superstar is one marred by steroids use. You can see the physical transformation that took place on his journey from slender outfielder to heavy-set slugger. Just look at his baseball cards from a decade ago to 2003, when Bonds broke the single-season home run record once held by Big Mac, another PED user. The weight gain was so pronounced and obvious that either he was becoming a voracious eater, or his hormone levels were severely elevated. With his age at the time, it was highly unlikely that he gained that bulk from lifting weights. Past his prime and having become something of a has-been, Bonds would have had to pump three times as much iron as his younger counterparts to add the amount of bulk that he did in such a short amount of time.
His guilt is evident.
So is that of Big Mac, Sosa, and all the other professional athletes linked to PEDs, regardless of whether or not they have openly admitted to using steroids. Their success in such relatively short amounts of time is the big clue. Factor in sudden increases in muscle bulk and weight gain, along with almost immediate results on the field, and you’ve got a formula for steroid use. It isn’t difficult to put two-and-two together and come up with four. Bigger muscles plus bigger numbers minus short duration equals PEDs.
What upsets me most about the whole steroid issue is not so much the use as the acceptance of drugs as part of the sports culture these days.
I can put up with the fact that drugs exist in sports the way they exist in society. They are there, some people use them, and not all users get caught. What I refuse to tolerate is the notion that drugs are just part of the games we play. We should just embrace them as alternative means for improving performance to old-fashioned methods, such as weight-lifting.
Well, excuse me for having practiced the old-fashioned methods of working hard, being honest, believing in myself, playing by the rules and doing what’s right. I may not have made it to the big leagues, but at least I can retire with a clear conscience.
That’s more than today’s high-priced, professional steroid users can say for themselves.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Making a case for the death penalty...
...in two words or less.
To those opposed to capital punishment, I have two words for you: Brianna Denison.
Enough said.
How many more innocent people will have to die before society realizes that capital punishment is about justice and not human bloodlust? There has long been opposition to the death penalty by groups arguing that capital punishment is nothing more than a manifestation of man's propensity for violence and bloodshed. They say it reflects the cruelty that exists in the human heart, and it recklessly puts innocent people at risk of dying for crimes they didn’t commit.
But in Reno, Nevada, tonight many are feeling that there should be no debate at all. Yesterday, the body of Brianna Denison was found in a field next to a commercial business complex in Southwest Reno. The 19 year-old college student had been missing since Jan. 20, 2008 when she was abducted while sleeping over at a friend’s house near the University of Nevada, Reno, campus. The perpetrator had entered the home through an unlocked door and snatched Denison in the dead of night as everyone else slept.
A long, arduous and intense search for the missing girl followed over the next three weeks. It all ended yesterday with the recovery of Denison’s body.
The coroner reported that Denison died by strangulation. She had also been raped.
Two of the most heinous crimes one human being could possibly violate another with had been committed against this young woman, whose life was taken violently from her. She did not deserve to die. And she certainly did not deserve to be raped and strangled to death. Nobody does.
Nobody has the right to take someone else’s life or violate them against their will. And no person has the right to decide when, where and how another’s life shall be taken, with only two exceptions: war and justice.
In war, we either kill or get killed.
With justice, we kill as punishment for the taking of life; to right a grevious wrong committed by one person against another. A perpetrator has already violated somebody else’s basic human right to life by forcing it from them. Justice is supposed to ensure that a perpetrator can never again commit the same or other crime against another person. That is why the death penalty exists and is still practiced.
It isn’t about men in white-collared shirts getting their jollies every time a death sentence is carried out. No, what capital punishment is about is justice.
The person who raped and murdered Brianna Denison does not deserve to keep his life, because he chose to take the life of another person. As far as justice is concerned, the perpetrator forfeited his most basic of all human rights when he denied that very right to someone else. Justice is, in essence, an equitable trade: A hand for a hand, an eye for an eye, and a life for a life.
When bartering, one gives to get and gets back what one gives. One exchanges something in trade that’s of equal value to the item one wishes to have. This is justice.
It’s not what Brianna Denison got when she was raped and murdered, because her killer is at-large and presumed to still have his life.
Justice demands that Denison’s killer relinquish his life in exchange for the life he took.
Opponents of capital punishment don’t see things this way. Instead, they view the death penalty as an act of retribution or retaliation rather than justice. They consider capital punishment to be state-sanctioned killing. And they’re right.
But it is also justice nonetheless.
In its purest form, justice is not compassion; it’s consequence. Justice is not hesitant; it’s swift. Justice is not relative; it’s certain. And justice is not forgiving; it’s final.
Our expectation of justice ought to be as sure as death and taxes, but it’s not.
Thanks to the efforts of death penalty opponents, we have violent criminals out on parole rather than serving the rest of their time behind bars. Prisons have become overcrowded with them. As a result, society is placed in harm’s way, because these offenders are now free again to re-offend. In fact, recidivism is highest among serial offenders, like the pile of dung that raped and murdered Brianna Denison.
Opponents argue that capital punishment does little to actually reduce crime. But all those who have been convicted and duly executed are still dead and remain unable to recidivate.
None of this convinces those opposed to capital punishment, though. They seem hell-bent on defending the condemned man’s so-called right to life, in spite of the fact that the latter denied this right to somebody else. Truth be told, the same convict would probably not recognize the rights of those defending his. If a death penalty opponent met a convict in a dark alley, can you guess which one would come out alive?
If all this weren’t enough, now capital punishment is being put under the knife for euthanizing the condemned. In 2007, a lawsuit was filed by death row inmates seeking to make lethal injection unconstitutional because it inflicted “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. The case is waiting to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The argument is essentially that the chemicals injected into the bloodstream may cause pain and suffering on their way to hasten death.
Frankly, lethal injection makes the death penalty much more complicated and costly than it really should be. Instead of spending millions of dollars to come up with the most humane combination of drugs and chemicals, let’s just do what was done back in the day: Find some rope, a tall tree and save the taxpayers a lot of money.
Strange, isn’t it, how we euthanize beloved animals all the time in the name of mercy, because it is more humane to put them to sleep than to let them suffer. But we can’t put inmates to sleep because doing so might cause them to suffer before they die?
I don’t get it.
We don’t seem too concerned about whether or not good, old Rover is suffering and feeling pain as the veterinarian sticks a lethal dose of chemicals into his veins. Why are we worried about some scumbag having the same thing done to him? Rover didn’t take somebody else’s life like the pile of dung sitting on death row did. Yet, we put Rover to sleep and fight to keep the dung pile alive.
I don’t understand.
If Brianna Denison could testify against her perpetrator, I don’t think she’d understand, either. But we will never hear what Brianna has to say about what happened to her. That is why we have justice: To punish the unjust and be a voice to the victims, who have been silenced and are unable to defend themselves.
Brianna Denison is one more reason why justice must be carried out and preserved; that the voices of those so unjustly served will not go unheard.
To those opposed to capital punishment, I have two words for you: Brianna Denison.
Enough said.
How many more innocent people will have to die before society realizes that capital punishment is about justice and not human bloodlust? There has long been opposition to the death penalty by groups arguing that capital punishment is nothing more than a manifestation of man's propensity for violence and bloodshed. They say it reflects the cruelty that exists in the human heart, and it recklessly puts innocent people at risk of dying for crimes they didn’t commit.
But in Reno, Nevada, tonight many are feeling that there should be no debate at all. Yesterday, the body of Brianna Denison was found in a field next to a commercial business complex in Southwest Reno. The 19 year-old college student had been missing since Jan. 20, 2008 when she was abducted while sleeping over at a friend’s house near the University of Nevada, Reno, campus. The perpetrator had entered the home through an unlocked door and snatched Denison in the dead of night as everyone else slept.
A long, arduous and intense search for the missing girl followed over the next three weeks. It all ended yesterday with the recovery of Denison’s body.
The coroner reported that Denison died by strangulation. She had also been raped.
Two of the most heinous crimes one human being could possibly violate another with had been committed against this young woman, whose life was taken violently from her. She did not deserve to die. And she certainly did not deserve to be raped and strangled to death. Nobody does.
Nobody has the right to take someone else’s life or violate them against their will. And no person has the right to decide when, where and how another’s life shall be taken, with only two exceptions: war and justice.
In war, we either kill or get killed.
With justice, we kill as punishment for the taking of life; to right a grevious wrong committed by one person against another. A perpetrator has already violated somebody else’s basic human right to life by forcing it from them. Justice is supposed to ensure that a perpetrator can never again commit the same or other crime against another person. That is why the death penalty exists and is still practiced.
It isn’t about men in white-collared shirts getting their jollies every time a death sentence is carried out. No, what capital punishment is about is justice.
The person who raped and murdered Brianna Denison does not deserve to keep his life, because he chose to take the life of another person. As far as justice is concerned, the perpetrator forfeited his most basic of all human rights when he denied that very right to someone else. Justice is, in essence, an equitable trade: A hand for a hand, an eye for an eye, and a life for a life.
When bartering, one gives to get and gets back what one gives. One exchanges something in trade that’s of equal value to the item one wishes to have. This is justice.
It’s not what Brianna Denison got when she was raped and murdered, because her killer is at-large and presumed to still have his life.
Justice demands that Denison’s killer relinquish his life in exchange for the life he took.
Opponents of capital punishment don’t see things this way. Instead, they view the death penalty as an act of retribution or retaliation rather than justice. They consider capital punishment to be state-sanctioned killing. And they’re right.
But it is also justice nonetheless.
In its purest form, justice is not compassion; it’s consequence. Justice is not hesitant; it’s swift. Justice is not relative; it’s certain. And justice is not forgiving; it’s final.
Our expectation of justice ought to be as sure as death and taxes, but it’s not.
Thanks to the efforts of death penalty opponents, we have violent criminals out on parole rather than serving the rest of their time behind bars. Prisons have become overcrowded with them. As a result, society is placed in harm’s way, because these offenders are now free again to re-offend. In fact, recidivism is highest among serial offenders, like the pile of dung that raped and murdered Brianna Denison.
Opponents argue that capital punishment does little to actually reduce crime. But all those who have been convicted and duly executed are still dead and remain unable to recidivate.
None of this convinces those opposed to capital punishment, though. They seem hell-bent on defending the condemned man’s so-called right to life, in spite of the fact that the latter denied this right to somebody else. Truth be told, the same convict would probably not recognize the rights of those defending his. If a death penalty opponent met a convict in a dark alley, can you guess which one would come out alive?
If all this weren’t enough, now capital punishment is being put under the knife for euthanizing the condemned. In 2007, a lawsuit was filed by death row inmates seeking to make lethal injection unconstitutional because it inflicted “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. The case is waiting to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The argument is essentially that the chemicals injected into the bloodstream may cause pain and suffering on their way to hasten death.
Frankly, lethal injection makes the death penalty much more complicated and costly than it really should be. Instead of spending millions of dollars to come up with the most humane combination of drugs and chemicals, let’s just do what was done back in the day: Find some rope, a tall tree and save the taxpayers a lot of money.
Strange, isn’t it, how we euthanize beloved animals all the time in the name of mercy, because it is more humane to put them to sleep than to let them suffer. But we can’t put inmates to sleep because doing so might cause them to suffer before they die?
I don’t get it.
We don’t seem too concerned about whether or not good, old Rover is suffering and feeling pain as the veterinarian sticks a lethal dose of chemicals into his veins. Why are we worried about some scumbag having the same thing done to him? Rover didn’t take somebody else’s life like the pile of dung sitting on death row did. Yet, we put Rover to sleep and fight to keep the dung pile alive.
I don’t understand.
If Brianna Denison could testify against her perpetrator, I don’t think she’d understand, either. But we will never hear what Brianna has to say about what happened to her. That is why we have justice: To punish the unjust and be a voice to the victims, who have been silenced and are unable to defend themselves.
Brianna Denison is one more reason why justice must be carried out and preserved; that the voices of those so unjustly served will not go unheard.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Thank heaven for teacher unions…
…because if it wasn’t for them, unethical teachers like Mark Hodges wouldn’t be instructing our children anymore.
Hodges, a Fernley (NV) High School teacher and head football coach, was caught in the middle of a recruiting scandal involving FHS senior Kevin Hart, who made up a story about being offered a Division I football scholarship from the University of California, Berkley.
This strange story took an even more bizarre turn the other day when the Fernley School Board recommended that Hodges not be retained as the high school's head football coach, because new information linked him to $26,000 in unauthorized funds spent on the football program, as well as e-mail communication between the FHS coaching staff and UCB coaches denying the existence of any scholarship offer a whole three days before Hart’s big public announcement.
Coach Hodges knew Hart did not have a scholarship offer. Yet, he went along with the hoax as though everything was okay. Furthermore, it turns out that Hodges was spending money he was not authorized to spend.
So, what we have here is a liar and a fraud. But evidently the school board has decided that Hodges’ actions are not serious enough to warrant the loss of his teaching job.
Why?
One reason, two words: Teacher union.
While Hodges may not be back on the Fernley sidelines next fall, he will continue to instruct kids in the classroom. I guess, then, it’s not okay to coach kids on the field after one is found to be a liar and a fraud, but it is all right to continue teaching them in the classroom? What the heck is the difference?!
Frankly, the guy ought to lose his job for misappropriation of funds AND helping to perpetuate a lie by one of his own players. I mean, what sort of example is this guy setting for other kids in school? What kind of a role model could Hodges possibly be to the children learning in his classroom? If a kid cheats on a test, then lies about it, how can Hodges justly discipline the kid when he himself was caught lying and cheating at the school?
But thanks to the state teacher union, Hodges’ job in the classroom is protected, even if his job on the field is not. So, there’s really no skin off his nose.
I guess unscrupulous behavior is no big deal to the union, which evidently considers defending an unethical teacher’s right to a job more important than ensuring that the profession’s ethics are upheld and enforced.
If I was caught acting unethically on my job, I’d be gone the very same day.
I guess what I need is a union on my side. That way, I can act as unethically as I please and not have to worry about losing my job, because the union is watching my backside.
Where would our country be without those paragons of workplace virtue and justice, the unions? Indeed, what would we workers ever do without them?
Well, for starters, we’d have to hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard of ethical behavior to save our jobs, because unions wouldn’t be there to bail us out.
Fortunately, teachers like Hodges won’t ever have to face life without a union. Their futures are certain and secure.
So, take heart, Mr. Hodges: Even though your butt should have been thrown out onto the street for what you did, you still have a job and a union that loves your dues.
Hodges, a Fernley (NV) High School teacher and head football coach, was caught in the middle of a recruiting scandal involving FHS senior Kevin Hart, who made up a story about being offered a Division I football scholarship from the University of California, Berkley.
This strange story took an even more bizarre turn the other day when the Fernley School Board recommended that Hodges not be retained as the high school's head football coach, because new information linked him to $26,000 in unauthorized funds spent on the football program, as well as e-mail communication between the FHS coaching staff and UCB coaches denying the existence of any scholarship offer a whole three days before Hart’s big public announcement.
Coach Hodges knew Hart did not have a scholarship offer. Yet, he went along with the hoax as though everything was okay. Furthermore, it turns out that Hodges was spending money he was not authorized to spend.
So, what we have here is a liar and a fraud. But evidently the school board has decided that Hodges’ actions are not serious enough to warrant the loss of his teaching job.
Why?
One reason, two words: Teacher union.
While Hodges may not be back on the Fernley sidelines next fall, he will continue to instruct kids in the classroom. I guess, then, it’s not okay to coach kids on the field after one is found to be a liar and a fraud, but it is all right to continue teaching them in the classroom? What the heck is the difference?!
Frankly, the guy ought to lose his job for misappropriation of funds AND helping to perpetuate a lie by one of his own players. I mean, what sort of example is this guy setting for other kids in school? What kind of a role model could Hodges possibly be to the children learning in his classroom? If a kid cheats on a test, then lies about it, how can Hodges justly discipline the kid when he himself was caught lying and cheating at the school?
But thanks to the state teacher union, Hodges’ job in the classroom is protected, even if his job on the field is not. So, there’s really no skin off his nose.
I guess unscrupulous behavior is no big deal to the union, which evidently considers defending an unethical teacher’s right to a job more important than ensuring that the profession’s ethics are upheld and enforced.
If I was caught acting unethically on my job, I’d be gone the very same day.
I guess what I need is a union on my side. That way, I can act as unethically as I please and not have to worry about losing my job, because the union is watching my backside.
Where would our country be without those paragons of workplace virtue and justice, the unions? Indeed, what would we workers ever do without them?
Well, for starters, we’d have to hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard of ethical behavior to save our jobs, because unions wouldn’t be there to bail us out.
Fortunately, teachers like Hodges won’t ever have to face life without a union. Their futures are certain and secure.
So, take heart, Mr. Hodges: Even though your butt should have been thrown out onto the street for what you did, you still have a job and a union that loves your dues.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Bigotry alive and well in America
When Mitt Romney announced today that he was suspending his presidential campaign, I could only shake my head in shame and disgust, because I know the real reason why.
The former Massachusetts governor has too much dignity and grace to publicly admit the truth behind his decision to no longer seek the republican nomination for president. It’s not because our nation is at war, as he suggested in his announcement earlier today.
No.
The real reason—the one Mitt Romney doesn’t want to admit in public, and the one nobody else wants to admit to themselves—is because Mitt Romney is a Mormon and most of the country is not.
Bottom line.
I am not a Mormon. But I am ashamed of other conservatives in my party who did not and would not cast a vote for Mitt Romney simply because of his religion.
While I can say with a clear conscience that my decision to support another candidate had nothing to do with Mitt’s faith, I admit that I wrote him off at the very beginning of the race, because he is a practicing Mormon. I just assumed that he would never get the party nomination, much less be elected president, because of his religion. I figured that there were just too many negative stereotypes about Mormons out there to keep Romney from succeeding.
The scary thing is that I was right on all counts.
Mitt Romney did not finish the race because he knew that, as a Mormon, he would ultimately fail to win the support of conservatives. He knew that even if he was to somehow win the party nomination, there would be even more animosity toward his religion coming from the political left, and he would end up spending the vast majority of his time defending his faith from a corner in the ring.
Mitt Romney understood and finally came to grips with the reality that Americans, both liberals and conservatives, are not ready for a Mormon president.
For a nation that has made so many strides toward racial and gender equality in recent decades, we still have a long way to go before achieving religious equality.
This is not to be confused with religious freedom, which every American enjoys courtesy of the Bill of Rights. Equality is not granted by the Constitution, but rather through the charity of men’s hearts.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., understood this when he fought for civil rights in the 1960s. He realized that although his people had the right to vote and the freedom to pursue opportunity, these liberties were not the same as equality. The latter is dependent upon how one is treated; not how one is regarded by the law. As a result, he fought hard to see to it that his people would eventually bear the dignity and respect of equality.
Unfortunately, the United States has not extended the same courtesy to religion as it has race, ethnicity and even gender.
It is not up to the government to bring about equitable change for religious minorities. That responsibility is ours alone to bear. Only when we can reconcile the hatred that exists within ourselves for those who are different from us can we hope to give a man like Mitt Romney a fighting chance.
The former Massachusetts governor has too much dignity and grace to publicly admit the truth behind his decision to no longer seek the republican nomination for president. It’s not because our nation is at war, as he suggested in his announcement earlier today.
No.
The real reason—the one Mitt Romney doesn’t want to admit in public, and the one nobody else wants to admit to themselves—is because Mitt Romney is a Mormon and most of the country is not.
Bottom line.
I am not a Mormon. But I am ashamed of other conservatives in my party who did not and would not cast a vote for Mitt Romney simply because of his religion.
While I can say with a clear conscience that my decision to support another candidate had nothing to do with Mitt’s faith, I admit that I wrote him off at the very beginning of the race, because he is a practicing Mormon. I just assumed that he would never get the party nomination, much less be elected president, because of his religion. I figured that there were just too many negative stereotypes about Mormons out there to keep Romney from succeeding.
The scary thing is that I was right on all counts.
Mitt Romney did not finish the race because he knew that, as a Mormon, he would ultimately fail to win the support of conservatives. He knew that even if he was to somehow win the party nomination, there would be even more animosity toward his religion coming from the political left, and he would end up spending the vast majority of his time defending his faith from a corner in the ring.
Mitt Romney understood and finally came to grips with the reality that Americans, both liberals and conservatives, are not ready for a Mormon president.
For a nation that has made so many strides toward racial and gender equality in recent decades, we still have a long way to go before achieving religious equality.
This is not to be confused with religious freedom, which every American enjoys courtesy of the Bill of Rights. Equality is not granted by the Constitution, but rather through the charity of men’s hearts.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., understood this when he fought for civil rights in the 1960s. He realized that although his people had the right to vote and the freedom to pursue opportunity, these liberties were not the same as equality. The latter is dependent upon how one is treated; not how one is regarded by the law. As a result, he fought hard to see to it that his people would eventually bear the dignity and respect of equality.
Unfortunately, the United States has not extended the same courtesy to religion as it has race, ethnicity and even gender.
It is not up to the government to bring about equitable change for religious minorities. That responsibility is ours alone to bear. Only when we can reconcile the hatred that exists within ourselves for those who are different from us can we hope to give a man like Mitt Romney a fighting chance.
Is a Rhino really better than a Jack Ass?
What do you get when you cross an elephant with a donkey?
Answer: John McCain.
Well, actually, it’s a rhino, but let’s not split hairs here.
Now that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has suspended his 2008 presidential campaign, the door is wide open for Arizona Sen. John McCain to secure the republican nomination for president of the United States in the November general election.
Romney was McCain’s chief competition. Even though former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee showed strong on Super Tuesday, he was still ranked third in the delegate count at the end of the day, and is way behind McCain in this respect.
Don’t get me wrong: I support The Huckster above and beyond McCain. But the fact of the matter is that McCain widened his lead after Super Tuesday and is several lengths ahead of Huck. For the latter to close the gap on the former and ultimately get the nomination would be a formidable task. While anything is possible, it’s just not likely.
Although Huckabee has done exceptionally well among southern states, he’s trailed both McCain and Romney out west and in the north. There aren’t that many more southern delegates left unclaimed, except for Texas, which is probably Huckabee’s last open-door opportunity to make this a real horse race.
All variables aside, though, John McCain will, in all likelihood, be the republican nominee for president in November. Assuming this holds true, I’d like to know what the difference will be between McCain and his democrat opponent—either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama—besides party affiliation? What is it that distinguishes McCain from liberal democrats, other than the fact that he wears the suit of an elephant instead of a donkey?
In matters of policy and ideology, McCain is a lot closer to liberal democrats than he is conservative republicans, who happen to be the base and core of his own party.
He has allowed our southern border to remain open and unprotected, rather than tightly enforced. In 2007, he joined liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, in drafting a bill that would have granted amnesty—what amounted to a free pass—to at least 12 million illegal immigrants who entered our country unlawfully.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, McCain teamed with Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, another liberal, to draft and ultimately pass campaign finance law that, ironically, ended up hand-cuffing mostly contributions to his own party and its ability to raise money. Oddly enough, while this same bill put a stop to a lot of republican soft-money contributions, those of democrats were largely unaffected because many contributions to the latter come from IRS-designated and so-called non-profit organizations.
To top it all off, McCain even approached liberal democrat Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, about becoming his vice-presidential running mate in the 2004 general election. Yup, you heard right: John McCain, this year’s republican presidential front-runner, actually considered defecting to the democrat party ticket four years ago.
And we are supposed to believe McCain’s hogwash about reaching out to conservatives in an effort to unite the Republican Party? Bologne.
The only reaching McCain has ever done throughout his quarter-century in the U.S. Senate is across the party aisle to his liberal friends in donkey suits.
He will do as much for his conservative base as George W. Bush has in his eight years as president. Yeah, I know, Bush proposed a ban on partial-birth abortions. Sure, he has been strong on defense and in the War On Terror. And yes, he has been fair on taxes.
But he has also allowed Congress to spend like drunken sailors—the way it always does. He has allowed our borders to go unchecked, undefended and ultimately unprotected from terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, millions of people have crossed our borders illegally. And not all of them are the honest, hard-working sort, either.
Furthermore, Bush has recently supported providing government relief to millions of people who had to default on their mortgages and foreclose on their homes. In other words, he supports paying people for their buying mistakes.
Bush even identified himself in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative,” which is code for being decidedly more liberal than conservative.
Conservatives have been largely abandoned by Bush and many other Republican Party leaders, among them Sens. Lindsay Graham, Trent Lott and McCain, to name just a few.
If John McCain actually governs as a conservative, should he be elected president, then I will eat my words here. But I don’t count on that for a second. He’s about as true blue as a red-state republican can be without being a blue-state democrat. In fact, if he were to lose his trunk and instead grow donkey ears out the side of his head, I doubt anybody would be able to tell the difference. I mean, McCain might as well just end this whole charade as a rhinoceros and dress in his true colors.
I’m sure John Kerry would agree: the Jack Ass look is quite becoming.
Answer: John McCain.
Well, actually, it’s a rhino, but let’s not split hairs here.
Now that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has suspended his 2008 presidential campaign, the door is wide open for Arizona Sen. John McCain to secure the republican nomination for president of the United States in the November general election.
Romney was McCain’s chief competition. Even though former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee showed strong on Super Tuesday, he was still ranked third in the delegate count at the end of the day, and is way behind McCain in this respect.
Don’t get me wrong: I support The Huckster above and beyond McCain. But the fact of the matter is that McCain widened his lead after Super Tuesday and is several lengths ahead of Huck. For the latter to close the gap on the former and ultimately get the nomination would be a formidable task. While anything is possible, it’s just not likely.
Although Huckabee has done exceptionally well among southern states, he’s trailed both McCain and Romney out west and in the north. There aren’t that many more southern delegates left unclaimed, except for Texas, which is probably Huckabee’s last open-door opportunity to make this a real horse race.
All variables aside, though, John McCain will, in all likelihood, be the republican nominee for president in November. Assuming this holds true, I’d like to know what the difference will be between McCain and his democrat opponent—either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama—besides party affiliation? What is it that distinguishes McCain from liberal democrats, other than the fact that he wears the suit of an elephant instead of a donkey?
In matters of policy and ideology, McCain is a lot closer to liberal democrats than he is conservative republicans, who happen to be the base and core of his own party.
He has allowed our southern border to remain open and unprotected, rather than tightly enforced. In 2007, he joined liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, in drafting a bill that would have granted amnesty—what amounted to a free pass—to at least 12 million illegal immigrants who entered our country unlawfully.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, McCain teamed with Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, another liberal, to draft and ultimately pass campaign finance law that, ironically, ended up hand-cuffing mostly contributions to his own party and its ability to raise money. Oddly enough, while this same bill put a stop to a lot of republican soft-money contributions, those of democrats were largely unaffected because many contributions to the latter come from IRS-designated and so-called non-profit organizations.
To top it all off, McCain even approached liberal democrat Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, about becoming his vice-presidential running mate in the 2004 general election. Yup, you heard right: John McCain, this year’s republican presidential front-runner, actually considered defecting to the democrat party ticket four years ago.
And we are supposed to believe McCain’s hogwash about reaching out to conservatives in an effort to unite the Republican Party? Bologne.
The only reaching McCain has ever done throughout his quarter-century in the U.S. Senate is across the party aisle to his liberal friends in donkey suits.
He will do as much for his conservative base as George W. Bush has in his eight years as president. Yeah, I know, Bush proposed a ban on partial-birth abortions. Sure, he has been strong on defense and in the War On Terror. And yes, he has been fair on taxes.
But he has also allowed Congress to spend like drunken sailors—the way it always does. He has allowed our borders to go unchecked, undefended and ultimately unprotected from terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, millions of people have crossed our borders illegally. And not all of them are the honest, hard-working sort, either.
Furthermore, Bush has recently supported providing government relief to millions of people who had to default on their mortgages and foreclose on their homes. In other words, he supports paying people for their buying mistakes.
Bush even identified himself in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative,” which is code for being decidedly more liberal than conservative.
Conservatives have been largely abandoned by Bush and many other Republican Party leaders, among them Sens. Lindsay Graham, Trent Lott and McCain, to name just a few.
If John McCain actually governs as a conservative, should he be elected president, then I will eat my words here. But I don’t count on that for a second. He’s about as true blue as a red-state republican can be without being a blue-state democrat. In fact, if he were to lose his trunk and instead grow donkey ears out the side of his head, I doubt anybody would be able to tell the difference. I mean, McCain might as well just end this whole charade as a rhinoceros and dress in his true colors.
I’m sure John Kerry would agree: the Jack Ass look is quite becoming.
Where is this mandate for change?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. In spite of a so-called mandate for change being perpetuated by the mainstream national news media, seasoned Beltway politicians Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton are in the driver’s seats of their respective parties seeking nominations for president.
McCain, a D.C. insider with more than 25 years experience in the U.S. Senate, holds a commanding delegate lead over Beltway outsiders and former state governors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
Clinton, meanwhile, leads in the delegates count toward the democratic nomination and has won many influential, political states on her march toward the White House. She has seven years in the U.S. Senate plus eight more pulling the strings of her husband’s White House administration during the 1990s.
By contrast, Barack Obama, her chief rival, is a relative Beltway newbie, having only completed half of a six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
If change is so important this election season, then why have voters been marking their ballots for the same old D.C. dinosaurs instead of newer, fresher faces on the scene? I just don’t see the mandate for change that supposedly exists out there. Yet, I continue to get an earful of it everyday.
The loudest voices for change have come from the Democrat Party. Both Clinton and Obama claim to represent change—the former because she is a woman, and the latter because of his brand of hope. Obama, in fact, has made change a central theme of his campaign and has been perhaps its most ardent zealot throughout the 2008 presidential race so far.
Clinton, while claiming her gender qualifies her as a change agent, smugly believes that simply being a woman means bringing better ideas to the Oval Office. A little sex-centric, are we, Hillary?
I believe gender to be neither a qualifier of intellectual capability nor a benchmark for ideas and policies. Hillary and her supporters are way off base here.
But I digress: Having said that, the only changes Hillary would bring to the White House are her feminine tastes in fashion and interior design. There will be skirts, blouses and brassieres hanging in the First Closet as opposed to suits and ties.
Otherwise, Hillary will not bring the kind of change to Washington that this so-called sweeping public mandate demands. She is a D.C. insider, like McCain, who has her hands in the trough of a national political machine.
Frankly, I don’t think even Obama’s concept of change is really change at all. He advocates the expansion of government via universal health care and other social programs. In fact, he has even stated his plan for financing universal health care through deficit spending. So, he plans to spend money that the government doesn’t have. How is this change from the way government already does things?
Even if the so-called change agents of this campaign were serious, they would not be able to affect real, meaningful change in Washington. Standing in their way are the likes of McCain and Clinton.
Others before them have tried, and instead learned that to get what they wanted done, they had to compromise with the establishment. Ronald Reagan learned this in the 1980s. In order to put his economic and military policies in motion, he had to compromise with Congress and lobbyists who wanted other things.
Don’t get me wrong here: While I think the idealism of change is a good thing, it is still a pipedream that dies quicker than a D.C. cherry blossom in a hail storm.
Both Clinton and McCain understand the myth of change and why it is so powerful with voters. Even they have jumped on the change bandwagon, because they know it is what voters want. But they are savvy enough to recognize that the only real change in Washington, D.C., is who sits where and for how long. It is like one big game of musical chairs: When the music stops, somebody is left without a chair. Hence, we have change.
Changes in party power, between the legislative and executive branches of government, is just about all any Beltway insider can stomach. Anything more will upset the apple cart, rock the boat, and throw a wrench into the Beltway Machine. In spite of voters, the last thing any Washington, D.C., insider wants is too much change.
Look what happened to the Republican Party after the 1994 elections, which awarded both the House and Senate to the GOP after 40 years of democrat control? Within a few years, the republicans went from beginning to honor the tenets of their “Contract With America” to shunning their conservative base during the last years of the Clinton Administration through increased spending and avoidance of key social issues.
No sooner had a conservative element seized control of Congress in 1994 then the assault on conservative leaders like New Gingrich was launched by the liberal Washington establishment. In a short time, Gingrich and other conservatives were demonized as cold-hearted, uncompassionate extremists who wanted to see people suffer. As a result, the “Contract With America” was never completely fulfilled and conservative republicans were bullied back into the shadows of political insignificance.
Later GOP Congresses would continue to pass spending bills and ignore social mandates of their conservative base; the last straw being in 2006 when illegal immigration was chief among the issues conservatives wanted the republican majority to address. But Congress sat on its thumbs while scandals perpetuated by the news media surrounded the GOP leadership. As a result, nothing of substance got done and conservatives did not vote for their republican incumbents. Consequently, the GOP lost control of Congress altogether.
Now that the democrats are back in power, we see again that little has changed. Other than party affiliation, what is the difference between the Congresses of 2006 and 2007? Where is this change the democrats promised a year ago? Indeed, what, if anything, has changed, besides who sits where and for how long?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
McCain, a D.C. insider with more than 25 years experience in the U.S. Senate, holds a commanding delegate lead over Beltway outsiders and former state governors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
Clinton, meanwhile, leads in the delegates count toward the democratic nomination and has won many influential, political states on her march toward the White House. She has seven years in the U.S. Senate plus eight more pulling the strings of her husband’s White House administration during the 1990s.
By contrast, Barack Obama, her chief rival, is a relative Beltway newbie, having only completed half of a six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
If change is so important this election season, then why have voters been marking their ballots for the same old D.C. dinosaurs instead of newer, fresher faces on the scene? I just don’t see the mandate for change that supposedly exists out there. Yet, I continue to get an earful of it everyday.
The loudest voices for change have come from the Democrat Party. Both Clinton and Obama claim to represent change—the former because she is a woman, and the latter because of his brand of hope. Obama, in fact, has made change a central theme of his campaign and has been perhaps its most ardent zealot throughout the 2008 presidential race so far.
Clinton, while claiming her gender qualifies her as a change agent, smugly believes that simply being a woman means bringing better ideas to the Oval Office. A little sex-centric, are we, Hillary?
I believe gender to be neither a qualifier of intellectual capability nor a benchmark for ideas and policies. Hillary and her supporters are way off base here.
But I digress: Having said that, the only changes Hillary would bring to the White House are her feminine tastes in fashion and interior design. There will be skirts, blouses and brassieres hanging in the First Closet as opposed to suits and ties.
Otherwise, Hillary will not bring the kind of change to Washington that this so-called sweeping public mandate demands. She is a D.C. insider, like McCain, who has her hands in the trough of a national political machine.
Frankly, I don’t think even Obama’s concept of change is really change at all. He advocates the expansion of government via universal health care and other social programs. In fact, he has even stated his plan for financing universal health care through deficit spending. So, he plans to spend money that the government doesn’t have. How is this change from the way government already does things?
Even if the so-called change agents of this campaign were serious, they would not be able to affect real, meaningful change in Washington. Standing in their way are the likes of McCain and Clinton.
Others before them have tried, and instead learned that to get what they wanted done, they had to compromise with the establishment. Ronald Reagan learned this in the 1980s. In order to put his economic and military policies in motion, he had to compromise with Congress and lobbyists who wanted other things.
Don’t get me wrong here: While I think the idealism of change is a good thing, it is still a pipedream that dies quicker than a D.C. cherry blossom in a hail storm.
Both Clinton and McCain understand the myth of change and why it is so powerful with voters. Even they have jumped on the change bandwagon, because they know it is what voters want. But they are savvy enough to recognize that the only real change in Washington, D.C., is who sits where and for how long. It is like one big game of musical chairs: When the music stops, somebody is left without a chair. Hence, we have change.
Changes in party power, between the legislative and executive branches of government, is just about all any Beltway insider can stomach. Anything more will upset the apple cart, rock the boat, and throw a wrench into the Beltway Machine. In spite of voters, the last thing any Washington, D.C., insider wants is too much change.
Look what happened to the Republican Party after the 1994 elections, which awarded both the House and Senate to the GOP after 40 years of democrat control? Within a few years, the republicans went from beginning to honor the tenets of their “Contract With America” to shunning their conservative base during the last years of the Clinton Administration through increased spending and avoidance of key social issues.
No sooner had a conservative element seized control of Congress in 1994 then the assault on conservative leaders like New Gingrich was launched by the liberal Washington establishment. In a short time, Gingrich and other conservatives were demonized as cold-hearted, uncompassionate extremists who wanted to see people suffer. As a result, the “Contract With America” was never completely fulfilled and conservative republicans were bullied back into the shadows of political insignificance.
Later GOP Congresses would continue to pass spending bills and ignore social mandates of their conservative base; the last straw being in 2006 when illegal immigration was chief among the issues conservatives wanted the republican majority to address. But Congress sat on its thumbs while scandals perpetuated by the news media surrounded the GOP leadership. As a result, nothing of substance got done and conservatives did not vote for their republican incumbents. Consequently, the GOP lost control of Congress altogether.
Now that the democrats are back in power, we see again that little has changed. Other than party affiliation, what is the difference between the Congresses of 2006 and 2007? Where is this change the democrats promised a year ago? Indeed, what, if anything, has changed, besides who sits where and for how long?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Would you trust the word of a high schooler?
Either would I, especially after being played for a fool.
Apparently enough people in Fernley, NV, believed Fernley High School senior Kevin Hart to come away looking like they'd just been duped into buying a bridge.
Last week, Hart announced in front of the entire student assembly, during a formal school ceremony in his honor, that he was accepting a full-ride scholarship to play Division I college football for the University of California, Berkley.
The event was significant, because Hart was supposed to be the first FHS student athlete to receive a full-ride athletic scholarship to a Division I school.
The problem was that Hart didn't receive a scholarship offer from Cal. In fact, he never received a scholarship offer from any Division I program, much less from any other school.
After an official investigation was launched by the Lyon County Sheriff's Office, it turns out that Hart had made the whole thing up himself.
Hart fabricated his story, because he wanted to make his dream of playing Division I college football a reality; even if it was only in his own mind. And he apparently was willing to drag his family, coach, school and community through the mud just to satisfy his own pre-occupation with something that wasn't.
In all fairness to the kid, he is just a teenager: immature and capable of doing anything stupid.
I should know.
When I was 17 years old, I shoved a 12-pound shot put into my mouth and tried to take a bite out of it, because I was angry. Major reconstructive dental surgery and about $1,500 later, I learned that teeth were not meant to bite into iron. I am lucky to still have a pair of front teeth and parents who love me. Other than a lot of contrite shame and embarrassment, though, the episode passed and I was able to move on with my life sans further consequence.
Unfortunately for Hart, his little stunt here may cost him any chance whatsoever of playing football beyond high school, and it might even prevent him from obtaining any type of gainful employment in the area.
Now that everybody within about a million square miles knows what he did, who can possibly trust him within three time zones?
I'm sorry to say, Mr. Hart, but you may well end up paying for your hoax years down the road. Oh, maybe it won't be all that bad. I mean, people may eventually forget...after you've been stuck hefting boxes in a warehouse for 10 years.
Who knows? If you hadn't pulled your little stunt, you probably would have been able to find scholarships to smaller schools and likely play college football at one of those. Then again, perhaps you thought that anything less than Division I was below you.
Every year, thousands of high school athletes accept scholarships to small four-year colleges and even two-year junior colleges just to get a chance to continue playing their sport while getting a free education. It doesn't matter to them how big or important the school is. What's important is the chance to go to college and continue doing what they love to do.
Besides, many more small college athletes have to work their way up the ranks toward Division I. Most never get to the highest level, but those who do have earned it with a lot of blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice.
Have you ever heard of Rudy Ruettiger, perhaps the most famous Notre Dame football player in the past half-century? He wasn't a scholarship player. He wasn't even a starter, much less a bench warmer. Rudy spent four years struggling to survive on the practice squad, taking brutal hits, just so he could earn the right to suit up for one game. The effort and hard work he put into every practice earned him so much respect from all the other players that every team member went to bat for him in front of the coach, demanding that Rudy be allowed to suit up for the last game of his college career.
Rudy's story was so inspiring that Hollywood even made a movie about it. I suppose a film could be made about your story, too...perhaps something along the line of "Dumb and Dumbest."
I realize that nobody wants to settle for second-best where their dreams are concerned, Mr. Hart, but sometimes we have to go the long way around to reach our goals. Unfortunately, I doubt that any respectable post-secondary institution, from Division I to JC, would even consider you now, because you have demonstrated to everyone a serious lack of judgment and integrity.
Had you actually looked and applied for scholarships, instead of waiting and hoping for one to come to you, then perhaps you would not have been so desperate to realize a dream that you would make a complete fool of yourself.
But enough about the boy. I've chided him enough here. He did a stupid thing and he is going to reap the consequences.
But now, a word or two about the gullibility of everyone else involved here: How did a teenage kid manage to dupe his parents, friends, coach and school into believing that he had a bonafide scholarship?
I know from experience that any legitimate scholarship offer goes through the parents, the high school coach and/or athletic department, because we are dealing with minors here. If the kid had a real scholarship offer, the coach and the parents would have been among the first to know; probably even before the kid knew.
Strange that the alarm didn't go off in his coach's head. The little red light apparently didn't come on in his parents' heads, either, because they seemed equally surprised by the news of the faked scholarship. The parents should have suspected something was amiss when they never received any direct communication from the coaches recruiting their son.
Furthermore, what kind of news reporting would take the kid's story on face value without checking with the school athletic director (A.D.) or the coach first? I actually spent a year covering FHS and other Lyon County high schools for the area newspaper there. My first contacts would always be to the school first, then to the parents, followed by an interview with the kid. Both the school (the coach and/or the A.D.) and the parents would have been notified directly by the college coach recruiting their child that there was a scholarship offer on the table.
In fact, the schools would even submit press releases to me of students who had received formal letters of intent and official scholarship offers.
I don't know whether or not the news reporters verified the information with the school and the parents first. I'm unsure why they took this story for granted the way they did. But the information they got probably looked and/or sounded legitimate enough, so they picked up the story and ran with it...knee-deep into "oops."
Fernley High School ought to be ashamed, too, because it put on a great, big show for this kid, who, unbeknownst to anyone else apparently, was milking the attention for all that it was worth.
Why didn't the A.D. or even the kid's coach, for that matter, pick up the telephone and call the schools that were supposedly recruiting him? Wouldn't they want to know? Heck, wouldn't the coach want to speak with any prospective coaches interested in his player? Moreover, didn't it even cross the coach's mind that the recruiting coaches would want to speak with him? Didn't he find it the least bit strange that he never had any contact with the schools offering this kid scholarships?
Indeed, where were the school officials when all this was supposed to be happening?
Nevertheless, a lot of people came away with egg on their faces and looking like suckers who had just been had: the parents, coach, school and local news media.
But not the least of which is Hart himself, who will find it hard to look people in the eye from now on and convince them he's telling the truth.
Who is going to believe him?
Apparently enough people in Fernley, NV, believed Fernley High School senior Kevin Hart to come away looking like they'd just been duped into buying a bridge.
Last week, Hart announced in front of the entire student assembly, during a formal school ceremony in his honor, that he was accepting a full-ride scholarship to play Division I college football for the University of California, Berkley.
The event was significant, because Hart was supposed to be the first FHS student athlete to receive a full-ride athletic scholarship to a Division I school.
The problem was that Hart didn't receive a scholarship offer from Cal. In fact, he never received a scholarship offer from any Division I program, much less from any other school.
After an official investigation was launched by the Lyon County Sheriff's Office, it turns out that Hart had made the whole thing up himself.
Hart fabricated his story, because he wanted to make his dream of playing Division I college football a reality; even if it was only in his own mind. And he apparently was willing to drag his family, coach, school and community through the mud just to satisfy his own pre-occupation with something that wasn't.
In all fairness to the kid, he is just a teenager: immature and capable of doing anything stupid.
I should know.
When I was 17 years old, I shoved a 12-pound shot put into my mouth and tried to take a bite out of it, because I was angry. Major reconstructive dental surgery and about $1,500 later, I learned that teeth were not meant to bite into iron. I am lucky to still have a pair of front teeth and parents who love me. Other than a lot of contrite shame and embarrassment, though, the episode passed and I was able to move on with my life sans further consequence.
Unfortunately for Hart, his little stunt here may cost him any chance whatsoever of playing football beyond high school, and it might even prevent him from obtaining any type of gainful employment in the area.
Now that everybody within about a million square miles knows what he did, who can possibly trust him within three time zones?
I'm sorry to say, Mr. Hart, but you may well end up paying for your hoax years down the road. Oh, maybe it won't be all that bad. I mean, people may eventually forget...after you've been stuck hefting boxes in a warehouse for 10 years.
Who knows? If you hadn't pulled your little stunt, you probably would have been able to find scholarships to smaller schools and likely play college football at one of those. Then again, perhaps you thought that anything less than Division I was below you.
Every year, thousands of high school athletes accept scholarships to small four-year colleges and even two-year junior colleges just to get a chance to continue playing their sport while getting a free education. It doesn't matter to them how big or important the school is. What's important is the chance to go to college and continue doing what they love to do.
Besides, many more small college athletes have to work their way up the ranks toward Division I. Most never get to the highest level, but those who do have earned it with a lot of blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice.
Have you ever heard of Rudy Ruettiger, perhaps the most famous Notre Dame football player in the past half-century? He wasn't a scholarship player. He wasn't even a starter, much less a bench warmer. Rudy spent four years struggling to survive on the practice squad, taking brutal hits, just so he could earn the right to suit up for one game. The effort and hard work he put into every practice earned him so much respect from all the other players that every team member went to bat for him in front of the coach, demanding that Rudy be allowed to suit up for the last game of his college career.
Rudy's story was so inspiring that Hollywood even made a movie about it. I suppose a film could be made about your story, too...perhaps something along the line of "Dumb and Dumbest."
I realize that nobody wants to settle for second-best where their dreams are concerned, Mr. Hart, but sometimes we have to go the long way around to reach our goals. Unfortunately, I doubt that any respectable post-secondary institution, from Division I to JC, would even consider you now, because you have demonstrated to everyone a serious lack of judgment and integrity.
Had you actually looked and applied for scholarships, instead of waiting and hoping for one to come to you, then perhaps you would not have been so desperate to realize a dream that you would make a complete fool of yourself.
But enough about the boy. I've chided him enough here. He did a stupid thing and he is going to reap the consequences.
But now, a word or two about the gullibility of everyone else involved here: How did a teenage kid manage to dupe his parents, friends, coach and school into believing that he had a bonafide scholarship?
I know from experience that any legitimate scholarship offer goes through the parents, the high school coach and/or athletic department, because we are dealing with minors here. If the kid had a real scholarship offer, the coach and the parents would have been among the first to know; probably even before the kid knew.
Strange that the alarm didn't go off in his coach's head. The little red light apparently didn't come on in his parents' heads, either, because they seemed equally surprised by the news of the faked scholarship. The parents should have suspected something was amiss when they never received any direct communication from the coaches recruiting their son.
Furthermore, what kind of news reporting would take the kid's story on face value without checking with the school athletic director (A.D.) or the coach first? I actually spent a year covering FHS and other Lyon County high schools for the area newspaper there. My first contacts would always be to the school first, then to the parents, followed by an interview with the kid. Both the school (the coach and/or the A.D.) and the parents would have been notified directly by the college coach recruiting their child that there was a scholarship offer on the table.
In fact, the schools would even submit press releases to me of students who had received formal letters of intent and official scholarship offers.
I don't know whether or not the news reporters verified the information with the school and the parents first. I'm unsure why they took this story for granted the way they did. But the information they got probably looked and/or sounded legitimate enough, so they picked up the story and ran with it...knee-deep into "oops."
Fernley High School ought to be ashamed, too, because it put on a great, big show for this kid, who, unbeknownst to anyone else apparently, was milking the attention for all that it was worth.
Why didn't the A.D. or even the kid's coach, for that matter, pick up the telephone and call the schools that were supposedly recruiting him? Wouldn't they want to know? Heck, wouldn't the coach want to speak with any prospective coaches interested in his player? Moreover, didn't it even cross the coach's mind that the recruiting coaches would want to speak with him? Didn't he find it the least bit strange that he never had any contact with the schools offering this kid scholarships?
Indeed, where were the school officials when all this was supposed to be happening?
Nevertheless, a lot of people came away with egg on their faces and looking like suckers who had just been had: the parents, coach, school and local news media.
But not the least of which is Hart himself, who will find it hard to look people in the eye from now on and convince them he's telling the truth.
Who is going to believe him?
Monday, February 4, 2008
Give me a reason to vote for Hillary
Several reasons come to mind that dissuade me from voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, for president of the United States. I’d only be repeating myself from other blogs I’ve written to explain them all again here.
So, please, give me just one reason to vote for her…other than because she is a woman.
I mean, really, come on now.
Hillary Clinton’s gender is self-evident, but it has nothing to do with her ability to preside over the most powerful nation on earth. The fact that she is a woman neither qualifies, nor disqualifies her as a candidate. Truth be told, gender should be immaterial; it shouldn’t even matter. Moreover, it shouldn’t even be on her resume.
But it is. In fact, gender is Hillary’s leading qualification. It is the dominant headline of her candidacy; the first bullet point on her resume. And gender is the primary reason her supporters give for their vote.
It’s true.
Hillary has secured many of her supporters on the basis of gender alone. I distinctly remember listening to National Public Radio the morning after the New Hampshire primaries when I heard one woman say she decided to vote for Hillary at the last minute, because the latter is a woman and it seemed like the right thing to do in support of women’s rights.
What?
So, in other words, this person voted for Hillary to make a political statement, rather than an informed decision. Hello?! This is a presidential election, the idea behind which is that you vote for the person, not the gender. The idea is that you vote for the person who you think most closely represents your beliefs, supports the issues most important to you, and who you believe will do the best job carrying out the duties of commander-in-chief.
Yet, Hillary-backers around the country are rallying to her side chiefly because she is a woman.
Huh. Somehow, I expected more from Hillary’s camp. I would have thought that “the smartest woman in the world” could attract voters with more substance than this.
I mean, how much brain power does it take to cast a vote for someone based on what they look like? Those voting for Hillary because of her gender are doing just that. And it does not speak well for Hillary if her supporters are really this shallow.
The same charge can be leveled at Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters, many of whom are voting for the Illinois democrat just because he is black.
If I were to vote for a candidate because he is a white male, then I’d be equally as shallow. The difference being that I would be labeled a sexist, racist bigot if I did. But it is apparently okay for women to vote for another woman because she is a woman, or black Americans to vote for another black because of the color of his skin.
End the sexism and racism already! I’m so tired of hearing how bad women and other so-called “minorities” or “protected groups” have had it in the past and how they have suffered throughout history. I’m sure we can all make a case for pulling out the violin at one time or another in our lives. But some of us don’t spend our time brooding about it.
So, get over it already, and get on with the business of electing the president of the United States. In case you weren’t aware, we elect people to office; not their skin colors or their genders.
But if you’d prefer, I can put my dog on the ballot. Who knows? If she pulls over enough Hillary and Obama backers who’d vote for her because she’s a dog, then lobbyists will be lining up outside the Oval Office with dog biscuits instead of money bags.
So, please, give me just one reason to vote for her…other than because she is a woman.
I mean, really, come on now.
Hillary Clinton’s gender is self-evident, but it has nothing to do with her ability to preside over the most powerful nation on earth. The fact that she is a woman neither qualifies, nor disqualifies her as a candidate. Truth be told, gender should be immaterial; it shouldn’t even matter. Moreover, it shouldn’t even be on her resume.
But it is. In fact, gender is Hillary’s leading qualification. It is the dominant headline of her candidacy; the first bullet point on her resume. And gender is the primary reason her supporters give for their vote.
It’s true.
Hillary has secured many of her supporters on the basis of gender alone. I distinctly remember listening to National Public Radio the morning after the New Hampshire primaries when I heard one woman say she decided to vote for Hillary at the last minute, because the latter is a woman and it seemed like the right thing to do in support of women’s rights.
What?
So, in other words, this person voted for Hillary to make a political statement, rather than an informed decision. Hello?! This is a presidential election, the idea behind which is that you vote for the person, not the gender. The idea is that you vote for the person who you think most closely represents your beliefs, supports the issues most important to you, and who you believe will do the best job carrying out the duties of commander-in-chief.
Yet, Hillary-backers around the country are rallying to her side chiefly because she is a woman.
Huh. Somehow, I expected more from Hillary’s camp. I would have thought that “the smartest woman in the world” could attract voters with more substance than this.
I mean, how much brain power does it take to cast a vote for someone based on what they look like? Those voting for Hillary because of her gender are doing just that. And it does not speak well for Hillary if her supporters are really this shallow.
The same charge can be leveled at Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters, many of whom are voting for the Illinois democrat just because he is black.
If I were to vote for a candidate because he is a white male, then I’d be equally as shallow. The difference being that I would be labeled a sexist, racist bigot if I did. But it is apparently okay for women to vote for another woman because she is a woman, or black Americans to vote for another black because of the color of his skin.
End the sexism and racism already! I’m so tired of hearing how bad women and other so-called “minorities” or “protected groups” have had it in the past and how they have suffered throughout history. I’m sure we can all make a case for pulling out the violin at one time or another in our lives. But some of us don’t spend our time brooding about it.
So, get over it already, and get on with the business of electing the president of the United States. In case you weren’t aware, we elect people to office; not their skin colors or their genders.
But if you’d prefer, I can put my dog on the ballot. Who knows? If she pulls over enough Hillary and Obama backers who’d vote for her because she’s a dog, then lobbyists will be lining up outside the Oval Office with dog biscuits instead of money bags.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Justice is served
Even if nothing more ever comes of the NFL's infamous "Spygate" scandal, the New England Patriots got their come uppance.
Tonight the AFC juggernaut was denied a perfect, undefeated record—a milestone achieved only once in NFL history.
The Patriots, who had completed only the second undefeated regular season in league history, could not finish what they started back in week one of the 2007 regular season.
But somebody upstairs has a sense of humor—not to mention a propensity for the ironic.
Fittingly, it was a team from New York that defeated the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl XLII title. It was a team from New York against which the Patriots were caught cheating on their own sidelines at Gillette Stadium in Foxsboro, Mass., in the season opener. Television cameras caught members of the Patriots spying on New York Jets coaches and players with cameras of their own, in a cheap effort to expose the latter’s playbook. Unfortunately, the Patriots were the ones exposed.
Even though it got caught, the New England ball club barely even received what amounted to a slap on the wrist for what is the equivalent of industrial espionage—a white collar crime and a felony.
The Patriots ended up winning the football game, followed by the next 17 games in a row. Yet, they were denied the last and most important win of all: the Super Bowl championship.
This is a New England team that had won three Super Bowl championships since 2001 and was en route to becoming only the fourth franchise in NFL history to win at least four Vince Lombardi trophies.
But every dog has its day. Cheaters never prosper, the old saying goes, even those who go 18-0.
I was prepared to write a column about the only NFL world champion with an asterisk beside its name. But thanks to the New York Giants, I am able to write about the world champions that the New England Patriots neither are nor deserve to have been after “Spygate.”
The Patriots thought “Spygate” was no big deal. It kept them neither from going undefeated during the regular season nor from the Super Bowl.
But “Spygate” did keep them from winning the most important football game of the entire NFL season. It kept them from becoming champions of the professional football world. And it denied them a perfect, unblemished record en route to a world title.
Well, actually justice did all that.
I hope the New England Patriots are hungry tonight, because justice is served—along with a heaping slice of humble pie. Don’t worry, though: the Pats have the next six months to digest it all.
Maybe next time, the idea of going 1-0 to open the regular season won't mean so much to the Pats that they would resort to cheating. Maybe 18-0 isn't all it's cracked up to be if you leave the biggest game of the year 18-1. Yeah, I know that 18-0 is pretty impressive. But the Giants, not the Patriots, are champions of the football world now. In the end, after all the money has been counted, winning the big one is what matters most.
And if you think you have to cheat just to win your first game, then you don't deserve to win your last.
Just ask the 1972 Miami Dolphins, still the only undefeated team in NFL history. The only undefeated regular season team? No, the Patriots share that honor with them. But not the honor of being the only undefeated world champion. That alone still belongs only to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who proved that you don't have to cheat to go undefeated. You just have to work hard and play by the rules.
Actually, Super Bowl loser befits the New England Patriots best this year, because true champions don't win by cheating; they win by being better than the rest. Tonight and for the next year, the New York Giants are the best. Neither did they have to go undefeated nor cheat to do it. They just played like the best.
Note to Pats: The champagne flows freely in Miami tonight for 35 seasons in a row and still counting...
Tonight the AFC juggernaut was denied a perfect, undefeated record—a milestone achieved only once in NFL history.
The Patriots, who had completed only the second undefeated regular season in league history, could not finish what they started back in week one of the 2007 regular season.
But somebody upstairs has a sense of humor—not to mention a propensity for the ironic.
Fittingly, it was a team from New York that defeated the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl XLII title. It was a team from New York against which the Patriots were caught cheating on their own sidelines at Gillette Stadium in Foxsboro, Mass., in the season opener. Television cameras caught members of the Patriots spying on New York Jets coaches and players with cameras of their own, in a cheap effort to expose the latter’s playbook. Unfortunately, the Patriots were the ones exposed.
Even though it got caught, the New England ball club barely even received what amounted to a slap on the wrist for what is the equivalent of industrial espionage—a white collar crime and a felony.
The Patriots ended up winning the football game, followed by the next 17 games in a row. Yet, they were denied the last and most important win of all: the Super Bowl championship.
This is a New England team that had won three Super Bowl championships since 2001 and was en route to becoming only the fourth franchise in NFL history to win at least four Vince Lombardi trophies.
But every dog has its day. Cheaters never prosper, the old saying goes, even those who go 18-0.
I was prepared to write a column about the only NFL world champion with an asterisk beside its name. But thanks to the New York Giants, I am able to write about the world champions that the New England Patriots neither are nor deserve to have been after “Spygate.”
The Patriots thought “Spygate” was no big deal. It kept them neither from going undefeated during the regular season nor from the Super Bowl.
But “Spygate” did keep them from winning the most important football game of the entire NFL season. It kept them from becoming champions of the professional football world. And it denied them a perfect, unblemished record en route to a world title.
Well, actually justice did all that.
I hope the New England Patriots are hungry tonight, because justice is served—along with a heaping slice of humble pie. Don’t worry, though: the Pats have the next six months to digest it all.
Maybe next time, the idea of going 1-0 to open the regular season won't mean so much to the Pats that they would resort to cheating. Maybe 18-0 isn't all it's cracked up to be if you leave the biggest game of the year 18-1. Yeah, I know that 18-0 is pretty impressive. But the Giants, not the Patriots, are champions of the football world now. In the end, after all the money has been counted, winning the big one is what matters most.
And if you think you have to cheat just to win your first game, then you don't deserve to win your last.
Just ask the 1972 Miami Dolphins, still the only undefeated team in NFL history. The only undefeated regular season team? No, the Patriots share that honor with them. But not the honor of being the only undefeated world champion. That alone still belongs only to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who proved that you don't have to cheat to go undefeated. You just have to work hard and play by the rules.
Actually, Super Bowl loser befits the New England Patriots best this year, because true champions don't win by cheating; they win by being better than the rest. Tonight and for the next year, the New York Giants are the best. Neither did they have to go undefeated nor cheat to do it. They just played like the best.
Note to Pats: The champagne flows freely in Miami tonight for 35 seasons in a row and still counting...
Voting is a responsibility, not just a right
In every election, there are millions of Americans who could care less about exercising their Constitutional right, not to mention civic duty, to vote.
Some are simply cynical about the whole process, choosing to believe that their one vote doesn't matter a hill of beans and won’t make any difference to the way things are or the way we want things to be.
Others are too wrapped up in the melodrama of their own lives to really care about what their government is doing or not doing.
Still others refrain from voting out of protest, because their candidate(s) didn’t win or their issue(s) didn’t become law. These “sore losers” are just as dangerous as the pessimists and complacent apathetics, because they are willing to let things get worse before they can get better.
I hear it all the time on talk radio—callers complaining about the candidates they have to choose from. They say maybe we should just let the other side win and allow our country go to hell in a hand basket. Then, when everyone realizes what a mistake this was, the right person(s) will be voted into office.
The fallacy of this kind of thought is two-fold: first, that people will realize their mistakes and correct them; and second, that we will have another chance to make things right.
The more people who begin to think this way, the sooner we’ll go down in that hand basket and the harder it will be to get back up.
I understand that American politics is frustrating and downright disgusting sometimes. I realize that our system has its problems. But not voting is not the way to fix things. In fact, by not voting, we unwittingly move ourselves closer to an autocratic state where the government makes its own decisions and rules over the people. While our government has become a living, breathing monster, for all intents and purposes, it is still strapped to the gurney and not wandering about terrorizing the countryside. Our vote and the Constitution securing that vote keeps the monster bound at the wrists and ankles.
But if we stop voting, then the restraints will loosen and eventually fall off. At that point, our government will have metamorphasized from a republic to an authoritarian state capable of acting by its own will, independent of the people. When this happens, we will have lost all control, as well as any chance of getting it back.
I caution any voter out there thinking that their one, single vote does not matter; that deciding which movie to rent on Saturday night is more important than voting on Tuesday; or that a protest no-vote will send the message they want to convey: If you do this, we will all suffer the consequences one day. And the more of you there are, the more likely we will end up losing our right to vote altogether.
It’s time that people stop looking at their vote as a Constitutional right—something they can apply and use at will—and instead regard it as a responsibility. Perhaps if more people saw voting as a duty—i.e., something we have to do—then maybe fewer people would dismiss it so casually and carelessly as they do now.
We all have to do unpleasant things that we aren't fond of: I, for one, hate cleaning up after my dog. But if I want a yard I can walk and relax in without stepping in something even more unpleasant, then I will do what I have to do.
The same can be said about voting. It may be unpleasant and make us feel dirty, but if we don’t do our part to clean up the yard, then we will surely step into something more unpleasant.
Even though it seems like we are often stuck having to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” voting for the one that ranks highest of the two by our own personal standards is better than giving away an uncontested vote to the one that ranks the lowest.
To the pessimists and the cynics, I say look at the glass again and be reminded that although it looks half empty, it is also half full. In other words, take heart and search for the silver lining. Even if things do go to hell in a hand basket, that doesn't mean you have to. You can choose to live on with a smile and a smidgeon of hope.
To the complacents and apathetics out there, I say wake up from your slumber! Wake up and live in reality once in a while. You don’t really want to live in blissful ignorance, like the human crop in “The Matrix,” do you? Wouldn’t you be more empowered if you know what is really going on, rather than choosing to believe something that doesn’t exist? In other words, get off your butt and get out there before all that you really have is gone.
To the protest voters, I say a no-vote is a blown opportunity. It is a vote defaulted to your opposition, because you refused to stand up and be counted. If you do not speak, then you will not be heard.
Frankly, if you choose not to vote—whatever your reason—then you have no business complaining when the music stops and you are left standing without a chair.
Some are simply cynical about the whole process, choosing to believe that their one vote doesn't matter a hill of beans and won’t make any difference to the way things are or the way we want things to be.
Others are too wrapped up in the melodrama of their own lives to really care about what their government is doing or not doing.
Still others refrain from voting out of protest, because their candidate(s) didn’t win or their issue(s) didn’t become law. These “sore losers” are just as dangerous as the pessimists and complacent apathetics, because they are willing to let things get worse before they can get better.
I hear it all the time on talk radio—callers complaining about the candidates they have to choose from. They say maybe we should just let the other side win and allow our country go to hell in a hand basket. Then, when everyone realizes what a mistake this was, the right person(s) will be voted into office.
The fallacy of this kind of thought is two-fold: first, that people will realize their mistakes and correct them; and second, that we will have another chance to make things right.
The more people who begin to think this way, the sooner we’ll go down in that hand basket and the harder it will be to get back up.
I understand that American politics is frustrating and downright disgusting sometimes. I realize that our system has its problems. But not voting is not the way to fix things. In fact, by not voting, we unwittingly move ourselves closer to an autocratic state where the government makes its own decisions and rules over the people. While our government has become a living, breathing monster, for all intents and purposes, it is still strapped to the gurney and not wandering about terrorizing the countryside. Our vote and the Constitution securing that vote keeps the monster bound at the wrists and ankles.
But if we stop voting, then the restraints will loosen and eventually fall off. At that point, our government will have metamorphasized from a republic to an authoritarian state capable of acting by its own will, independent of the people. When this happens, we will have lost all control, as well as any chance of getting it back.
I caution any voter out there thinking that their one, single vote does not matter; that deciding which movie to rent on Saturday night is more important than voting on Tuesday; or that a protest no-vote will send the message they want to convey: If you do this, we will all suffer the consequences one day. And the more of you there are, the more likely we will end up losing our right to vote altogether.
It’s time that people stop looking at their vote as a Constitutional right—something they can apply and use at will—and instead regard it as a responsibility. Perhaps if more people saw voting as a duty—i.e., something we have to do—then maybe fewer people would dismiss it so casually and carelessly as they do now.
We all have to do unpleasant things that we aren't fond of: I, for one, hate cleaning up after my dog. But if I want a yard I can walk and relax in without stepping in something even more unpleasant, then I will do what I have to do.
The same can be said about voting. It may be unpleasant and make us feel dirty, but if we don’t do our part to clean up the yard, then we will surely step into something more unpleasant.
Even though it seems like we are often stuck having to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” voting for the one that ranks highest of the two by our own personal standards is better than giving away an uncontested vote to the one that ranks the lowest.
To the pessimists and the cynics, I say look at the glass again and be reminded that although it looks half empty, it is also half full. In other words, take heart and search for the silver lining. Even if things do go to hell in a hand basket, that doesn't mean you have to. You can choose to live on with a smile and a smidgeon of hope.
To the complacents and apathetics out there, I say wake up from your slumber! Wake up and live in reality once in a while. You don’t really want to live in blissful ignorance, like the human crop in “The Matrix,” do you? Wouldn’t you be more empowered if you know what is really going on, rather than choosing to believe something that doesn’t exist? In other words, get off your butt and get out there before all that you really have is gone.
To the protest voters, I say a no-vote is a blown opportunity. It is a vote defaulted to your opposition, because you refused to stand up and be counted. If you do not speak, then you will not be heard.
Frankly, if you choose not to vote—whatever your reason—then you have no business complaining when the music stops and you are left standing without a chair.
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