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Don’t answer that. It was a trick question which assumes facts not in evidence. What you have to do to vote intelligently is irrelevant in the United States of America today.
Why, you ask?
Because voting intelligently is not required. In fact, if you do so, you will only be frustrated beyond measure. Your vote and my vote count precisely the same as the one cast by a person who is totally oblivious to the issues of the day.
So, knock yourself out! Study the candidates. Read everything available about the urgent matters facing our country. Watch cable news on your channel of choice until you get bleary-eyed. Monitor social media fervently and consistently.
Then, go to the polls and make an educated choice of the least worst candidate since good candidates are few and far between these days. Candidates seldom if ever follow through with everything they promised during the campaign. Some do better than others.
Even those who do fulfill some campaign promises are often looking ahead more to being re-elected than they are focusing on the merits of the issue. You may find altruism in a Mother Teresa or a Corrie ten Boom, but don’t waste your breath searching for it in a politician.
Basically, you have your ideologues. Then you also have your opportunists. One is driven by a specific worldview and value system. The other is driven by the desire to gain and maintain power and prestige.
The two competing motivational factors are not mutually exclusive however. Some adopt an ideology out of political expediency to obtain their objective of being elected. Just because he or she says they believe something doesn’t mean that it is a result of many years of introspection and deep thought. It also doesn’t mean they won’t do a 180° flip-flop tomorrow if circumstances so warrant politically.
I will use Hawaii’s two Democrat Senators to demonstrate what I’m talking about.
Mazie Hirono is definitely an ideologue. She really believes that it must be her way or the highway. Her litmus test is that if you disagree with me, I can never confirm you in my role as a Senator to provide advice and consent. Oh, I’ll give you an earful of unsolicited and unwanted advice, but you’ll never get my consent unless you do things my way.
Brian Schatz, on the other hand, is the epitome of opportunism. With a dull mind which has never apparently produced an original thought of any kind, he just tweets non-sequiturs to repeat Democrat talking points ad infinitum ad nauseam. He is where he is because his party finds his sycophancy beneficial to their own political futures.
Either way, gullible voters are not making their decisions on factors that will impact them and their families positively or negatively. In Hawaii, most will vote a straight Democrat Party Line for any candidate with a [D] after their name. Whether or not the person can actually handle the position doesn’t matter. If my party nominates him or her, then he or she gets my vote. That’s the mindset. That is also the problem in a nutshell.
Much more has changed in this country since the era of our Founders than just technology, transportation, communication and so on. That was a day in which it was assumed that responsible adults would have a basic concept of history and civics. They were expected to make informed decisions.
Look at the debates in 2016. They were more like a circus sideshow than actual intellectual exchanges of ideas. The blame is shared amongst candidates themselves, the exploitative media and the unwashed masses watching from home.
The isolated instances where a candidate attempted to outline a substantive analysis of a topic were completely overshadowed by theatrics and visuals that play well with the intended audience. The politicians just wanted to look and sound good. The moderators just wanted to ask gotcha questions to increase ratings and in turn to raise their own extravagant salary. Folks at home were left in the lurch.
Abstract thought and the ability to conceptualize are very rare in today’s world. Short-range goals have pre-empted long-term strategies. The ability to see every event in perspective as just a cog in the wheel of progress does not pervade our political process.
Few there be that know the distinction of deontological ethics and teleological ethics. It’s the difference between whether actions are right or wrong in and of themselves ~ or rather if the end justifies the means. A Christian’s relationship to society tends toward the former whereas a secular approach employs the latter.
Voters in 2019 are not well-versed in which societal models work well and which have historically failed repeatedly. That’s why an empty vessel such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is so easily manipulated and used as a mouthpiece for her socialistic handlers.
But when you take tweets from AOC or from POTUS at face value, you are defaulting on the need to use discernment. Since the educational system for today’s youngsters has been co-opted by social re-engineering advocates, a generation is growing up that will someday lead America into uncharted waters of the perilous seas of ignorance.
I always like to end on a note of optimism. If there is one. But I am concerned that the dumbing-down of America is irreversible. We have already sacrificed a generation of susceptible and vulnerable children on the altar of political correctness.
So, I will leave you with this. The so-called political spectrum which we are most familiar with is a farce. It usually shows ultra-liberals at the far left and ultra-conservatives at the far right. That basically pits both extremes against the middle where the ever-diminishing residue of common sense still resides.
In reality, extremists of any political stripe are at one end of the spectrum and people who assess issues on their individual merits are at the other. Nazism and Communism fought each other but both oppressed the people.
So, opposing extremist ideologies both were the enemy of the everyday citizen. Decent, ethical, moral people stand against tyranny in any form from any source. Not only in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia but in America in the here and now.
These United States have stood as a bastion of free thought and human liberty. Today extremists of varying ideologies demand preeminence. But we must continue to stand firmly for the right of the people to continue thinking for ourselves!
If I agree with your policy or action, I will say so. If I disagree, I will likewise speak my mind. No political party or organization owns me.
You must earn my vote!
Will you help revive the American Conservative Movement?
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