Tag Archives: John McCain

I am God Politics

Recently, during a local election in our normally quiet small town, political fighting has turned ugly. Election signs have been vandalized and hateful words exchanged.

Why?

Most of us say we believe in a peaceful exchange of power according to what the voters decide. Traditionally, the candidates campaign, the voters cast ballots, the votes are counted, and the one with the most votes wins. While the electoral college may cause problems in the presidential election, simple rule by majority is normally the case in local elections.

This November we are electing members of the local school board and our city officials. The vindictiveness of national politics has affected even these elections.

The idea of the gracious loser is an American tradition. John McCain, in his concession speech on losing the election to Barack Obama in 2008, gallantly wished Obama his support and praised the system that elected him and dealt McCain his loss.

Recently, too many of us have spurned his example, nationally and locally. Instead, we’ve chosen to act like those who support charlatans like Putin in Russia or dictators like Lukashenko in Belarus. Some of it is a clinging to power, but some of it, I think, is an arrogance that presumes we have complete truth.

We choose democracy precisely because no one has complete truth. The best we can do is let the majority rule. We have freedom of expression to state ideas peacefully challenging the majority. In the extreme, if one disagrees with the majority, one may offer civil disobedience, but even this should be peaceful, not a presumption that we have eternal truth. We are all imperfect human beings.

It is supreme arrogance to disrespectfully treat those with whom we disagree. We are all imperfect human beings.

John McCain’s Failed Cause Was the Nation’s Loss, Big Time

Almost two decades ago (March 1, 2000) Senator John McCain wrote an editorial for USA Today: “Campaign Finance Reform Must Not be Ignored.”

Unfortunately, his pleas for reform were indeed ignored.

Recently, Charles and David Koch, heirs of an industrial family invested in fossil fuels, announced a donation of twenty million dollars to promote President Trump’s recently passed tax plan.

Both major political parties benefit from donations large enough to make the heads spin of ordinary folks. In 2017, the median household income, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, was $59, 039, not quite .003 percent of what the Koch brothers gave this one time. (They’ve given much more over many years.)

Should we not be uneasy with the thought that if politicians want to be elected, they must support policies favored by big donors?

Campaign finance reform became harder when a Supreme Court decision in 2010 struck down the limits on corporate giving.

Reform, if it is to happen now, may be up to the states. One movement encourages a sufficient number of states to seek an amendment to the U.S. Constitution overturning the 2010 decision. Other states are trying various ways to publically finance local elections.

Success depends on the support of ordinary citizens—or they can ignore the efforts at reform, as they did before, and continue with a government influenced and operated overwhelmingly by the wealthy.

  Experts Propose; Politicians Decide

“Some of the smartest people on earth have a significant presence on the Internet. Some of the stupidest people, however, reside just one click away.” (Tom Nichols, “How America Lost Faith in Expertise,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2017.)

From taxation to terrorism, we often follow events haphazardly or don’t follow them at all, busy with other things. Yet if we don’t stay on top of the issues that affect our lives, we cede the outcomes to those who yell the loudest and receive the most attention.

It’s easy to do. We live in a complex world, difficult to grasp, not only for us but for our elected representatives as well.

How important, then, Nichols writes, “to choose representatives who can act wisely on our behalf,” representatives willing to listen to those with knowledge of a particular subject.

“Experts can only propose; elected leaders dispose. And politicians are very rarely experts on any of the innumerable subjects that come before them for a decision. . . . China policy and health care and climate change and immigration and taxation, all at the same time . . ..”

Forget those closed legislative sessions, shutting out both the public and those who spend their lives studying the issues that affect us.

As Senator John McCain recently pointed out, the most important consideration isn’t winning the next election but governing wisely for the people.