It’s been a busy time since I last posted the blog. That happened because one event after another occurred needing my response. The final event was the death of our teenaged girl cat. We had seen her in our backyard for at least a couple of years, but when we attempted to approach her, she would run away. One day she showed up with injury and she let me pick her up and take her to the veterinarian. We never knew what her background was, but she had been loved and neutered. She never trusted men. We had assumed she had been badly treated by a man. She dearly loved my wife, Mary. We had 11 years with her.
It’s time to move on to other things. The major event was the assassination attempt on President Trump’s life. If it hadn’t happened to Trump, it would’ve happened to Biden. That’s the reason I was so worried about the vitriol that had crept into the presidential campaigns. I knew that once name-calling seeming fueled by hatred that an assassination attempt would happen. There are always people out there who think problems can be solved by the use of force. If it hadn’t been the young man who attempted the assassination, it would’ve been another poor soul who thought what he was hearing be solved by an assassination. I can remember 1968 and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. It too was a turbulent time in the middle of a presidential election. There was too much name-calling then and it did lead to his assassination.
I also remember 1968 as a time when it seemed the country was falling apart driven by our racial relationships. We lacked and never have had a full recognition of our history of slavery. That does not seem to be the major dividing line in our country at this time. Can we figure out what the cause might be? I think we can.
We are in the midst of another presidential election season. We have two dominant political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. You might well define them as conservative and liberal. Growing up I recognized the Republican Party as one defined by people of wealth. They were basically satisfied by their position in life because they used their wealth to stay in power. They backed candidates who they felt would change things little and what changes they did make would benefit the wealthy.
I am not sure when the Republicans understood they were in the minority. I think President Eisenhower was the last truly loved Republican President. It came from his leader as a general in World War II. His vice president, Richard Nixon, was never loved like President Eisenhower. Whenever the Republicans realized they were minority and an ever-growing minority, they reacted with great thoughtfulness about ways they could stay in power. The main tools were low nobody there all you care to be calling you what about gerrymandering and the use of the electoral college.
I am sure you saw the results of gerrymandering. You had votes where the popular vote was controlled by the Democrats, but the state legislatures and governors were controlled by Republicans. If you listen to anything about this year’s election you have heard about “battleground states.” There are six or perhaps seven “battleground states” that will decide who will be our next president. Thanks to the electoral college there are 44 states that have no say in our presidential elections. However, that is exactly the way our founding fathers wanted it.
That does not sound very democratic, does it? Let’s look back at the founding of our nation. Shortly after the Constitution was written, “a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym “Publius” to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.” This quote is taken from Wikipedia. The essays describe a system where only “landowners” should have the rights to full citizenship. It seems our founding fathers thought that democracy should only be granted to people who had a stake in the country, i.e. those of wealth.
This blog is getting long, so let me finish by saying the Constitution was written in 1787 by 39 delegates to the federal convention. In my opinion, it is a great document. It’s a flawed by the prevailing feeling that only people with a “real” stake in the country should be voting. Our founding fathers wanted the country ruled by those who had a stake in our country and thus would only do the best for it.
