Thursday, October 29, 2020

To Vote or Not to Vote

Because I’m a precinct chair, I get some data on the election. I have access to names, addresses, and phone numbers of registered voters in my precinct. Additional information tells me who has voted in primary elections. Voters are then divided into tiers, so I can decide who to reach out to for Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts. I am encouraged to make use of the data by reaching out to them. The daily updates during early voting tell me who in the top couple of tiers has not voted. A week ago I spent an afternoon individually contacting many dozen voters to remind them of when and where to vote, and where to get information. A few thanked me. A few more texted STOP, even though I’m an individual doing it the hard way and not a list, but I’ll respect that.


image found here

Before last weekend my list started including another tier down, adding in not only those we could count on to vote Republican, but those we believe lean Republican. As of today, with just today and tomorrow left of early voting, all but 16% of the known and leaning Republicans in my precinct have already voted. The rest I am assuming plan to vote in person on election day. I can’t envision any active Republican this election year not getting around to deciding whether to vote.

I have a skeptical relationship with GOTV drives. Maybe this year more than any. Of course we need every vote we can get. We need a large enough margin to overcome any disenfranchisement done by voter fraud, which we already know is happening.[i] But what I don’t want to do—because I really hate that the opposition does this—they’re not actually giving voice to more informed votes; they’re giving additional voice to their own vote. They add numbers to their side without actually adding any more informed voters to their side.

I’m all in favor of adding more informed voters, which is why I see my job as a precinct chair—and as a political activist, if you must use that uncomfortable term—is inform people who appreciate getting the information, which seems easier for me to come by, because I’m dialed in, than it does for them.

One of the amusing stories—if these weren’t such serious times—is that one of the most Googled searches this past week (since the final presidential debate) has been “How do I change my vote?” 

Image found here

Oddly, there are several states that have a procedure for that—if they submitted a mail-in ballot that has not yet been counted. We can only hope that they are doing that securely, with no double counting or shenanigans. But maybe it’s not a great idea to vote before you know enough about your candidate. If your candidate, for instance, has had a long record of plagiarism, lying, and corruption[ii]—stories that have been widely available if you took a look—but you didn’t know about them until news stories broke through in late October, then I can see why you’d feel sick about having already cast your vote.

There's me with my "I Voted" sticker
I can see some wisdom in early voting. I often do it, usually just a few days before the election. I did that this week, exactly a week ahead of election day. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of my voting. I’m planning to work at our polling place on election day—but what if I got a sudden illness or got in an accident? I wanted my vote to be certain. I did it in person. Securely? I hope so, although our County Clerk has been unable to rectify a discrepancy of several thousand early votes—an error that simply should not ever happen. Early votes aren’t tallied; just the number of voters is what has been counted, and that is off by several thousand.  

Anyway, I voted early, and I’m glad for that opportunity. But I was certain my vote wasn’t going to change between now and election day. How certain were those people who voted early and then want to change their vote? Will they learn from this experience?

Unlike many, I don’t see voting as a right and obligation for every citizen; it is a privilege to vote, and should only be done after study, thought, prayer, and understanding. While I don’t advocate any kind of voting test (beyond being a legal citizen registered to vote who can prove identification), I do wish we could convince people not to take the privilege too lightly. As I may have said before, “with great power (to vote) comes great responsibility (to vote responsibly).”

Who should vote?

·         A person who has informed themselves about the candidates and issues and wants to express their considered opinion in a way that holds as much weight as anyone else’s considered opinion.

Who should voluntarily not vote?

·         A person who is uninformed, or worse, misinformed about the candidates and issues.

·         A person who sees only what limited sources of input tell them, and believe what they’re told without questioning.

·         A person who hasn’t read and understood the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

·         A person who lacks understanding about the freedoms protected by our Constitution.

·         A person who fails to understand that the proper role of government is to protect our God-given rights of life, liberty, and property.

·         A person who thinks our rights come from government, and who clamors for more invented “rights” at the expense of fellow citizens.

·         A person who thinks they have a right to other people’s money—as long as they use government to steal it and hand it over to them.

·         A person who thinks a person’s skin color or other “intersectional” characteristics are more important than a person’s character or even shared political beliefs—such persons are the real bigots.

·         A person who thinks big states or urban populations should dictate to smaller states and rural and suburban areas how everyone should do things.

·         A person who thinks America is inherently and systemically evil—you can’t vote for a slight tweak to what you abhor; you overthrow it, or you leave it. So please feel free to leave.

·         A person who doesn’t want free and fair elections, but thinks that lying, cheating, stealing, and fraud are acceptable ways of conducting an election—as long as it goes their way.

·         A person who thinks anyone who disagrees with them is evil and should be silenced.

·         A person who accepts deeply ingrained patterns of corruption from those on their side of the partisan divide, but who accepts not even a single flaw in someone on the other side.

If you’re one of those persons who shouldn’t be voting, do us all a favor and recuse yourself this election. As for next time, you can earn the privilege by doing the right things and becoming the sort of person who ought to vote.



[i]Texas Poll Watcher Testifies On 2020 Voter Fraud In Houston: Report,” Ken Webster, Jr., October 26, 2020, KTRH News Radio. See also “The Alleged Organized Voter Fraud Ring in Harris County” September 26, 2020, Houston Business Connections Newspaper. And see also “RIGGED ELECTION: TX 'Ballot Chaser' Illegally Pressures Voters To Change Votes,” James O’Keefe, October 27, 2020, Project Veritas YouTube. And see also “Chain of Custody? What’s That?” Kris Maxymillian, October 22, 2020, Conservative Texas Facebook. And see also “Printing Issue Affects 1/3 of Mail-In Ballots in Tarrant County, Administrator Says,” Ben Russell & Lili Zheng, October 27, 2020, NBCDFW. For an example beyond Texas, see “No Signature Match? No Postmark? No Problemo! It's This Week in Ballot Shenanigans!” Victoria Taft, October 23, 2020, PJ Media. And also consider “Joe's Freudian Sniff? Joe Biden Just Said He's Got a Great 'VOTER FRAUD Organization' Going,” Victoria Taft, October 24, 2020, PJ Media.

Monday, October 26, 2020

Remembering Freedom and Finding Truth

I started off today with a plan to do a comparison of people under tyranny and under freedom, before going down a slightly different rabbit hole. But let’s start with a few quick visuals.

I came across this photo of Girl Scouts in Iran in 1969.

Girl Scouts in Iran, 1969, before the Islamic Revolution
image found here

Somewhere near that time, maybe a decade earlier, Mr. Spherical Model’s grandparents lived in Iran for several years. Grandpa was an educator, near the end of his career (he had been president of a college), and was contributing to education in Iran. At the time, it was a modern and thriving part of the world. People looked and dressed much like people elsewhere. An organization such as Scouting could thrive and be seen as a positive contribution to society in such an atmosphere.

Then there’s this photo, from much more recently, where women not only look oppressed; they feel it. They want to throw it off, and return to the freedom they had before the oppression.

Women in Iran, October 2019
image found here

There are similar comparisons for Venezuela, before and after socialist reforms imposed by Chavez, and then Maduro. Venezuela had been the wealthiest, most prosperous and forward looking nation in South America. Only about a short decade later, toilet paper shortages are the least of their problems. People are literally starving, while the nation’s wealth has disappeared, offshore, into accounts belonging to the rulers' family members.

Destitution in previously thriving Venezuela
photo by Claudia Guadarrama/Polaris/Newscom, found here

In a 2018 piece on socialism, David Harsanyi says this:

After all, socialism is the leading man-made cause of death and misery in human existence. Whether implemented by a mob or a single strongman, collectivism is a poverty generator, an attack on human dignity, and a destroyer of individual rights.

In both the Iran and Venezuela cases, the implementation of tyranny happened quickly enough that the memory of previous freedom and prosperity remained. But, in time, would the societal memory disappear? Then what?

A comparison of North and South Korea can give us a pretty good look at the differences between relative freedom and tyranny. The ethnicities and cultures started out the same. The dividing line is artificial. The North has almost no access to the outside world, or any news beyond what the government tells its people. And this has been going on for 70 years, pretty nearly a lifespan. In other words, anyone who remembers previous freedoms has probably died off by now. Societal memory is virtually gone.

North Korea, left; South Korea, right
comparison photos found here

In our social media world, we often see funny memes comparing things to olden days—when we didn’t have internet, and phones were connected to the wall, and you went to the library or opened the set of encyclopedias to look up information. Enough of us remember those “olden days” that it’s still societal memory.

Lately there have been memes talking about the good old days of 2019, back when we used to go to restaurants or get together with friends.

I was thinking through these comparisons when a friend posted something about a Scott Adams podcast from Saturday, October 24. My friend pointed us to around minute 16. So I listened. I’ll summarize the data afterward, but it’s fun getting the data a bit at a time, with a tad of misdirection and suspense, as Adams reveals it. So here’s a transcript of that section. He’s talking about national daily polling numbers, by Rasmussen, for black likely voter job approval for the president:

So these are likely voters who are also black, how much they approve of the president. Back on—this is just not long ago; this is October 19th, not that long ago, right? Just last week? Black likely voters have a 25% approval rating for the President, which would be crazy, like off-the-charts crazy. Because he only got like 11% of the vote, so you’d expect his approval would be closer that 10% range, right? 10-11%. But 25%! Last week? That close to the election?

Oh, I’m not done yet. That was last week. So, that was the 19th. On the 20th it dipped a little bit. OK, that’s back to normal; it dipped to 24%. Still really high, but at least you can see it trending down where you’d expect it to trend, right? You kind of expect it to sink back down.

Except, oh, what happened on the 21st? Huh. It reversed directions and went to 31%. What? Thirty-one percent of black likely voters have given the President—who is considered by his enemies the worst person in the world—they’re giving him 31% approval? On the 21st? That was only a few days ago.

But, you know that’s not going to hold, right? That’s the kind of number where, you hear it, and you say, “OK, that’s not gonna hold.” And it didn’t. It didn’t hold.

So, the very next day it was pretty different. It was up to 37 frickin’ percent. Black likely voters, 37% approved of the President, on the 22nd. What’s today? Today’s the 24th. That was only 2 days ago. 37% of the black likely voters approve of the President? What’s happening here?

So, one thing you can say for sure, again, the 25% was crazy, so you didn’t really expect that to hold. But when it reaches 37%, you know that number’s not going to stay there, right? ‘Cause that’s just crazy. It’s not going to stay at 37%. And, indeed, sure enough, the very next day, the 23rd, it changed again by quite a bit—to 46%. Forty-six percent!

I feel like I have to keep reading this again, because you won’t believe you heard it right. Let me say it again, to make sure you heard it right. The national daily black likely voter job approval for the President, according to Rasmussen, went from 25%, which was sky high, on the 19th, just a few days ago, to 24%, 31%, 37%, then 46%.

What the h— is happening? What the h— is happening?

Here it is in quick-to-digest chart form:

National daily black likely voter job approval for the President—Rasmussen polling

date

%

Oct 19

25%

Oct 20

24%

Oct 21

31%

Oct 22

37%

Oct 23

46%

Estimates are that, if Republicans can get 15% of the black vote, they win. So, while job approval doesn’t equal votes, it tends toward that direction—bigly, as the President would say.

Scott Adams went on to speculate about why this is happening. Maybe because of the influence of prominent blacks: 50 Cent for one—who quipped that Biden’s tax increases would make him only 20 Cent. Ice Cube for another, who asked questions of both sides and got better answers from President Trump's side. Also Kanye West—hard to tell whether his write-in campaign is to give blacks a transition alternative away from Democrat Biden, or if he legitimately wants to run, even though he has expressed great approval of President Trump in the past. And former Obama adviser Van Jones said aloud that Trump isn’t getting enough credit for what he is accomplishing for blacks.

All of that could contribute. But Adams has his own theory. He says there’s a crack in the media silo, “the news silo that keeps the left in their bubble—I feel like it cracked.” Actual news is seeping out. He goes on to talk about this theory:

My world view is that our opinions are assigned to us by our chosen media. And if the media you’re absorbing is telling you Trump is a monster, you go away believing it—and you believe you’ve made up your own mind. But you didn’t. And I would say that my world view has all of the scientific backing, that people can be convinced to believe anything, just about anything, if their news source is consistent.

And, so, my world view is completely intact. The people who watch the wrong news get the wrong feeling about the world. The people who watch the correct news, or at least they’re smart enough to recognize fake news when they see it, have not been brainwashed. And that’s it.

And that’s what we see. We see some brainwashed people, some not brainwashed people. It’s all perfectly consistent. And scientifically backed, I would say.

That part where he says “people can be convinced to believe just about anything, if their news source is consistent” brings me back to North Korea, and probably other tyrannies—where memory is gone and current beliefs are controlled by the government. I don’t think North Korean’s know the rest of the world is far and away better off than they are; they see no evidence. 

This past week we saw the blatant partisan media attempt to black out news about the Biden family crime corruption. NPR—which we taxpayers pay for—decided to avoid all mentions of the story, to dismiss it as unproven, even as one source after another comes out. And all the “legacy” media sources blacked it out or repeated the “Russian meddling with our election” line, preventing their followers from even hearing about the story—while all the intelligence say there has been no Russian connection at all.

I continue to wonder about the news related to COVID-19, the virus from China. Why has it been so difficult to get accurate, or even consistent reports? I collect data myself—I’m dependent on government sources, but at least I can see trends for myself. News lately claims we’re in an upsurge in cases right now. But the rates I’m seeing (I ignore cases, except in my own zip code) are essentially flat or lowering slightly, as they have been for months. Death rates are a lagging indicator, so I’ll have to wait to chart that. But here’s the current epi curve chart for cases, on the Harris County Public Health site, looking pretty much the way it has looked for the last couple of months:

Harris County Epi Curve of Cases Over Time, October 26, 2020
image from here

This doesn’t look like a surge in cases. It doesn’t look like we should expect a sharp rise in deaths within a couple of weeks. With the county level still at red, no matter how low the cases and death numbers, it looks like someone is ignoring the data—ignoring the science—to keep us in fear and confusion, and under control.

Who would want to control other people? Tyrants. People who don’t understand that there’s a whole northern hemisphere on the model, where you find freedom, prosperity, and civilization—those people look only at who’s in charge; and they want to either be in charge themselves, or have someone in charge who has promised them special treatment.

I believe the principles of freedom, prosperity, and civilization will work every time they are tried. I see evidence that bears that out. It's in our history. And it's what we see when we examine the truth in real time.

But people who never see that higher possibility are brainwashed to think that no better possibility exists. It looks like intentional blindness to those of us who see, who are trying to show them, mostly without success.

I don’t know what our country is going to look like after this election. I hope we have beautiful freedom and all that comes with it for a good and righteous people.

But if we don’t, I won’t think it’s bad luck; I will see that it is bad choices by tyrannical, corrupt overlords, who managed to get their power—not by telling the truth, but by obfuscation and outright lies.

I'm hoping that Scott Adams is right about a crack in the fake news silo—through which truth will flow. And people who love truth will move toward it, and find that truth is easier to find when their eyes are open.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

Reasons to Vote FOR

In the last post we went over just some of the multitude of reasons to vote against Joe Biden. That list is inexhaustible. But a better approach to life is to be positive, to be for something. So today, ahead of the last debate, we’ll cover some of the very rational reasons to support Donald Trump for President of the United States.


President Trump did an interview with Lesley Stahl
to be aired Sunday, but put out an unedited version ahead of time.
Screenshot from here

Back in 2016, in a conversation with son Political Sphere, we were discussing whether we were never-Trumpers, or whether there would come a day when we would support him. Political Sphere said, sure; all it would take would be for him to follow through on his promises. If he selected constitutional originalist judges, if he lowered taxes, if he got rid of the Obamacare monstrosity, if he built a wall on the southern border, if he could do any number of things to improve our international relations. You get the idea. The thing was, with a background that included being a billionaire playboy, and not much time being a Republican, and plenty of irritating name-calling of Republican opponents, I couldn’t foresee much good; I just hoped he’d at least be better than Hillary, a very low bar.

I remember taking one of those online quizzes to see which candidate of the many Republicans I aligned with; the result was Donald Trump. I was unbelieving. Maybe he said those things, but why should I believe he meant them? After all, we’ve had too much experience with politicians saying things they don’t follow through on.

But President Trump has exceeded expectations. He has earned our support. And I’m glad to give it.

So, here's my list of reasons to vote FOR President Donald Trump, divided into the three spheres of the Spherical Model.


Freedom

Foreign Policy and Military

·       Moved our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Embassy plaque in Jerusalem
photo by Mark Ramsey, found in his
excellent article on why Trump wins


·       Brought about historic Abraham Accord—peace in Middle East

·       Reworked fair trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, South Korea, and Japan, and is holding China accountable for trade abuses.

·       Is holding China accountable for spreading the pandemic, and is removing them from critical supply chain.

·       Closing down Chinese spy rings run out of embassies in Houston and elsewhere in the US.

·       Got NATO allies paying more of their fair share.

·       Eliminated ISIS caliphate, and leaders Al-Baghdadi and Soleimani.

·       Withdrew from the unfair and ineffective Paris Climate Accord; results have been cleaner air and water.

·       Reversed failed Cuba policies; his policies support restoring democracy for Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.

·       Created new branch of the military: Space Force

·       Increased military budget over $700 billion, to increase pay (largest pay raise in a decade) and rebuild supply of ships, planes, missiles, rockets, and equipment.

·       Cleaned out unaccountable failures in the VA: more that 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, or suspended so far.

·       Expanded VA healthcare, with VA Choice Act.

·       Completed over 100 hundred miles of wall structure, with plans to complete 500 more by early 2021.

·       Has succeeded in stemming the flow of illegals coming into our country at the southern border—along with drug and human trafficking problems. Catch-and-release policies curtailed, and Central American countries are cooperating.

·       Working on merit-based immigration policy.

 

Regulations and Healthcare

Kayleigh McEnany presents Lesley Stahl with 
a book containing 13 executive orders and
11 other pieces of healthcare legislation
signed by President Trump.
image from the Washington Examiner

·       Less regulatory state—cut thousands of regulations; among results, US became number 1 producer of oil and natural gas, and became energy independent. (Biden and Harris are both recorded promising to end fracking.)

·       Shut down travel to China in late January, and from Europe shortly afterward—enduring two months of Democrats claiming it was unnecessary and xenophobic; recent reports say this may have saved 500,000 American lives.

·       Resisted top-down policies related to the pandemic—the opposite of authoritarian.

·       Right to Try legislation for terminally ill patients, and used executive order to reduce outrageously high pharmaceutical costs for necessity drugs like insulin.

·       Required healthcare providers to disclose costs of their services.

·       Got rid of the unfunded mandate requirement in Obamacare.

·       Among a book-ful of plans, Trump has expanded short-term, limited-duration health insurance (STLD) plans, allowing more choices at lower costs.

o   Where Obamacare caused insurance premiums to more than double, new plans are 60% less expensive.

o   He protects patients with pre-existing conditions.

 

Justice

Amy Coney Barrett used no notes
during her confirmation hearings
image from New York Post

·       Three Supreme Court justices and more circuit court judges than any president during a first term.

·       Fighting for school choice.

·       Pro-Second Amendment

·       Stands with law enforcement, while encouraging implementation of best practices

·       Makes fighting sex trafficking a priority—more than doubling convictions

·       First Step Act criminal justice bill, making sentencing more sensible and reforming what was disproportionately harming blacks.

·       Continues to “drain the swamp,” suffering impeachment, “Spygate,” “Russian collusion” hoax, a steady stream of lies and accusations—almost all of which the Democrats are actually doing—and continues to allow investigative process to go forward, too slowly to suit him or the rest of us, so that wrongdoers can be held accountable by lawful means.

  

Prosperity

Pre-Pandemic

·       Lower taxes—and the economic boom that followed—within six months the stock market hit all time highs, benefitting Americans’ retirement savings accounts (increases of 60%-100%), adding $12 trillion to the nation’s wealth.

·         7 million new jobs had been created—5 million more than projected—and average unemployment rate was lowest in US history.

·         Record low levels of unemployment: women 65-year low; youth 50-year low; unprecedented low unemployment for blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and also veterans and disabled.

·       Labor participation rates increased 3.5 million (300,000 dropped out during Obama’s administration).

·       Unprecedented levels of economic success for women—which includes powerful women in the president’s own inner circle; women filled 72% of all new jobs in 2019.

·       Poverty rate for blacks lowest ever recorded.

·       7 million were able to come off food stamps (Obama added 10 million), and 10 million lifted off welfare.

·       Doubled child tax credit to $2000 (lifted 4 million+ Americans out of poverty in 2018).

·       Brought back overseas jobs, which helped create 12,000 new factories, and 500,000 manufacturing jobs.

·       Bottom 50% of wage earners increased net worth by 47%—triple the rate of increase for the top 1%. Wages rising fastest for low-income workers.

·       Real median household income reached highest level ever recorded.

Post-Pandemic

·       The pandemic-caused economic downturn is artificial; only state and government policies are keeping the economy suppressed.

·       Regardless of suppression, the economy shows signs of bouncing back, with or without governments opening up.

·       Targeted help for those who are not allowed to run their businesses or work have been prevented by Democrats for political reasons until at least after the election.

 

Civilization

·       Has supported religious liberty, and made federal agencies take action to protect it.

·       He has been the most pro-life president in history.

o   Ended funding for pro-abortion UN Population Fund.

o   First president to address the March for Life, in January 2020.

o   Supports pro-life pregnancy centers, health workers’ conscience rights, working to defund Planned Parenthood.

o   Created Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.

·       In education he supports parental choice and education freedom.

·       He has quashed the spreading of hatred toward America through “critical race theory,” the 1619 Project, and similar anti-American false versions of America’s founding and history.

There are a few things I’d like to add. They probably fit under civilization, but not as bullet points.

If you don’t like his tweets, get off Twitter. Occasionally I’ll hear about a tweet that has stirred up controversy, but in general what he tweets is between him and some audience that doesn’t affect me. And, even among those I see, they’re not profane, they’re not anti-American, they’re not racist or any of the other things he’s accused of. They’re just a shorthand for getting into a conversation, which is possibly necessary when we have media who try to be gatekeepers to what we’re allowed to see.

If you’re not seeing the NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times news filled with the Biden crime family stories I wrote about last time, then you should know you’re being blocked from seeing this known corruption—during an election season—because of media bias.

The same is true if you have heard hardly a word about the Abraham Accord. And, by the way, Bahrain signed on this week.

If you’ve heard on your news sources that President Trump keeps refusing to denounce white supremacy, you’re being lied to. Beside never once ever supporting such a deplorable fringe group of tyrannists, the President has literally been recorded denouncing them over and over again, about 20 times over.

Glenn Beck pointed out

He has single-handedly exposed the press for who they are and have always been. Because of his tweets, personal style and frankly balls of steel, he has exposed those who truly are enemies of the people. I hated that when he first said it, but it is true. Any person or group that knowingly lies to destroy our President, our Constitution, and the free market are not just enemies of the people; they are enemies of the freedom of all mankind.

Because of the lies, there may be other things about the President you’re not getting a clear picture of either. Like, whether he’s presidential. That’s a style question. But let me translate it for you: when people say he’s not presidential, they’re saying he doesn’t play the political games they’re used to. He stands up to them and doesn’t cave to their bullying. Many of us see that as a good thing—finally!

But, have you watched him when there is something ceremonial? Signing the Abraham Accord. Presenting the Medal of Honor. Meeting with Gold Star families. It’s a refreshing change to see a president who actually loves America, who feels the respect for our Constitution, and for all that our flag inspires. No cynicism. Real love of country. The lack of that in the past administration is a sharp contrast. Love of country ought to be a minimum. After missing it, we’re glad to have it back.


President Trump and First Lady
image found here

There are, I think, three really big things to highlight: international relations, particularly the Abraham Accord and shutting down ISIS, thus bringing peace, for now, in the Middle East; economic freedom, allowing Americans to prosper—which it will again once governments allow healthy people to stop quarantining; protection of life and religious freedom.

But everything on today's list is reason to vote FOR the President. Stakes are higher when each and every one of these good things is something the opposition would take away—leaving us with tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

This Election Day vote is FOR the continuation of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. I’m grateful we have a president we can vote for, who is working to bring us those good things.