TURNING BACK THE CLOCK AN HOUR—OR A CENTURY?

As should be painfully obvious by now, it’s election time.  With a total of 16.7 billion dollars spent on advertising, it’s pretty hard to escape the biased campaigning coming from all sides.

By now, I hope that all of you have voted.  Most states have provisions for early voting, or vote by mail, and we need to be exercising this right.  Nothing in the constitution says that in order to vote you are required to stand in line for an hour in the rain, while someone wearing a camouflaged mask, body armor, and carrying an assault rifle glares at you.

No, it’s your voice that’s important.  And how you express it—either in person or by early ballot—should be no one’s damn business but yours.

So it you’ve voted, all of what I’m about to say may be old news.  But because it relates to the future of our nation, it’s still important.

If you are voting Republican, you’re more likely to cite inflation and crime as your primary concerns.  You believe inflation is out of control, and it’s because of Joe Biden’s policies.  You believe Democrats are “soft” on crime, and that crime rates are out of control—especially in states run by Democrats.

If you’re voting Democratic, you’re more likely to be concerned about efforts to criminalize anything to do with abortion, and the risk to health care and our national infrastructure.

But regardless of how you vote, I hope you’re just as deeply concerned about the rising tide of hatred, suspicion, and disunity that threatens our very existence.  As I mentioned in my first post An Open Letter to the People of the United States, these things are a far greater threat to our national existence than any foreign power.

So let’s take a hard look at some of these pressing issues.  It won’t be pretty, and some of you may disagree.  That’s OK, as long as we are thinking and talking about these things, rather than shooting at one another.

 Health Care—I won’t belabor the point.  Republicans say we have the best health care system in the world.  Any honest doctor will tell you we don’t.  Our safety net is fraying, people are going without care, and even people with insurance may face bankruptcy from medical bills.  This isn’t a snowball going downhill, it’s an avalanche that will eventually crush us. 

You don’t have to read my book.  Just check this post by Dr. Josh Freeman from the University of Kansas at his Medicine and Social Justice site for more details.  Premiums are up, people are dying and insurance companies are making out like bandits . 

The Republican approach is that the “free market” will somehow fix this.  It hasn’t.  And it won’t.

Medicare and Social Security—Both of these programs are paying out money faster than they are bringing it in. That’s not sustainable.

Democrats have proposed securing additional funding from other sources (nobody pays into social security on the basis of their stock market profits, for example) to fully fund these programs.

Republicans have proposed cutting benefits and raising the age to qualifying for benefits.  That won’t hurt high rollers, but it’s going to impact people who’ve struggled their whole lives.  The rationale that eligibility age should go up because people are living longer needs to be reassessed, too.  Life expectancy in America isn’t increasing, it’s decreasing.  One more bit of evidence that America is backsliding.

Which of these two approaches is best?  Your vote will decide.

Inflation—As the impact of the COVID pandemic slammed the world’s economy, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent food prices soaring, inflation has taken its toll.  Most recently in the U.S., it has hit 8.2%.  Gas prices are down substantially from their peak, but other prices continue to rise.

Republicans contend this is all Joe Biden’s fault.  Their reasoning is that COVID relief programs were too generous, leading to “too much money” floating around, which has in turn led to an inflationary spiral.

Sorry, but this doesn’t hold water.  Many other countries that didn’t have programs nearly as generous as ours are seeing even higher inflation.  Britain recently hit 10.1%.  The entire Euro zone averages 10.7%.  And be glad you don’t live in Turkey, which checks in at a cool 80% inflation rate.

As a reminder, Joe Biden isn’t president of any of those nations.  Even the ones with higher inflation.

The real question isn’t so much what our economy is like compared to two years ago.  It’s where would we be if the Republicans were in charge?  Somehow miraculously better?  The same?  Or possibly even worse than European countries?  That’s what no one seems to want to consider.

Crime—In the past year, the overall crime rate has increased, although violent crime is down.  Republicans have always made hay by saying Democrats are “soft” on crime.  But most crimes are state-to-state issues.  So where are the most violent crimes occurring?

Basically, in Republican controlled states.  The seven states with the highest murder rates are all solidly Republican, with Mississippi leading the way.  My old home state of Missouri comes in fourth, which shouldn’t be surprising.  Among all major American cities, St. Louis’s murder rate is the highest, with Kansas City consistently in the top ten.

It’s hard to make a valid argument that Democrats in Washington are responsible for crimes that should be at the forefront of Republican-led state legislature’s agendas. And according to some analysis, the most rapid post-pandemic rises in crime have occurred in rural areas, rather than cities.

Without a doubt, there are things we can do to better address crime.  Police officers need better training and certainly better pay for the risks they must take.  Prisons need more focus on rehabilitation and not just a “lock-em-up and let ‘em out when they’ve served their time” approach.  Violent criminals should be the focus, rather than minor violations.

In Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was the poster-child for “get tough” policies.  He made prisoners sleep in tents in the desert, wear pink underwear, and eat lousy food.  His thinking was if you make incarceration tough enough, no one will break the law again.

It didn’t work.  His prisoners committed just as many crimes when they got out as did prisoners who hadn’t received the “special” treatment.

Take your pick.  A focus on improved training, compensation, and rehabilitation, or a focus on just building more prisons and locking more people up until they’re released to go back to criminality?  Your vote will decide.

Women’s Health? or Abortion!Abortion!Abortion! (Select one, depending on your view)—This pretty much sums up the two official positions of the political parties.  I’ve already talked about abortion here.  But it’s important to keep in mind that many of the same voices that scream about abortion being murder also want to restrict access to birth control, cut funding for women’s health, hold women to a different standard than men (think that big orange-haired guy who brags about his sexual conquests), and slash benefits to pregnant women and children.

I don’t think I have to paint a picture about which Party takes which of these positions.

Climate—The earth is warming significantly, glaciers are melting, weather is being disrupted, “thousand year” floods and hurricanes are now happening every few years instead, and lives are being destroyed.  Mosquitos resistant to insecticides are rapidly spreading through Africa and bringing with them soaring malaria rates.  These critters could well wind up in the U.S., too.

Sorry, but building a wall won’t keep any of them out.

According to Democrats, we’ve kicked the can down the road too long and need to address the threat.  According to Republicans, the economic costs are too great, and besides, it’s not real anyway.

Who’s right?  You’ll decide that with your vote.  But remember, it’s only your children’s and grandchildren’s future that hangs in the balance.

Science—I’m going to be blunt.  I’ve got pretty strong feelings about this.  I’ve devoted my life to science.  My inspirations were my high school science teachers, L.D. Young and T.J. Beach.

Science and scientific research helped us win the Cold War, raise our standard of living, and basically change the world.  It has the potential to transform our energy requirements, protect our environment, and improve our health.  But we have to follow the evidence instead of what we want to “believe.”  Millions of lives have been saved by vaccines.  Millions more have been lost because of lies told about vaccines.

One party wants to fund scientific research, give scientists the latitude to explore their fields, and allow scientific education to permeate our schools.

The other party wants to cut funding, demand that scientists not research fields that conflict with conservative political “beliefs,” and severely restrict what scientific facts can be taught in our schools.

Once again, I don’t think I have to tell you which party is which.

There are plenty more issues that divide the two parties, but I think this will do for now.  In general, mid-term elections are no big deal, and the turn-out isn’t great.  But this year the stakes are much higher.

There are no elections on the face of the earth that the world follows more closely than those in the United States.  On Tuesday, the world will again be watching.  What direction will America take, and how will it impact billions of others on the planet?  The world watches and waits.

Early Sunday morning, Daylight Savings Time goes away.  We’ll set things back an hour.

Fine.  But on Tuesday, will we set things back a hundred years?