Wake Up America

The polarization of American politics today has gotten to such an extreme, or we might say, fallen to such a low, that there is very little that Congress can actually accomplish.

It seems the Republican Party is controlled by the extreme right-wing conservative politicians. Likewise, the Democrat Party is controlled by the left-wing liberal politicians.

There is way too much negativity on the part of both major political parties. Each only seems to be able to voice what they are against, not what they are for. This attitude prevents either party from effectively legislating for the good of the total constituency of the nation. It’s what my Grandmother used to call ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face.’

It is my firm belief that the vast majority of Americans fall in the middle fifty per cent of a ‘conservative verses liberal’ scale or spectrum. The two twenty-five percentage groups on either end of the scale are the ones currently running the show.

There is no room for compromise on virtually any issue facing America. Compromise can only occur in Congress when ‘reasonable’ elected officials, put aside petty partisan politics, and strive, their dead level best, to come up with solutions for the common good.

There is growing evidence that the American electorate is becoming less and less enamored with the current two party system. In fact there is a growing distaste for Republicans and Democrats and their hard-line inflexible ideology and unwillingness to compromise.

In fact, Independents or non-affiliated voters, outnumber Republicans or Democrats in total registration in at least eleven states. This is the fastest growing segment of the electorate in the country.

The importance of the independent vote was forcefully demonstrated in the recent election of Republican Scott Brown to fill the unexpired seat of the late Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, a state that is usually considered very liberal, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-1 margin.

The most eye-opening aspect of this special election was the voter turnout. It is true that Republican Brown got most of the Republican votes and Democrat Martha Coakley received most of the Democratic votes, but the election was determined by the Independents. Yes, Independents, the middle-of-the-roaders, those with no party affiliation.

For you see, 46 per cent of the voters in Massachusetts are registered Independents, with 35 per cent being Democrats, and only 19 per cent registered as Republicans.

Traditionally, Independent candidates or ‘third party’ candidates, those who ran as neither, Democrats nor Republicans, were more or less seen as election ‘spoilers’. They could only sway enough votes to, perhaps, hurt one of the major candidates’ chances to win.

This was due mostly due to the way the national election process is set up with the Electoral College. A winner-take-all system whereby a single candidate gets all the electoral votes, at least in most states.

Only three times has a third party candidate received a significant number of electoral votes. They were when John C. Breckenridge, in 1860 received 72 votes running as a Southern Democrat; Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, received 88 electors as a Progressive candidate; and George Wallace, as an American Independent, received 46 electoral votes in 1968.

Ross Perot in 1992, running as a Reform Party candidate, received nearly 19 per cent of the total votes cast, but won no electors.

There are still several so-called third parties. They include the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, the Reform Party, the Constitutional Party, the Socialist Party, and a number of others.

These parties usually are devoted to one or a few special issues that are not of primary concern to the two larger parties. I don’t feel that they will make any significant in-roads in the near future.

However, nationwide, the voters are registered as approximately 43 per cent registered Democrats, 33 per cent registered Republicans, and 25 per cent Independents.

It is this 25 per cent of Independents, along with the 25 per cent moderate Democrats and the 25 per cent of the moderate Republicans that are going to win elections and govern this nation.

The sooner the extreme elements of the political party spectrum realizes this, the better off all Americans will be. There is no room for politicians that are more interested in their extreme party ideology than they are the good of America. We need elected officials who will put this country first.

To quote Gary Burbank’s redneck character, Earl Pitts: “Wake up, America.”

Americans Must Fly Safely

One of our son travels extensively throughout the world in his job. His family flies frequently, too. Our other son has been to Europe a few times and will soon be travelling to Costa Roca on a mission trip. Our daughter has made some trips to Europe as well. My wife and I have traveled both for work and pleasure.
We have entertained guests in our home from Korea, Japan, Zimbabwe, Latvia, Albania, Afghanistan, Denmark, Ireland and England.

Airline safety is a concern, not just to the rich and famous, but to everyone in America and the world. We live in a highly mobile society. In this 21st Century in which we find ourselves living, there seems to be two main issues concerning safety in the skies. They are terrorism by means of hijacking and airport security privacy.

Airplane hijacking goes back as far as many people alive today can remember. The first attempted hijack of a commercial US airliner took place in 1961.
Those hijackers, for whatever reason, were seeking asylum in Cuba. These relatively ‘benign’ hijackings became so frequent during the 1960’s that the phrases ‘Take me to Havana’ or ‘Take this plane to Cuba’ became part of the American culture.

I can even remember in Korea in 1968 when an intoxicated US soldier boarded a public bus near the DMZ loudly exclaiming “Take this bus to Cuba” before passing out among the Korean peasants on their journey to Seoul.
Much work was done in an effort to stop the hijackings and following the 1974 Anti-hijacking Act, the number of hijackings did, in fact, fall sharply, especially in the US.

However, in the 1980’s Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. These hijackers were found to be from the Libyan intelligence community and were convicted of the crime. The Libyan government formally accepted the blame for this tragedy a few years later.

Hijacking reached a new ‘low’ when on September 11, 2001; Middle Eastern Muslim terrorists took control of four commercial planes with devastating results. Two of these airliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New Your City, one into the US Military’s Pentagon in the Washington DC area, and a fourth airliner, thought to be headed for Washington, was forced to crash in a rural field in Pennsylvania.

Of the 19 hijackers who directly participated in the horrific attacks on September 11, 2001, fifteen hailed from Saudi Arabia, three from the United Arab Emirates, and one from Lebanon. The masterminds of this tragedy were a terrorists group named al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, who was born in Yemen.

Following this devastating event, the US Government transferred responsibility for airline safety from the Federal Aeronautics Administration (FAA) to the newly organized mega-cabinet entity of Department of Homeland Security, currently chaired by Janet Napolitano.

Significant strides toward safety have been accomplished. Only two life-threatening occurrences have since been noted. Once, when Richard Reid (aka Abdul Raheem) who trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, tried to explode a bomb in his shoe. And again, when Umar Faroak Abdulmutallab tried to explode a bomb in his underclothing just recently on a flight from Yemen.

I am the ultimate champion of an individual’s rights in this country. I think we should do everything within our power to protect these rights (i.e. voting, right to bear arms, and others constitutionally guaranteed). But, I think the majority has a ‘limited prerogative’ to defend and make America safe from all those who choose to do us harm. We are in a state of war according to our former and current presidents. Not a declared war, but war, none the less.

I certainly oppose any policy that would place innocent individuals into an ‘internment situation’ such as was experienced by many Japanese-Americans during World War Two. I believe it is too easy to forget civil liberties in times of national unrest, fear, and insecurity.

I am against racial profiling, generally speaking, but when 100 percent of the 9 -11 hijackers, 100 percent of the USS Cole attackers, and 100 percent of the most recent attempted airplane explosions, are of Middle Eastern heritage, training and beliefs, it is only prudent to observe those individuals more closely.
In today’s circumstances, any law-abiding, peace-loving, rationally-thinking person of Middle Eastern descent, or any other individual for that matter, should welcome the opportunity to aid all attempts of safety for the public.

If I go to an airport and am singled out for closer scrutiny either electronic, visually, or manually, I say “bring it on.” Any right I have or even perceive as having, ENDS where it interferes with another person’s safety and right to life.