How can you argue politics in 140 characters or less?

Election 2012

IT CAN'T BE DONE. I've gotten trapped into political arguments on Twitter a couple of times these past few weeks. It's my own fault. I blog periodically on political topics. I'll be doing more of it in the coming weeks, until the November election. A blog is an appropriate place for this sort of thing. I have enough space to state my opinion and readers have room to reply. But, in a Tweet? No way. 

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I've had to block a couple of Tweeple. I don't mind that they disagree. That's what politics is all about. It's just that they were frustrated by their inability to sway me and became insulting. That sort of behavior gets you blocked.

I know I shouldn't argue politics. I'm not. I'm not even of a mind to debate. I don't expect to sway anyone's opinion any more than I expect them to sway mine. We've become too polarized for that. My sole objective is to motivate people to vote. They need to vote. This election is too important for people to neglect.

What's so important? Listen to the new alternatives. The Democrats are not the same party I joined when I turned twenty-one and registered the first time back in 1964. Not by a long shot. I joined the party of Truman and Kennedy. (Well, to be honest, I joined them to piss off my father.) Still, they became the party of Eugene McCarthy, The Rainbow Coalition. What was that? Simply, the strategy of Eugene McCarthy and the Democratic nominees thereafter was to abandon all principles and appeal to a coalition of disparate voting blocs: Blacks, Jews, Feminists, Gays, Lesbians, Environmentalists, whatever and whomever. It didn't matter if these groups held antithetical positions, they would find something that appealed to them in the Democratic Party.

Now, before you hit the “comment” button and start castigating me, please take note that I'm not too happy with the Republicans either. They aren't the party of Lincoln any more than the Democrats are the party of the Ku Klux Klan. Remember, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1966 by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats led by a Southern Democrat, President Lyndon B. Johnson. Also, don't forget it was a Senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, who opposed civil rights legislation during the 1950s.

Actually, the Republicans held a majority of the Congress in just one session during my adult lifetime. They were elected on the promise, A Contract With America, to bring federal spending under control. They were able to honor that promise during just one term, and then began spending like drunken Democrats.

Now, when they have the ability to take out a sitting President on just one issue, the economy, they muddy the waters with irrelevant, controversial issues: Abortion, religion, etc. Good luck with that.

If you've resisted the urge to comment thus far, you've come to my real message. Every Presidential election since 1964 has been decided by those who didn't vote. During that same period, Americans have become increasingly agitated with whichever candidate was elected. In recent years, opponents have castigated Presidents Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and Obama relentlessly. Indeed, the level of rancor has been elevated with every one of them.

The bottom line is that if you didn't vote, you should have the decency to shut up! Given the declining percentage of qualified voters who actually made it to the polls, that should lower the level of vitriol significantly.

I believe that the vast majority of voters have too much common sense to vote for a party that is hell bent on exacerbating the problems with the economy even further by waging class warfare and spending us into oblivion. They replaced a broken health care system with the illusion of a system, one that every competent authority predicts is bankrupt before it gets started. I also believe that they will only tolerate the Republican alternative until they either reverse the trend or can be run out of office themselves. They won't have four years to do the job. They'll only have two, until the next Congressional elections, to show progress, or out they go, too.

The problem with the majority is that they simply aren't all that interested in politics. They tend to look at all of the hullabaloo over Obama and shrug. They listen to the Republican promises and say, “Yeah, sure.” They're too busy trying to circumvent government regulations, looking for a few scraps of money that the government hasn't already taxed, borrowed, or spent, to build a business.

It's time that the majority wake up and take back their country.

Look at the facts. It's all there in our history. Government did not build this nation. People built it. Indeed, they came to this new land to escape government. They created the greatest economy the world has ever seen. They rose into the ranks of middle class in numbers that the world has never known. They put their own interests aside when needed to win wars, and help victims of natural disasters and personal tragedies. They did it on their own and as communities. These trends have reversed ever since the government got in the way.

Ever since government intruded into business and charity, both have suffered. America, once the world's most generous nation, is now ranked far down the list. Obama's campaign committee brags that they saved General Motors. The majority knows that isn't so. General Motors hovers on life support until the government runs out of money, and that won't be long in coming.

You may disagree with me. I don't care. I don't expect that you will convince me any more than I will convince you. Let's just agree to disagree. However, for those of you who agree, don't stay home. Don't let the cult that worships personality choose our next President. You have to vote. You have to save this country. Please, vote.