Author: Michael A. Ventrella

by

Why you should always vote

It seems strange to me that I have to defend voting against people who argue with a straight face that you shouldn’t — either because “your vote doesn’t matter” or “no one represents me”.

Trust me — your vote matters. That’s why they spend so much money trying to get it. That’s why Republicans try so hard to keep Democrats from voting.vote-button

And there are good candidates out there. Quite often they don’t make it past the primaries because people don’t vote. People don’t pay attention. They don’t get involved; they don’t read about the elections, and then when the election rolls around, they say “Hey, no one represents me” — which might not have happened had they done something about it.

I am involved in my local party. I go to meetings, I encourage candidates to run, and I’ve even run for a minor office myself (and won). I read about politics, I write about politics, and I contribute to politicians I like. And I vote. And because of this, I have a say in who these candidates are. I can affect the results.

Complaining that no one represents you in an election when you are doing absolutely nothing to change that seems like whining to me. And you know you’re going to end up with one of them, so at least vote for the lesser of the two.  Surely one represents your views better than the other one.

Democracy means we are the government. We, the people. We have a say in what our government does. The candidates answer to us, not the other way around.  They represent us.  They are not the government, we are.

If you don’t participate, then they ignore you. And then you get what you deserve.

The people who do vote (which are pretty much always Republicans) win elections, and then the stupid Democrats think “Guess we should be more like Republicans” and move to the right. Whereas if we voted in the same number as Republicans, we would win many of the elections and no one would be saying that. But because we stay at home, our candidates lose. So what do their campaign managers say then? “We need to appeal to those people who do vote, not those who sit at home and complain without doing anything.”

It’s not going to change from the top. It has to change from us at the bottom. And complaining without action changes nothing.

by

Editorial cartoon: All right — we’ll call it a draw

Mike Peters

by

Winning Elections by Cheating: The Gerrymandering way!

Ohio is a lot like Pennsylvania in that the Republicans have gerrymandered the state so much that even though more Democrats vote in the state than Republicans, the GOP wins the vast majority of seats.

This isn’t democracy. This isn’t “one man, one vote.” They’re not winning by having a majority agree with them or want them in there. This is winning by rewriting the rules in your favor.

Fortunately, Ohio has a ballot measure that would require a bipartisan council to fix the districts (like California has done). Let’s hope it passes.

The_Ohio_Gerrymander

It’s time the Supreme Court held that gerrymandering violates the Constitution by preventing proper representation. We need impartial committees using computer-generated models. Seriously, we have the programs to do it now. A computer just looks at population and natural barriers and makes districts compact and reasonable. (Here, look at these examples).

But this is the Republican way of winning elections these days. You create districts that disenfranchise Democrats; you pass “voter protection” laws that keep them from voting; and you get the courts to declare that secret unlimited money is “free speech”.

“Republicans will do everything they can to win elections except get the most votes.” – Bill Maher

by

Editorial cartoon: Election season

Matt Bors

by

“You must pledge to support the laws of this land that I don’t agree with!”

Here we go again.

Another teacher is in trouble for demanding that a student participate in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, but this time it’s the teacher’s response that makes me giggle.

The student refused because the pledge contains the words “Under God” and stated (correctly) that it is illegal to force someone to say the pledge. The teacher replied, “I don’t care about the law.”

The Justice League saying the Pledge of Allegiance from a comic book in the 40s. Notice something missing?

The Justice League saying the Pledge of Allegiance from a comic book in the 40s. Notice something missing?

Got it? The teacher wants to teach respect to our country and wants everyone to pledge allegiance to that country while at the same time ignoring the very laws of that country.

The teacher then called her “disrespectful.” Let’s see — which one said that people should ignore the laws of this country? Was it the student?

Such a patriotic attitude this teacher has! (Insert comic German accent) “You vill obey und salute the government. Ve do not allow individual thought here!”

This is America — where we don’t force people to love the government. After all, of what use is a forced pledge? If someone forces you to say something against your will, what’s the point? How is it meaningful? Does the irony not hit people? “We are forcing you to pledge against your will — for freedom!!!”

The United States Supreme Court held that no one could be forced to say the pledge over fifty years ago in a case involving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who persuasively argued that such a pledge violated their religious beliefs concerning worshiping objects or something.

I am always amused by patriots who want to force Americans to do things like this — which seem to me to be one of the most unAmerican thing you can do. Say the pledge because you mean it, and not because you have to. That’s true patriotism.

Much of the debate against the pledge would be neutralized if we could just remove the “under God” part that was added in the 50s. (I personally just remain silent whenever it comes to those words.) Wouldn’t it be nice to have a pledge that includes all Americans? Isn’t that what America is supposed to be about?

by

Editorial cartoon: We’re done here…

benghazi

David Horsey

by

What IS “Democratic Socialism” anyway?

Many people are criticizing Bernie Sanders for being a “democratic socialist” without having the slightest idea what that term means.

scream-socialism

cartoon by Matt Weurker

Let’s try to simplify things.

There are two sets of terms to know:  economic and political. A government has both.

Economic

Capitalism. This is where the market decides and government stays out of it. No minimum wage, no health inspections, no laws against discrimination, no regulations on business at all. This doesn’t work, because you end up with the powerful running everything, destroying the economy, and keeping people in poverty.

Communism. This is where the government runs business. The idea is that we should all live together in peace and harmony and share everything, and the President earns the same amount as the guy who sweeps the street. This also doesn’t work, because it completely destroys initiative and any reason to try to improve yourself.

Socialism. This is where most countries are, somewhere between the two extremes. Here, the government regulates business to prevent the abuses capitalism can bring, and provides many services (libraries, hospitals, parks, fire departments, social security, unemployment, etc.) that pure capitalism would have private businesses provide (if they felt like it; pure capitalism would never require a business to provide something it doesn’t want).

This is the tough balance to meet. You don’t want to go too far in either direction, and most of the debate in the US is over how far to go — but honestly, even the most conservative politician agrees with some socialism (they’ll never admit that, though).

Political

Democracy.  This is where the people decide, usually through representative democracy or republicanism.

Totalitarianism.  This is a dictatorship, whether individually controlled (North Korea) or committee controlled (China). Once more, there are degrees here as well as various types (monarchy, fascism, oligarchy). But the key thing they all have in common is that the decision-making power is not with the people.

What usually happens is that people confuse the economic with the political. The Soviet Union was a communist country but was also a totalitarian country, and people started associating the two. This is wrong. You could have a democratic communist country. And despite what the Soviet Union would have had you believe with their propaganda, Karl Marx supported democracy.

It’s even more confusing when countries lie about themselves. Just because you call yourself “the Democratic Republic of Vietnam” doesn’t mean you are a democratic republic, any more than China is the “people’s republic.” The Soviet Union was indeed a communist country, but it was a corrupt one because you know perfectly well that not everyone shared equally in that society.

So when Bernie Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist” he is making it clear that politically, he agrees with democracy (the people decide) and economically, he agrees with socialism (government works for the people).

Disclaimer:  This is a really quick and simple explanation and is meant to be a guideline and a start for conversation. And it’s also mostly from an old post I did about two years ago, so if you have a long memory, it may be familiar.  

by

Editorial cartoon: Hillary and the Benghazi Committee

hillary

Clay Bennett

by

Republicans proud of their dishonesty

It’s one thing to be a dishonest person; it’s quite another to be proud of that fact.

For many Republicans, they revel in their dishonesty, partially because they think they’re so clever for getting away with their evil schemes.dr-evil

I’m serious here. Forget about all the “death panel” lies and other crap they’ve said in the past about Obamacare — just look at a few examples from the last few months.

Take Kevin McCarthy, who admitted that the Benghazi hearings were indeed not meant to find out the truth, but were just partisan attacks on Hillary Clinton in an attempt to knock her approval ratings down. Oops! He lost his chance to be Speaker of the House not because Republicans were upset that he said this, but instead that he admitted that their stated reason for the hearings was a lie.

Then there’s all those movements to make it harder for Democrats to vote. “It’s to prevent fraud!’ they say, despite the fact that your chance of finding voter fraud is less than your chance of being hit by lightning. Every once in a while, a Republican will slip and admit the real reason. The Republicans don’t then come out and say, “Okay, you caught us, our bad, we really were lying all the time.” Nope, they double down and hope that everyone forgets the Man Behind the Curtain.

Even the Planned Parenthood attacks aren’t just about abortion — sometimes it’s just plain old Christian puritan ethics. There have been plenty of Republicans who blame the problem on “loose women” (it’s never the men’s fault in these situations; apparently the women are getting pregnant all by themselves). They lie by fabricating fake videos (and then double down and repeat the lie when the truth is exposed) and at a recent anti-abortion rally, the guest speaker admitted that they were fighting against sin: “The kind of sexual ethic that Planned Parenthood promotes is sex for recreation, sex for mere pleasure.”

And that’s what it’s about. At today’s Benghazi hearings — one of many that have produced absolutely nothing yet spent millions of taxpayer dollars — we’re seeing more of it.

The good news is that the public knows this. 75% of Americans know this is just a Republican witch hunt. People can see through the lies.

But the Republicans don’t care.

by

Editorial cartoon: Color blinded

Darrin Bell