Friday, August 19, 2016

Pulling the Plug


When last I was in this space I was working hard to build a case about the almost total lack of voter fraud in this country. Voter fraud, of course, is multiple voting by an individual or voting in a district in which one is not registered or otherwise voting fraudulently. It is rare, rare, rare, not an issue at all and certainly not one to excite the passions of conservatives to the point they should pass bills in many states to ostensibly stop voter fraud but actually targeting Democrats and especially racial and ethnic minorities. There is no frigging voter fraud to amount to, certainly dozens of cases at most in a country with hundreds of millions of citizens-- and if you believe otherwise I won't say you're a fool, but I will say you have absolutely no regard for data, for facts, or for common sense and are easily misled.

I was then going to build a case for ELECTION fraud, meaning systematic attempts to prevent people from voting by gerrymandering, passing absurd voter ID laws, or intimidating or misleading voters. There's one HELL of a lot of election fraud going on, and I was going to document it.

But just as I was ready to wind up the there-is-no-voter fraud-problem-in-this-country part of my clever plan I ran out of steam. I just couldn't make myself come here-- for months and then for years. I wasn't sure why. Now I know why.

The problem was I was absolutely wasting my time in a country which has perfected and excused buffoonerly, in which lies have come to have precedence over truth, in which boasting and bluffing trumps (pardon the intentional pun) data, and in which facts mean nothing at all. That was why I was psychologically unable to proceed.

So this is my last post. It makes no sense to talk sense when nonsense is the political currency of the day. When politicians go out of their way to out-absurdify one another (and yeah, I'm not sure adsurdify is a word either, but if it isn't it should be), when there is no regard for and a disdain for data, for the truth, it's time to exit stage left.

Maybe I'll check in again when the no-nothings have earned their Darwin Awards.