* * * *
Once you donate to a political candidate, you become inundated
with requests to donate to other candidates.
I have set a limit. You should consider doing that too. Right now, I have limited my
donations to three candidates I favor, Val Demings for Senator and Nikki Fried
for Governor in Florida and Beto O’Rourke for Governor in Texas. But I still get at least a dozen requests
from other candidates every day who identify me as a soft touch.
Consider Writing Postal Cards
One way of really contributing to a candidate’s victory is by sending handwritten postal cards to voters. The impact of a personal, handwritten postal card is tremendous. They work!
Carefully developed lists are available at www.activateamerica.vote at no cost. CLICK HERE to visit their site. They can send you the names and addresses by email and you purchase blank postal cards and stamps, address the cards, write out the suggested messages, and mail them. The races they offer lists for might not be local, but they are all very crucial ones. You can purchase 100 blank postal cards with postage already imprinted on the cards for about $45 at the Post Office or from the USPS website.
The downside of this is that you must be willing to sit down and hand write the cards. It’s easy to send 100 cards when you write five a day for three weeks, as I am currently doing. I did this in 2020 with a Georgia list and feel that I played a significant role in electing Senators Warnock and Ossoff there in their very close races. Consider doing this! Not ready for 100? Then, start with 50.Take a look at www.activateamerica.vote.
Recently, I read a New York Times article pointing out the
growing dichotomy that is forming in our country, more marked (pronounce that
with two syllables) than even the split over slavery in the middle of the
nineteenth century. It encompasses the
role of government regarding abortion, LGBTQ rights, contraception, religious
freedom, voting rights, free speech, education, climate change, health care,
government regulation, law enforcement, drug abuse, how the Constitution governs
us, particularly the role of the Supreme Court and with our failure to deal
with gun violence. On almost all of these issues, the two sides are firmly entrenched in opposition to one another.
This last crucial issue, gun violence, was marked yesterday by another mass
shooting adding to the hundreds of deaths already directly attributable to the
late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2008 opinion grossly misinterpreting the Second
Amendment. Scalia’s complicity in these many murders is shared by the Justices
who agreed with him in D.C. vs. Heller in 2008 and subsequent Justices whose
Second Amendment decisions accepted that as precedent. Blood is on all of their
hands. (The Second Amendment contains 27 words, not just the final fourteen as
Scalia erroneously wrote.)
We cannot close our eyes to this split. It is getting more dangerous every day. With the ‘originalist’ Supreme Court that the defeated former president created with three appointees (each of whom lied in a lawyerly manner during their confirmation hearing), there is little we can do other than vote for those who support democracy in the United States on November 8. There are very few Republicans who fit that description. Their overwhelming defeat in November will depend on a massive turnout of women voters and the votes of persons of color, two groups whose interests the Republican party consistently opposes. Do your part to bring about increased Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress! REGISTER VOTERS, WRITE POSTAL CARDS, TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. Take the step of passing this blog posting on to others. Your action is required, although Thomas Jefferson (see below) might disagree.
JL
Independence Day Comment: I read another interesting article in the New York Times the other day. It pointed out that the United States freed itself from Great Britain by declaring its independence and fighting for it. From this, our nation has developed an attitude of being willing to fight for what it believes to be right. Sometimes this attitude is good, sometimes it is not. Perhaps that is why so many Americans have a love affair with weapons.
The article went on to point out that Canada and Australia all but severed their bonds with Great Britain without fighting wars to accomplish it, as we did in 1776. For all intents and purposes, they are both totally independent nations today, and without the pugnaciousness that our willingness to fight sometimes manifests, gun violence being an example. But would Canada and Australia be free if we hadn’t shown the way by fighting for our independence? Did they benefit from our Revolutionary War?
JL
Thomas Jefferson, who like most of us was not without flaws,
wrote this in a letter to John Taylor in June of 1798, before he became our
third president: ‘a little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches
pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight,
restore their government to its true principles.'
This is advice some might listen to today. But I for one do not agree with it. January 6 proved that the 'reign of witches' does not end easily. You cannot just wait for it to happen.
Jefferson was writing to a North Carolina
friend and the ‘witches’ he referred to were the Federalists from New York, Massachusetts
and Connecticut who controlled the Union.
A Virginian who opposed the Federalists, he told his North Carolinian
friend that he discounted the idea of secession which would only eventually
encourage animosities among those who seceded and recommended just waiting for
things to improve, but he also said not to quote him on this, as that would
only cause trouble.
He concluded his letter with additional words by saying ‘if the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must have patience, till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost. for this is a game where principles are the stakes. Better luck therefore to us all, and health happiness and friendly salutations to yourself. Adieu.’ He then added this cautionary line, ‘P.S. It is hardly necessary to caution you to let nothing of mine get before the public. A single sentence got hold of by the Porcupines will suffice to abuse persecute me in their papers.’
Again, I disagree with the Sage of Monticello! It is true that 'principles are the stakes' but you must stand firmly for them or they will be crushed. That is the lesson of January 6.
 |
| Jefferson |
Historical Context - Jefferson was our first ‘Democratic-Republican’ president, that
party being the ancestor of today’s Democrats.
The Federalists, who were in power, ultimately withered away with some
remnants of them becoming Whigs, who in turn disappeared, to be replaced by
today’s Republican Party.
The conflicts still present today (See 'A House Divided' above) were present from the Republic's founding.
The basic Constitutional conflict between the Parties’ positions regarding a strong central government as opposed to supporting states’ rights bounced back and forth over the years. The Federalists were for a strong central government while Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans and their successor Jacksonian Democrats were for states’ rights. The Whigs included among their grab bag of members those favoring a strong central government. The Republicans, born in the 1850s, more fully took this position. After the Civil War, however, which was fought over this issue, these positions started to very slowly reverse themselves so that by the early twentieth century, Democrats were for a strong central government and Republicans were for states’ rights. That’s the way it is today.
Incidentally, the ‘Porcupines’ to which Jefferson refers in his ‘P.S.’ were the Federalist publicists of the time, as aggressive and as nasty as Fox News today.
JL
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, DON'T FORGET TO LET ME KNOW BY EMAIL. IT IS IMPORTANT.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment