Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Don't swallow political labels: do your own research and draw your own conclusions.

As my 27th and final year directly involved in political campaigns has ended with my retirement from those endeavors, I've learned a great deal along the way about communications generally and labeling particularly.

"Labeling" is an important aspect of the political game.  We, as Americans use labels, apply labels... love labels for their descriptive power and their simplicity.

And, of course, we've allowed ourselves to be misled by labels since they also make us lazy and cause us to check boxes in our lives instead of doing the work, digging down and getting to what's real... and what isn't.

Politicians use labeling as the major component of defining their opponent or their issue(s).  Leftist political thought, for example, is based essentially on lies, exaggeration and personal animus designed to achieve one goal and one goal only: political advantage.

Just recently, that thug of a US Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid (democrat - Nevada) acknowledged that he lied on the floor of the US Senate in his efforts to define Mitt Romney.  That goes to the heart of the matter: there is no lie a politician won't tell to get what they want.  The lies plague the political spectrum on all sides and positions... and in many instances, labeling = lies, since all of it is done to achieve some goal... a mind set... an attitude.

I'm as guilty of this sort of thing as the next guy.  I apply labels of a descriptive nature to a wide variety of those in the political realm.

However, the labels I apply are labels earned.  My labeling is a result of research and analysis of the political reality; not what those in the cross hairs want you to believe, but instead, what they really, truly, genuinely are.

My motives are in no way to achieve some benefit for me as an individual.  In fact, my labeling has caused me a great deal of personal pain as I oppose family members politically.  But I simply cannot brook any favoritism merely because you happen to be married to my wife's sister.

When, for example, I point out that Molehill Moeller is a fringe-left whack job, I don't apply that banner for any personal political gain... I'm not running against him or anyone else... ever.  No one is paying me to point out his arrogance, animus, self-aggrandizement, lies, exaggerations and complete lack of concern about the will of the people.

Those labels and that definition are based on 20 years of observation and analysis and watching that clown work.

And that's the thing concerning labels.

I have this really, really odd idea about what representative government is SUPPOSED to be.

I've seen, in my experience, non-representative government in action... such as, among others, East Germany for example.

And I grew to hate it with an unrivaled passion.  I grew to hate what they did and how they did it.  And many of the governing principles are being applied here... at all levels... today.

My emphasis in the writing I've done here for the past decade has been the continuation and constant drumbeat of the importance of representative government... what it means and how we're losing it.

When we elect someone to an office, their responsibility to our will doesn't end with the night of the election.

They continue to be responsible to us and our will for the entirety of their time and tenure IN office.

That's a relatively simple concept to grasp.  But what happens on the part of many is that the longer they're in office, the further away from that will those people elected become.

Recently, for example, the Majority Leader of the US House of Representatives was tossed out on his keister in the primary by a guy no one had ever heard of who'd been outspent something on the order of 25 to 1.

Eric Cantor was the victim of his own distance from those he was tasked to represent.

And the longer he was in office, the further from that collective will he became.  As a result, he became the first sitting Majority Leader to ever lose in a primary.

The first.

In history.

Cantor's defeat SHOULD have been a clarion call to every elected official in the country... if not the world, at least in the true democracies.

You CAN be replaced.

I've long since failed to be moved by party labels.

While the RINO's among us, for example, would have us blindly follow ANY Republican, claiming that we MUST have GOP control of the US Senate and House, and the State Senate and House, here's where I point out that the differences between democrat control and GOP control ultimately have proven far to few to come close to being worth the effort.

No change has been implemented as a result of GOP control of the US Senate.

Obama is still using the laws and our Constitution as his own personal roll of toilet paper.

He's still, essentially, getting what he wants at our expensive, causing damage that will remain unrepairable during the entirety of our children's children's lifetimes.

So, what was the point?

The GOP State Senate wants us to be giddy about the general fund budget, but it's the GOP that's attempting to increase our gas tax the largest amount in our state's history to make it close to if not THE highest gas tax in the country while Clark County gets a few crumbs compared to Puget Sound's 12 course feast.  ($160-$200 million out of $15 BILLION)

The GOP State Senate did nothing to hold the liars behind the pot scam accountable for their lie of a campaign... except, of course, to cut their campaign-promised pot tax of $582 million a year of revenue in half  (A STILL impossibly high number for the liars to ever meet)... and how is THAT going to "fix all of our budget problems?"

These things are, of course, facts.  In presenting these facts, I apply labels and definitions.

These are all subject to the eye of the beholder.  But with a degree in government (Political Science) as a former state party executive director and a veteran of 6 years on legislative staff with precisely ZERO personal benefit to gain from any of this, I would venture to say that my view on these issues is the absolute least biased analysis you're likely to see.

For example, Chuckie Green is using the sheep he's running at the C3G2 hate site for his own personal political gain, since he's going to destroy himself politically with their help this November... presuming even a half-competent campaign from his opponent.

That's been the basis for his hatred of David Madore generally all along: so he can use his fellow haters as a political trampoline.  Think in terms of Jon Russell sucking in those poor people in Culpeper, VA.

It's a plain as the nose on your face.

So, do yourself a favor: do your own research.  Draw your own conclusions.

And when someone like Marc Boldt claims he's going to run for county council chair as a "conservative Republican," give yourself CPR, regain your breathing, laugh yourself hysterical, and call that lie out for what it is.

And then remember why he was kicked out of the GOP in the first place... and that had he, in fact, taken the conservative Republican approach to the CRC/Light Rail scam and the CTran taxing district, he would never had lost in the first place and he'd still BE a county commissioner.

Labels, then, are meaningless.  In politics, they're meant to portray something and make it easy(er?) to understand.

But that does not make them true or accurate.  And you, as the governed, have only yourself to blame if you fall for, say, a label scam like Jaime Herrera is a Republican or Tim Sheldon is a democrat or Brandon Vick was REALLY on 6 different committees.

The responsibility for your gullibility rests entirely with you.