A couple days ago I wrote this:
What happens next? I’ve no fucking idea. You don’t either. Nobody does. It’s a black swan situation because the normal options just aren’t working.
One future event I didn’t think to add was “maybe people will get their head out of their ass and see to it this level of fuckery doesn’t happen again“. It’s a distinct possibility.
If I’d said that innocuous statement on November 4th 2020, it would have been unlikely. The press would assume I’m a FOX watching Orange Man dittohead and desperately search for a Twitter account (which I don’t have) to censor. If I’d said the same innocuous statement on January 6th 2021, I’d be unfairly painted as a shithead terrorist who should be beaten by a big rubber Karl Marx dildo. The press would desperately search for a Facebook account (which I don’t use) to censor. Now it’s June 2021. The innocuous yet heretical idea is not even “goofy” in June. It’s how things are going in 2021.
We’re watching one press dismissed “conspiracy theory” after another turning into reality. Things which were always reasonable and potentially true are now drifting past the hyperventilating gatekeepers. They’re becoming publicly discussed even as the press screams “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. (Witness the formerly heretical idea that the Wuhan Virus might be related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A year ago it was “You’re a nutcase who should be censored”. Right now it’s edging into “gosh, that’s a thing we should at least consider”.)
In terms of voting reform, Ace of Spades recently served up an article that’s pretty positive. Go read Closing the Barn Door – Changes in Voting Laws. Ace lays out likely and/or impending voting law changes in:
- Arizona
- Florida
- Texas
- Georgia
- New Hampshire
- Pennsylvania
Ace is referring to attempts to make vote counts more representative of actual votes cast by actual Americans. In short, it’s the People of the States trying to fix the mess inflicted on them. It’s not DC trying to shore up the Republic; it’s the States. Swamps don’t drain themselves.
It comes with an excellent punchline. Ready?
Seven months!
Isn’t that hilarious? November 3rd, 2020 was only seven months ago. Biden was sworn in as Potato in Chief just five months ago. The interregnum is less than 200 days old.
That’s fast! People all over the nation are taking action. Our nation spent decades not approving a single oil pipeline. Compare that to voting. In less than 200 days, 12% of the States are composing “repair it” ideas. When everyone knows the house is about to fall down, whatever adults are left will rush to fix it.
In short. This is happening.
It’s why I have hope. A large, unexpected, weird black swan event is probably unavoidable but it doesn’t have to be a bloodbath. Would a sweeping reform movement in most of the 50 states be a black swan event? Sure.
It might be a best case scenaro; one that doesn’t hurt a single person, fire a single shot, or burn a single building. Is that the form of the upcoming Sta Puft Marshmallow Man? Why not? It’s a fledging movement of honest people doing honest things as best they can within an imperfect system; they have the noble goal of keeping elections honest… or at least transparent… and they’re not running around in the streets breaking shit like fucking nitwits. It’s a potential miracle, politicians in States acting like responsible adult citizens who care about America.
Such a thing was treated as “impossible” right until it became “happening”. Enjoy that warm fuzzy thought.
Once the ball gets rolling, perhaps it will gather momentum. It wasn’t going to happen otherwise. Lacking a big disgusting black swan cheat (or appearance of cheat) everything would have stayed the same forever. Once we saw a big disgusting black swan cheat the issue became unavoidable. As sometimes happens, karma did it’s thing. Cheaters may have forced a reform movement into being. Such was their hubris and their massively obvious behavior. A few votes in Chicago is almost quaint. The biggest vote count in history is a kick to the balls. It may have made us to get off our fat ass and address long standing problems.
If, a few years hence, we’ve had good solid vote audits in a big portion of the states wouldn’t that be good for everyone? Regardless of party, citizens ought to want fair honest votes. People who don’t want “every legal vote counted, no illegal votes counted” are mot citizens; they’re assholes and tyrants. Fuck ’em.
If we get good solid voting procedures that don’t reek of shenanigans I’ll be pleased. Maybe this ugly season of distrust will have been worthwhile.
In fact, I’ll call it right now. I’d love it! A true audit and multi-state reform is well worth the price already extracted. Trump getting dicked over in a statistically unlikely shitstorm of weird in 2020 was gross, but if it leads to a squeaky clean 2022 or 2024 election cycle and more in the future… I’ll take it. (That does assume Biden doesn’t somehow shove the world up his ass in the meantime. It might be OK. I lived through Carter it looks like I get to see it again.) Re-establishing “consent of the governed” is more important than anything else. If getting shafted by cheaters made the reform happen, it’ll be the biggest and most important thing Trump’s ever done.
I said the opportunities caused by this mess were greater than we’re currently considering. True reform is one (still unrealized) possibility. A vital and long overdue reformation would otherwise never have happened. We might get it at the cost of one screwed over Cheeto Jesus. I know it sucks right now, but things might very well get better. If they resolve in a positive manner I’ll rejoice. Of course, we wont know for a few years.
Or we might get invaded by UFOs and sent to racist re-education camps in Siberia… who the fuck knows?
A.C.
We don’t need computer voting. Paper ballots, counted in the polling place where they are cast,with the same kind of security that is in almost every little store. Cameras cost almost nothing. Streaming it,so everyone can watch. I’m sure that would be somehow restrictive and cause uproar.
Ohh,if you can’t prove you are who you say you are, you can Not vote. Or fly,or open a checking account or sign up for government benefits, and on and on. Stop pretending that is some kinda ploy to keep people from voting. If you DON’T have an ID, I’m pretty sure you aren’t very tied into society and probably are clueless about what is going on anyway.
There’s never a good reason to do anything without a physical paper trail audit chain. Purely digital voting was stupid in the past and it’s stupid now and it’ll always be a risk for shenanigans. We all saw it coming too.
Also, if I were King for a day I’d have ID age and requirements synchronized. Good for none or good for all. If an ID is good for something the left likes it’s good for something the right likes… and vice versa. If you need ID and hoop jumping to buy a gun, you need the same to submit a vote. If you don’t need ID to vote, you don’t need it to buy a gun. Pick one, I can live with either option. If you can’t be trusted with a gun you can’t vote. A person should be able to drink, drive, vote, buy a gun, sign banking papers, face the draft, get a tattoo, visit a strip club, work in a strip club, and buy Marlboros (or in some states pot) all at the same age. I don’t care what age it is… but it should be just one age. Child to adult in one step… as is common in most societies. We should stop creating definitions of half-adults and half-children. One form of ID would be good to handle everything. Something physical and solid. Good thing we have one. It’s called a Passport. Driver’s licenses are a historical oddity that sprung out of cars. They’re dumb. If you can’t get a passport then you ‘aint playing in the big leagues, you can’t vote, you can’t rent a car, you can’t buy a beer, you can’t get back into America if you leave, and you basically can’t do Jack that would merit an ID. It’s all one thing. I think it would be amusing because it would put each side on the horns of a dilemma to define “adult citizen” in a complete coherent manner. Maybe we could get past this “you’re a citizen but you’re not a complete citizen and you can do this but you can’t do that” mess we have now. Then again, it’s not going to happen.
In the end, I’ll be happy just to have solid audits and paper trails for voting.
Sounds good. That would be one finger in the dyke.
Too bad the rest would need reforming as well, for this to be a functioning nation. Judicial, bureaucratic, taxation, immigration, historic infrastructure, military, commerce, education, speech, unlivable cities, agriculture, sick care, environmental…
When do we run out of fingers, not to plug the holes in the dyke, but the equivalent of the wavy Three Gorges Dam?
Incrementalism works given time, and that ran out sometime between the Great Brother Wars. There’s always that one-in-several-trillion chance everything works out without massive bloodshed, but demographics is always destiny.
How many of those that do not belong here yet claim the place their home are going to voluntarily leave, to bring up a tiny problem with an honest vote for politicians who will NEVER take a hard right choice over an easy re-election?
Anyone else not able to connect with WesternRifleShooters?
I can get through.
States implementing bans on critical race theory teaching in schools is also a good start.
Yeah, that’s definitely a bit of good news and positivity!
I harbor the suspicion that teachers are pushing CRT theory in part because they’re koo-aid drinking Marxists but a second and little pondered contribution might be that they lack anything else to teach. A teacher that knows and enjoys teaching legitimate subject matter like chemistry, algebra, history, etc… has a real job to distract them from faffing about with made up work.