Playing politics with politics, is a threat to all concerned

The line that "If you don't vote for Candidate X, THEN YOU’RE VOTING FOR CANDIDATE Y!!!”, is neither a good argument, nor a laughing matter, and treating it as one, or the other, or both, is not a responsible approach to one of your most fundamental civic responsibilities.

There are a couple things at play here, that need to be considered. First being, what is it that you think that you are doing when voting - are you voting for a candidate, or are you voting to influence who will hold power in a political office? The distinction being made there is one that makes a difference. If you subscribe to the former, then it's pretty likely that you've made the above statement, either in seriousness, or by mocking those who do, or in whining that those who do are 'browbeating' you, in order to make excuses for how you intend to vote. Either approach is a dead end that is harmful to the entire body politic.

If you're exasperated with how someone says they intend to vote, don't tell them what you think about candidates X, Y & Z - they'll just tell you what they think about what you think. Instead, ask them about how they think their vote will affect the results of the election - that at least might give you something to talk about.

Such as... it is important to remember that the ultimate aim of what all of the candidates and voters are participating in, is a means of determining who the occupant of a seat of political power will be, and how the powers of that office are likely to be employed by them upon We The People - that is what your foremost concern as a voter should be. The candidate you favor - if you should be so lucky as to have one you can - is and should be a secondary matter in that choice, and a distant one at that.

The electoral process begins in the primaries, and if you are a member of, or align with, a particular political party, then that party's primary election is your opportunity to examine the candidates, to make your opinion known about their fitness, and about what direction the party should go, and to support what best represents your political ideals. If you chose to participate in that party and in their primary, then by choosing to vote for one of that party's slate of candidates, you tacitly agree to support the winner - whether they were your choice or not. If you are a member of that political party, and you participate in their primary election, and your candidate loses, and you find yourself wholly unable to support the winner, then the principled thing to do would be to resign from that party. If you continue on as a member or supporter of that political party, while vocally denouncing the winner of its primary election and those who support them, then you, above all people, are in no position to prattle on about 'Principles!' of any kind, as you've already demonstrated your disregard for the fundamentals of being principled, and apparently lack the integrity which such a concept requires.

Where the primary election was about your preferences as a voter, the general election is about your responsibilities as a citizen.

If you do support a candidate that has a credible chance of winning the election, and you have no serious objections to the other credible candidates running in the campaign, all is well and good, vote for who you support.

But if there is no candidate running in the general election whose ideals and positions you can wholeheartedly support, or if the candidate you do prefer has little or no chance of winning the election, then it is your responsibility as a citizen to remember that the general election is not about either the candidates or your feelings for them, but about how the powers of that office are likely to be used by the winner of the election, and to vote accordingly.

That is not a case of choosing the lesser evil, it is a matter of opposing the greater one!

If Candidate Y (Hillary, Claire, etc) supports an agenda that is a clear threat to your political ideals and values, and they have a credible chance of being elected, then your own personal preferences, both those for Candidate X, and against Candidate Z (Trump, Hawley, etc), are no longer valid considerations in how you will cast your vote! Political maturity demands that you coolly and clearly take stock of the situation, and that you judge which candidate poses the greater threat to what you consider to be of political importance, and that you then cast your vote so as to ensure that the candidate which poses the greater threat your polity, is defeated in the general election.

If you fail to hold what will result from the election as your main concern, then you are putting your ego and vanity above that of your community, and you will be manipulated by the froth of personalities and identity politics, and your contribution to that miasma can only harm your community, and worsen the political climate for all.

If you as a voter choose to allow yourself to be driven by your personal feelings for candidates, rather than by what your judgment tells you about how that office will be utilized by the winner of that election, then your vote will be futile in every meaningful way, as it can and will accomplish nothing more than to flatter your own personal vanity and sense of self importance. Such a vote of 'Principle!' reflects no principles at all, it is the act of a politically immature child, and all such voters, for the good of the community (which is the ultimate point of politics), should strongly consider refraining from dabbling in politics for the foreseeable future, because playing politics with politics, is a threat to all concerned.

Think less about your personal feelings about candidates, and more about what your vote is, and what it will mean, and act accordingly.

It's time to vote - Why? The Primary reason for Voting

It's time for a number of states to vote again, and so it's time to ask the question that few seem to give much thought to - Why Vote?

If any of the following reasons, are the fundamental reasons for who you're voting for, then you're voting for the fundamentally wrong reasons:

• Voting for your political party - wrong!
• Voting for who you think can win 'the' election (primary or general) - wrong!
• Voting for who you think is the most [intelligent or principled or effective or conservative or ___] candidate - wrong!

Nope. No. Huh-uh, wrong, all wrong. Sorry, but although those may be factors, when taken as reasons for voting, they are amongst the key reasons for why we are in the mess that we're in today.

So why should we vote?

For that one reason which does not change from election to election, from year to year or from crisis to crisis, for that reason that does not change as candidates come and go, or even as political parties rise up and fade away - it doesn't even matter if we're talking about a popular vote or the voting by delegates. Through it all there is one thing that is constant and remains the same, and that is that the office which the candidate is being elected to, is there to serve a defined purpose for your (Ward, Assembly, City, County, State, Nation), and the fulfillment of that purpose, in as most favorable a fashion as is possible, is why you cast your vote.

That's it. Candidates are merely a means to that end.

If you're voting for any other reason, then every vote you cast is miscast, and can, in some sense, even be a harmful one. It can also be harmful if you fail to distinguish between the purpose of a primary (and oh my is there ever a lot more to say about those, in an upcoming post), and that of the general election.

• In the Primary election, you cast your vote in order to fill that office with the candidate that is, in your judgment, best able to fulfill its purposes, and will most responsibly utilize the powers of that office.

• In the General election, you are voting on how that office, and its powers, will be occupied and utilized.

If that difference isn't clear, in the General election, you are no longer dealing with your personal wish lists, but with reality; not your preferences for it, but the actuality that will follow from the results of that election. In the general election, it is incumbent upon you, as a citizen,  to give full and careful consideration to the matter of who that office will be occupied by,  as a result of that election, rather than as another means of giving vent to your personal feelings about the options remaining for you to choose from.

And given that the purpose which that office fulfills, is the reason for your voting, then in all elections,  you should be looking at what that office's purpose is, and at the powers it entails,  and only then at how well, or ill, a particular candidate might be able to fulfill it. Since for most of us the most recent election just passed, or held today, or coming up soon, is a primary election for determining your political party's candidate in the general election for President of the United States of America, lets start with the oath of office that the winner of the general election will take, and the oath of office, says:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

, which, it seems to me, means that in order to judge whether a candidate is a good candidate for executing the duties of the office, they, and you, ought to be familiar with what the duties of that office are, right? And to do that... you might want to bone up on the rest of Article 2, beginning with Section 1, Clause 1... not to mention the rest of the constitution too, of course.

Spoiler Alert: The Constitution doesn't say anything about health care insurance, student loans, making America great again, who can marry who, building fences, minimum wage, or much else about what is being talked about in this election cycle. No, it pretty much sticks to limiting govt to its defined powers (see Article 1, Section 8 (clauses 1-18), the roles of the Commander in Chief, and defending the constitution by passing no laws that violate its laws or infringe upon our individual rights, especially those noted in the Bill of Rights.

Just sayin'.

Although if you'd like to broaden that view somewhat beyond the oath of office, you could do worse than following the admonition that Congress used to issue to territories that were petitioning to be admitted to the union as states, that they should order themselves so that they,

"... when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the constitution of the United States, and the principles of the Declaration of Independence..."

Meaning that, in considering whether or not the office of the President of the United States will be faithfully executed, shouldn't a part of your consideration involve taking into account how that candidate might further those principles, or be repugnant to them? And what is your responsibility in the matter?

And what if none of the available candidates shows an understanding and commitment to the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution... or to the Rule of Law, or towards Liberty itself? What then? Do you stay home? Vote for a negligible candidate? Write in someone else's name?

In the Primary, where selecting the candidate that is, in your judgment, the best for executing the duties, responsibilities and powers of that office... you could make a case for those options, but what about in the actual election, where it is not about your preferences, but about the actuality of how that office will be occupied? Can you then legitimately consider staying home? Voting for a negligible candidate? Writing in someones name?

Leaving aside whatever strange stroking that might give to your own ego and vanity, ask yourself this: Will such a 'vote' contribute anything towards how the principles of the Declaration, the Constitution, and our liberty, might be employed, or abused, through that office, or to the benefits or damages that will result because of who succeeds in entering the office?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say... no. Not at all, and you're blowing smoke up your own butt if you think it does.

Why do I say that?

Well, if this were a card game, or maybe a game of monopoly, and you noticed that one or more of your fellow players were cheating, you could, in good conscience, leave the game and refuse to play along, right? Why? Because you can leave the game!

You cannot, however, short of leaving the country, leave 'the game' of a Presidential election, or its effects on you, on your fellows, or on your position and responsibilities as a citizen. You are encompassed by it. You cannot opt out, while remaining within the nation's geographical boundaries. Pretending as if you can, is not only a sophistic pretense more worthy of petulant children than responsible adults, but worse, it cannot fail to aid that office holder who will do the most damage to the nation through that office... which you made no meaningful effort to oppose their being elected to.

Oh, sorry, what's that? Are you saying:

• 'At least I'm not helping XXX candidate!' I'd never violate my principles to do that!'?

Are you not listening?

#1, you do not, Should NOT, ever, in any meaningful way, VOTE FOR a Candidate! Not for any Candidate!

We should only elect candidates for the purposes of executing the duties of that office as effectively as possible, in order to fulfill its purpose as defined by our laws. Yes, the office will be filled by a person, but they aren't the purpose of your vote, it is - candidates are but a necessary means to that end.

Note: Casting your vote for that candidate which you judge will best execute the duties of that office, or bring about the least harm through it, is not the same as voting for a candidate - it involves putting your focus on the office, rather than on the officeholder.

Voting primarily for a candidate, or a party, or even a pet litmus issue, is a short cut to disaster. Why?

Because Voting for a candidate, immediately and necessarily means that rather than focusing primarily upon the purposes of the office and the principles and policies best suited to executing its duties, your focus would instead be upon personalities - both theirs and yours. And if you let yourself get sucked into voting for candidates, becoming personally invested in them, then you are prone to being blinded by your passions for them, and you will almost inevitably be sucked into defending that individual person or party, or issue, rather than upon the purposes of that office, and the quality of the principles and policies which the officeholder will support, and - see if this sounds familiar this year - you will be drawn into petty disagreements and arguments and fights that have very little, if anything to do with those purposes which your vote is intended to serve, such as, oh, I dunno, things like "... you know what they say about small hands...", or "...their face annoys me...", or "... he's a little liar...", etc., comes readily to mind for some reason.

And if you focus upon the candidates personally, then you might even wind up saying incredibly poorly thought out statements such as: "I'll NEVER vote for ___! They're a ____ Scumbag! Hashtag #NeverTrump, #NeverCruz, #NeverKasich", even at the cost of putting a potentially worse candidate (hello Hillary or Bernie) in that office, who very may well be committed to horrendously more destructive purposes, principles and policies those candidates you are so upset at, which would that office, and its powers, upon the entire nation.

Choosing not to vote, or casting your vote in a manner that can have no impact on who the winner will actually be, are actions that make it more likely that the greater evil will win - that is what it means to choose the lesser of two evils.

Never choose the lesser of two evils! Don't Do That! Don't be that guy!

Instead, being mindful of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, and the Liberty of We The People which our laws derive their just powers from, and being mindful of the Power which the resulting holder of that office will have over all of those, and all of us, due to their being elected to that office, you must cast your vote where it will best advance, or most thwart the greatest threat, to them.  Nothing less can provide any service to any of them, at all!

Being Principled doesn't mean being destructive
If one of the candidates poses a more immanent threat to our liberty than the other, then it is your duty as a member of the republic (not of a Party, but of the Republic) to oppose them with as much power as you have available - and assuming that you stand for the Rule of Law over mob violence, that means voting, and it also means that staying home or writing in a useless name as a 'protest vote', can and will do nothing to thwart the greater threat to our republic, and there is no excuse for that.

Please, don't give me any crap about your being too 'principled' to vote for XYZ candidate, if they, and not your guy, win your primary! Hogwash!

Principles by their very nature require you to be mindful of the bigger picture, focusing on the whole, and not obsessing myopically on a particular part. By failing to take into account the primary purpose of your actions - you are not demonstrating that you have a sound conception of what principles even are, let alone what they are for. That is Not making a principled stand, and that is Not making a stand for Liberty - it is deserting it in its greatest hour of need (and probably because of your feelings for a candidate... am I right?).

Principles are not ends in themselves.

Principles are not substitutes for thinking.

Principles are guides for thinking well, they are a means to, not the ends of, principled thought.

Principles are what virtue and experience have shown to be reliable guides to wiser thought and actions - what do you suppose qualifies as 'wiser' thinking? Thinking that primarily strokes your ego and polishes your vanity, doesn't, I'd hope, qualify, does it? Principled thinking - what was once commonly known as Prudence, practical wisdom, means guiding your thoughts along principled paths, towards sound, long-range actions, ensuring that the best outcomes are most likely to be achieved. But if you are aiming your thoughts and actions at no further point than the guides to those actions, such shortsightedness cannot be wise, and they cannot be described as acting in a principled manner.

To focus upon you guides themselves, as if they were your ends, is but another form of the ends justifying the means - and isn't that what a principled person most recoils from?!

Employing Prudence in the voting booth, requires focusing upon the long-range intentions and effects which the office being voted upon will be turned towards; what will be brought about through that office, is what your choice in the voting booth should reflect and be striving towards. It is not about stroking your own vanity, but about giving as much aid as you're able to give, to, in the case of either the primary or general election for the President of the United States of America, the preservation of the constitution and our republic for which it stands; if you don't understand that that is the wisest course of action to aim towards, or that you'd prefer to allow your own shortsighted pride to take precedence over such considerations, then you are, politically speaking, no matter how many doctoral degrees you might have behind your name, an uneducated rube.

Are you voting for a candidate who is knowingly, avowedly, serving Socialist, Communist, Marxist and/or 'Progressive' aims?
If so, then you are voting in direct opposition to our Constitution and to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and it is a self evident fact that you and I have little at all in common philosophically or politically; that you are in pursuit of regressing our nation, friends and family, towards a land that will be ruled over by those who are primarily in pursuit of power, and that you would prefer to give them power over your own choices, than to suffer making them yourself, that you would rather be ruled over, than to rule over your own life; that you are willing to subject others to that same fate, because you fear having responsibility for your own life. You, like some of my friends and family, may very well be a nice person in most respects, but, IMHO, the state of your political thought is a putrid wasteland. You are voting for regress, you are avowedly pro-regressive, and advancing towards what is evil - may God have mercy on your soul.

Are you still abstaining from voting because you refuse to choose the lesser of two evils?
You should Never, EVER vote for the lesser of two evils. You should either cast your vote in service to that which is the greater Good (qualitatively speaking, not in the quantitative or utilitarian sense), or in opposition to the worst evil - that is all. If you are unsure why, take a few moments to think about the meaning and implications of the word 'evil'.

Will your vote aid the best, or thwart the worst, use of the office of the President Of The United States? Or not?

Worst of all, refusing to vote for either, means deserting the field and letting that greater evil advance unopposed - deliberate passivity in the face of evil, is evil. Choosing not to vote, is choosing the lesser of two evils. Choosing to cast your vote for an avowed leftist, rather than a flawed or even foul candidate from the right (and if you find the two comparable, you need to examine your premises), is choosing the greater of two evils.

If there is not someone in the race representative of what you can comfortably vote for - one which will best serve the office's purposes through appropriate principles and policies - then you must cast your vote for that candidate that will best serve as opposition to the Greater Evil - not for the person, not for the candidate, not for the party, but with an awareness of those ideas and policies they will be brought to that office if you don't oppose them - meaning once again, though from a slightly different perspective, that you Do Not choose the lesser of two evils, instead you consciously, with full awareness and consideration for how that office will be employed, you use your vote to pit the lesser evil, against the greater evil, but you should never, ever, cast your vote for an evil.

Anything less, is so much less than zero.

Career Politicians, Political Self-Defense and the purpose of Political Rhetoric

Political Rhetoric has fallen to new lows in this country, hasn't it? But... I'm betting that I probably don't mean that, in the way you do. For instance, I'm not all that upset about the recent "Hate!" rhetoric surrounding Chick-Fil-A.

Liberal Fascism

What? Why?

Well, not because it wasn't a despicable misuse of political power, bordering on the fascistic - it most certainly was; but that is actually why I'm rather pleased that the comments of the Chick-Fil-A executive were so frantically set upon and made into such an issue: Because it did expose the ProRegressive Left as being political thugs, ridiculously shallow, and for having a fondness for fascistic practices.

What more can you ask of Political Rhetoric, than that it clarifies your political beliefs?

 [BTW, the Euro-Fascists of the 1920's & 1930's, got most of their ideas from our Yankee ProRegressives, in the 1900's & 1910's.. Just sayin'.]

The progressives in out of the way, leftist backwater locales, such as Washington D.C., Boston and Chicago, took a statement by a private citizen supporting marriage as being between a man and a woman,  which was essentially the same position as Barack Obama's position was while running for Senator in 2004 and four years later in 2008 while running for President, that,

"Mr. Obama tells Chicago public television “marriage is between a man and a woman."

, yet the popular ProRegressive Front called this man's company a bunch of homo hating fascists. At the same time they demonstrated their eagerness to use political power to punish people for expressing ideas which had the gall to differ from theirs, even to the point of trying to damage their businesses - all for the CEO 'daring' to say what he thought in response to a question... about what he thought.

That's a political self-exposure that you couldn't pay prize winning journalists to expose! And... I mean that seriously, I mean, read the papers, watch the News; the "Real" reporters are unable to expose what we see them doing every day. And here every political hack from Mayors Menino, to Rahm Emanuel. to the MSM & The Muppets, berated and attempted to shut a private person down for expressing his opinion - the exact exercise of freedom of speech which the 1st Amendment is designed to protect the government from abusing!

Even the private smart set of the caring and tolerant left, showed themselves to be two faced, lying, clueless idiots in the process!

America saw very clearly, even more clearly than they did when Obama said "You didn't build that!", just who it is the ProRegressive left really are and what they're made of. As a result, it sparked such a vivid understanding and outrage over what the left was doing, that the American People demonstrated by patronizing Chick-fil-a in record breaking sales numbers, literally putting their money where their mouths were, at such levels that not even the most left of the left could ignore or deny!

Wonderful! What's not to like about that! That is precisely what political rhetoric should be: stating what you believe and who you are, so that people can see and make up their minds about you.

Marvelous!

Sooo... just what is it that I find to be deceptive & despicable examples of political rhetoric? Statements like this one, from GOP Senate hopeful John Brunner,

"Comments like these have no place in this U.S. Senate campaign, or any other campaign in this country, because they don't represent American values."

, a sentiment which he energetically sought to insert into a media meltdown over some lively political rhetoric, a few months ago. More on that in a bit.

Actual Highs and Lows
First, to try and get us onto the same page, and to get a better perspective on what the High points and Low points in our political rhetoric might actually be, it's worth asking a couple quick questions. First:

"What were the heights we have fallen from?"

, and second, it's worthwhile to ask:

"What is political rhetoric meant to accomplish?"

A case is often made that Politics and Political speech in America were at their high point during the time in which our Founding Fathers were still alive and active in them, somewhere in or around the 1790's to early 1800's. That is after all the period that produced our Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the ratification debates and those politicians who defined and respected our form of government as no one has since.

But what's interesting if you accept their time as being the high point, and then compare our political rhetoric of today, with that of theirs then - if you are expecting to find polite, respectful speech that is careful not to offend or aggravate the sensibilities of either the other candidates or various members of the public... you are going to be in for a very serious shock.

The fact is that the political rhetoric of their day was often blunt, rude, caustic and full of insanely unfair cheap-shots. If that's surprising to you, then you might want to consider your answer to the second question above (which really should be the first question asked) - what do you think the point of political rhetoric is?

• Is it to show your respect for the other candidate, and those who support them?
• Is it to communicate your personality and thoughts, or to camouflage them?
• Is it to blur positions and policies or clarify them?
• Is it to show your respect for the sensibilities of those in society who did, do or might support your opponent?
• Is it to make your opponent and supporters feel more comfortable in their positions?

Or,

• is it to clarify or at least make starkly visible, your differences with other candidates,
• is it to convert non-supporters into supporters or at least make them hesitate to declare their support of anyone else,
• so as to defeat your opponents?

Whatever your assumptions might be, the political rhetoric of our Founders era was made in the effort to make vividly clear the differences between the candidates and their positions, in order to defeat them (and I've got news for you, it still is today, except that the methods today are far more underhanded and crude).

For example, there's this famous political 'attack ad', where Thomas Jefferson was calling John Adams

a 'hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

- you just can't beat that for making it very clear just what he thought of re-electing John Adams as President of the United States. Those same standards and rhetorical style carried on into the period where the newspapers hit their stride with the famously fiery rhetoric of the yellow journalists.

What people of today whine about disliking in political rhetoric, is exactly what those of our Founder's era purposefully set out to do, and they used the most figurative, imaginative language (''hideous hermaphroditical character' !!!) they could think of, to do it. Consequently their rhetoric was loud and often crude, but it succeeded in accomplishing what it set out to do - it made a point with perfect clarity and it left listeners in no doubt about where a candidate, reporter or commenter stood. If you had any ideas about finding level headed, objective reporting of the facts of each other's platforms and characters by either the candidates or the partisan press, along with polite and respectful discourse between the candidates... then you were looking for what never was, and were looking for it in a place where it never will be found - politics.

Political speech in America, in the last decades especially, has moved away from that model of pure political theatre, where it was at least understandable (politicians after all, will try to 'Score!' any way they can, and newspapers have always enjoyed making a point without being hampered by facts), and it has now indeed sunk to its lowest depths ever, but those depths are not measured by how inflammatory the rhetoric is, but rather through the congealed, deadened, boring, meaningless form of speech which those in power are attempting to foist upon us, speech which seeks to banish clarity & imagination while imposing a pandering thoughtlessness in their place and which no one dares to deviate from, and it is this, IMHO, that is killing political discourse in America.

This new attack upon free speech in America, and that is what it is, is one that empowers 'The Press' to force the lowest of political acts - verbal suicide - upon those it dislikes, demanding that they submit with nonsense such as:

I apologize if I in any way offended anyone and I of course deeply respect the traditions of...'

, while scoring the cheapest of political points for its preferred candidates - 'eh, compared to the other guy, he wasn't too bad'...even though, supposedly, The Press says that it shouldn't be out to 'Score!' points for anyone, or ever try to move any particular candidate or platform Forward!

Right? (so to speak.)

The chief weapon of this NewSpeak has been spun through our political parties and media functionaries, following the cant first aired in wackedemia, by insisting that opponents self-censor every instance of figurative language they might consider using ('shoot', 'target', 'explosive', 'crazy', etc.), insisting that every word of it be taken as if they were literal commands to the most unhinged of listeners imaginable, and mindful of the worst possible way in which it might be taken.

If you are 'Tsk-tsking' at me, scroll back up and look at Jefferson's comment about Adams, or look at John Adams' retort to Jefferson, that he was

“a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

If you can't imagine our Founding Fathers even attempting to live by these new prissy shackles (and before you say they didn't have to deal with the sort of people we have to deal with today, recall that Former Vice-President Aaron Burr shot and killed former Treasury Security Alexander Hamilton, over some heated words)... should we be attempting to impose such prissy shackles upon ourselves?!

Loaded for bear... 'Care Bears', that is....
Keep that in mind as you consider a round of this deadening of our language, which came in reaction to a comment by Tea Party activist Scott Boston (a friend of mine), made during a Tea Party Express rally for conservative candidates seeking to unseat Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. Mr. Boston, correctly gauging the intelligence of his audience, made a remark which, as you can see from the heavily edited video they've provided, was very clearly understood, and thought for the most part to be grin worthy but otherwise unremarkable by all concerned, and drew nothing more than polite, applause from those listening... and would likely have been quickly forgotten by them.

By those it was meant for, anyway.

But the new puritans of prissiness found much they could seize upon in his offhand remark. Keep in mind, Scott's remark was made while describing to the crowd how McCaskill routinely presents herself with two diametrically opposed images - the one made for the public presents her as a cloyingly caring friendly Aunt, and is laid on so often and so thickly, that she is commonly referred to around Missouri as "Claire Bear", a reference to the sickeningly sweet "Care Bear" cartoon characters. The second image is that of the reality of how she operates in Washington D.C., where she is a calculating and powerful Senator, a skilled politician, who is adept at advancing agendas that are often, as conservatives see it, detrimental to Missourians. With that in mind, Mr. Boston made the point that it was important for conservatives to work to dispel her phony 'care bear' image, and in the few words we're allowed to hear in the heavily edited video (on the Huffington-Post's story), you can hear him saying,

"We have to get Claire McCaskill out. We have, we have to kill the 'Claire Bear', ladies and gentlemen. She walks around like she's some sort of. 'Rainbow Brite' uh, 'Care Bear' or something, but really she's an evil monster."

Watch the video and pay close attention to the peoples expressions in it. You'll see Sara Steelman, a candidate for Senator, and her son Sam Steelman who works in her campaign, as Mr. Boston is speaking - do you see them being roused to passionate action? Do they seem stirred into an emotional frenzy by this 'violent hate speech'? Do you hear the crowd in the background roaring for blood?! No, what you see in the video, which was probably provided by the McCaskill campaign, is Sarah Steelman paying only passing attention to the remarks, while her son Sam Steelman, turns almost absently, though politely, to clap along for a moment, as does the unseen audience.

Why? Because neither they, nor anyone else at the rally even remotely thought for one moment that when Scott Boston said "We have to kill the Claire Bear ladies and gentlemen", that he was speaking in anything other than simple metaphors & analogies to cartoon characters and stuffed animals. It was a quip. Period.

The editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, however, in a nearly hysterical lament, did its best to convince anyone who reads it, that:

""Kill the Claire Bear" is not a campaign slogan. It's not a poor choice of words. It's not a metaphor.

It's a threat of violence. So when an overzealous supporter of U.S. Senate candidate Sarah Steelman, a Republican, directed the threat toward U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, at a campaign rally this week, Ms. Steelman swiftly should have condemned it."

Do you seriously buy that? Do you think they buy into that? Why do you suppose that they made such incendiary comments in response to a rather banal analogy made during a backwater stump speech in Missouri?

Meanwhile at the Washington Post, they continued that theme, with,

"... an activist at a Tea Party Express rally near St. Louis implored the faithful in attendance to “kill the Claire Bear, ladies and gentlemen.” ..."

, though they do let slip that Mr. Boston was probably not making a serious call for violence, but only an exercise in hyperbole:

"...In a hyperbolic rant against incumbent Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, GOP activist Scott Boston exhorted the audience, “She walks around like she’s some sort of Rainbow Brite Care Bear or something but really she’s an evil monster.”"

, they don't let that carry on for long, with statements such as,

"Not only is uncivil rhetoric dangerously taking society in the wrong direction, it is, incidentally, costing taxpayers money and resources. "

, and they allow one more brief bout of reasonableness,

""I doubt the Missouri conservative was advocating that anyone actually end the life of the 58-year-old senator or, for that matter, that Ted Nugent was threatening the president with his crude bully talk...."

, before going in for the insult, and forewarnings of doom to follow from such dangerous and vitriolic language:

Most people recognize that the screaming bombast aimed at public servants is just horrible manners by attention-craving individuals apparently unable to express themselves civilly. But the trash-talking can incite unstable persons to commit lethal acts."[emphasis mine]

, they even go on to cite the Arizona nut-job, Jared Loughner who shot up a congressmen's rally, as the logical result of using such 'language'.

Seriously? Play that video again.

Look. Listen. Think.

Are we really to conclude that political stump speeches referencing Care Bears and 'evil monsters' are what We The People must be on the guard against hearing or thinking of, or using in public, in order to safeguard ourselves from ourselves?

Do you believe that THEY believe this idiocy? I don't.

I don't believe it for a second. I don't believe that either the Post-Dispatch, or the Washington Post, or the Huffington-Post or Sen. Claire McCaskill or her staff believed it (the FBI, who gave Mr. Boston a swift 'all clear', certainly didn't believe it). These people DID NOT misinterpret what Scott Boston said. Instead they all deliberately worked at taking the figurative speech he used, and deliberately took what they knew he meant, and with carefully spun spin, they actively re-interpreted and re-purposed his words for their own pathetic political purposes - in order to move their political agenda Forward!

Note: I'm not calling them out for using fiery rhetoric themselves, quite the contrary, I'm calling them out for trying to castrate the political free speech of those they disagree with, and that is the despicable low to which political discourse has fallen to in this country. Not the name calling between candidates (recall Jefferson & Adams), but the intent to deprive anyone from being able to freely use the full power of our language in the fashion it is intended to be used, in order to communicate ideas in a lively fashion, from one person to another, so that they will be passed on, from one person to another.

In the attempt to deprive you of the power of your own spoken word, these despicable people are doing their very best to transform any thought of using imaginative language to communicate your political speech, into fears that 'it might' be taken as literal demands for violence. What they want is for their political opponents (you know they don't intend to impose the same standards on the likes of Van Jones or Alan Grayson) to be cowed into using useless, grey, deadened language that pays deference to their leftist idols.

GOP Strategic Response to Political Correctness: Sell the hangman the rope for your noose - but at a profit
Unfortunately Republican Senatorial Candidate, John Brunner, also running for the same senate seat, provided an excellent example of what we've come to expect from 'canny' GOP candidates. It's just the sort of knee-jerk apologetic reply which is expected from the opposition in response to any sign of lively language being used, and which 'conservatives' typically run to the microphones with, seeking to get air time & score points with, and often doing so faster than Obama could bow to a king. In this oh-so compliant reply to media criticism of Mr. Boston's remarks, it was glowingly reported (similar to how John McCain used to enjoy attention from the press) by the Huffington-Post, and others, who patted Mr. Brunner on the head like a good little republican for being 'so reasonable'.

The promptly issued statement from Mr. Bruner, was that:

"Comments like these have no place in this U.S. Senate campaign, or any other campaign in this country, because they don't represent American values."

Please, take a moment and scroll back up to Thomas Jefferson's comment to John Adams - which remark do you think was more likely to be representative of our original American values, Mr. Boston's, or Mr. Brunner's? Adams & Jefferson's remarks were made during the height of political discourse and truly statesmanlike accomplishment in this country... Mr. Brunner's, IMHO, are characteristic of those being made during the low it has sunk to.

Thank goodness Senatorial Candidate Sarah Steelman refused to meakly submit to the power of the press',

"I may disagree with the words Mr. Boston chose in his statement, but I understand his frustration and I emphatically support his right to express his views," Ms. Steelman said.

Mr. Bruner has also gone to mind numbing lengths to paint himself as pledging to be a 'Citizen Senator' (um... is there another option?) and opposed to 'Career Politicians', and yet he said in a recent statement, words to the same effect of Scott Boston's:

"We have an opportunity to eliminate three career politicians…two Republicans and one Democrat."

, which uses the same PC Scare-Language ('eliminate', 'target', 'kill') he slammed Scott Boston and Sarah Palin for using.

Do I think that language is 'over the top'? Hell no! But it does tell me that Mr. Brunner is perfectly happy to play the game of political correctness - using language to incite responses in order to mislead and conceal information - whenever it's convenient, which is the epitome of what he claims we'll be able to eliminate by voting for him: 'Career Politicians'.

Was this just a slip of the lip on his part? You tell me. From The Missouri Record, May 11, 2012:

"According to Jake Wagman at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch,

In a debate Friday in St. Joseph, Republican Senate hopeful John Brunner emphasized both the importance of voting, and his opposition to gay marriage.
"It is so important for so many people to get involved in politics ... and most importantly get out there and vote," Brunner said.
But when primary rival Sarah Steelman pressed him on how he had voted on the 2004 amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage — "'yes' or 'no,'" Steelman asked — Brunner offered a vague response.
"Every vote I have ever taken has been in support of marriage," Brunner said.
Turns out, Steelman was asking about a vote he didn't make.

This made my head spin. Brunner doubtlessly knew he hadn't voted on the matter when he was asked about it in the debate. A normal person may have forgotten such a vote eight years prior, or even misremembered. But normal people haven't spent $2.5 million dollars of their own money on a campaign that had to have included background research. (It is possible that he didn't know, but that would require a jaw-dropping level of political ineptitude in those around him.)

So Brunner knew the truth and he chose to prevaricate...."

On top of that, the campaign of this 'non-politician Citizen Senator' has been the most unrelenting in its use of selective information and full out attack ads on his two opponents, Sarah Steelman and Todd Akin, that I just can't buy a vowel of his claims for being the non-politician, politician. It just doesn't wash.

When I add this all up, the answer that I come up with, is exactly what I dislike about the worst of our politicians - that they use language to mislead and conceal, rather than to reveal their beliefs - and that the only reason I can find for his not having been a career politician, is that it was only late in life that he discovered his true calling.

Which leaves me in an uncomfortable position, because while I'm not particularly for either of the candidates for Senator in our Primary this Tuesday - though I am leaning towards Akin (I was initially attracted to Brunner, but for these very reasons, he soon repelled me), I'd dearly like to see Brunner lose to Akin or Steelman.

Is that too harsh? Sorry, that's what primaries are for.

But on the other hand I would eagerly take any one of these three candidates, Akin, Steelman or Brunner, without hesitation, over Claire McCaskill, as Missouri Senator.

Primaries. Ugh.

Electoral Self-Defense
It is my hope that incidents such as Chick-fil-a, as well as examples of kowtowing to any other sort of politically correct sensibilities, will be a strong turn off to any and all audiences, especially conservatives. I hope that people are beginning to see, that it is through this pandering for 'the popular vote' by people in general, and by politicians in particular (who apparently do believe that political correctness really IS the popular view), that political correctness has been able to accomplish its aims: imposing upon us all a form of politically correct self-censorship.

It is promoted by the princes of prissiness in order that the media can preen themselves in the glow of their own faux moral high ground, and it is done in order to portray the position or candidate they are trying to move Forward!, as a brave, brave victim of evil-doers - so as to boost and secure political power for them, over you.

Worse, these PC views are being imposed upon us not only by Wackedemia and the MSM in order to support their political favorites (and penalize their opponents and everyone else connected with them), but it is being aided and abetted by many a vote seeking 'conservative' as well, and these positions gain an even more terrible strength as a result of that conservative complicitness, than they ever would have acquired if they were expressed by the left alone.

We cannot let these ProRegressives, Left or Right, continue with their campaign of Political Correctness; they are attacking even our ability to think and to speak, and even to eat, and in the process, frankly, they are wiping the toilets with our language, turning it into something with no more character or substance than used toilet paper.

The level of political discourse in our times has fallen to new lows, and it is up to us to lift it back up to where it belongs, this smothering of speech must not be tolerated any longer.

It is what has helped to deliver us to the world we've got. A world where electing one person is often little or no different than electing another. A world where no one says what they really think, everyone seeks the approval of the politically correct princes of prissiness, and We The People end up with Representatives without representation. It's the world we've got, and it is one where those I despise politically (Romney for instance) end up being the ones that ends up on the ballot.

What do we do about that? How do you defend your electoral integrity, when you only have those you dislike, together with those you dislike even more, to choose from? Personally, I can't vote For any of them, but then again to not vote, enables all of them. Remember, it's not the candidates to brought us to this point - they just hitched a ride on our apathy and carelessness. Both have to be remedied in order to improve the situation at all.

In my view that leaves us these options:

1. Decide which candidate wants to use the govt to most weaken your Rights and force the most ignorance upon you.
2. Decide which candidate has the best chance of defeating that 1st candidate, and use your vote to help defeat that 1st candidate.

More importantly, in every other moment between elections, when you hear 'political correctness' from friend or foe, call them on it. Laugh in their faces. Dismiss them. Kick them out of power in Washington, with your vote at the ballot box, and out of power at the newsstand & T.V. by spending your dollars and attention upon information that is actually informative.

Also, do as much as you can to understand what Government, Law, Rights and Liberty actually mean, and depend upon, and then spread that light you've gathered as widely as you can, and help to dissipate the ignorance around you.

My fellow Americans, it took us a minimum of 150 years to get to this sorry state, and there will be no quick answers, no magic legislation and no miracle candidates that will get us out of it. We have to reestablish what America Means, one idea, and one mind, at a time - and that means starting with YOU.