A Couple of Things

The first item I have on the agenda is something that's been on my mind for a while, and it is this: What is it with Democratic Presidents using drones and missiles as a way of killing people they have decided--without benefit of courtroom or jury--are undesirable? They seem to see it as somehow a clean way of murdering those you don't like; however, no matter how you twist and turn it, it is still merely assassination. Further, it is a method of assassination that is almost guaranteed to kill the innocent as well as the--still unproved in a court of law--guilty and is morally and ethically reprehensible. I've had many differences with Republican Presidents in the past, but at least they understand that there is no such thing as a clean war. Anyone who thinks there is, simply because the killing is done by technology rather than by flesh-and-blood soldiers, is fooling himself.

Second, I will go ahead and say what I'm thinking about the upcoming midterm elections. According to the calculations done by Nate Silver, it looks like the Republicans will end up with a majority in the House and the Democrats will retain a slight majority in the Senate. There is no surprise in any of this. And it could be healthy. Both of these results will require the Republicans to actually legislate and govern rather than merely hold their collective breath and take their ball and go home. Which means, I suspect, that one of two things will happen. With luck, we might end up with both parties working together to craft interesting bipartisan legislation. Unfortunately, because of the fervent and zealous factionalism of the current version of the Republican Party, it is likely that the opposite will happen, and we will end up with two years of nongoverment in which no one comes to any agreement about anything.

And that will lead to my third topic: All the people who were swept in this year will be swept out in 2012. It seems like something that I wrote about in 2005 on another blog is actually what people are doing: They are voting against the incumbents in election after election in a collectively unconscious attempt to get politicians to understand that the People are the boss. So far, the message isn't sinking in, but a couple more election cycles should do the trick. And even though the results in November may not be my preferred outcome, good for the People. And the new batch of cowards who will be herding themselves into Washington next January need to keep in mind that their victories were not based in ideology, but in reaction to a sense that their predecessors were not effectively doing the People's business.

Still, politicians are a deluded bunch, so I'm sure that there will be much talk of mandates and other such nonsense.What I've yet to hear from either the politicians or the sycophants who cover them is the realization that whoever is in is getting voted out, whether that happened in the primaries or if it is about to happen in the general election. The key is change, not ideology. It's time they listened and figured that out.