Random thoughts on state of society

The debate over health care in this country has gone from bad to worse, with accusations bandied about by both sides, saying that the GOP hates women and that the left hates religion.

Personally, I think both sides might be oversimplifying the issue a bit and everyone needs to step away from the microphone until cooler heads prevail.

I can say this however: Few things sicken me more than the number of people who hate in the name of their God. I say “their God” instead of just “God,” because it’s obviously a different God than the one I know.

Using religion as a means to attack someone just seems to go against everything religion is supposed to mean. It’s as though some people’s Bibles only came with the book of Leviticus. None of that feel-good New Testament stuff. It’s maddening.

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The Republican race for the White House continues to muddle along, ever closer to what almost looks like a guaranteed brokered convention. As you may know, I’m a Ron Paul fan, but he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance, so I basically don’t have a horse in that race. Come April 24, I won’t be able to vote in the New York primary, but I have to imagine it will actually count this year, something it seldom does.

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My oldest daughter was telling me the other day that she’s scared for the future because she’ll be voting in four years, but doesn’t know anything about the current race for the White House. She then named the four GOP candidates and stated briefly what they stand for — or at least what they are perceived to stand for.

Personally, I don’t fear for the future. I fear for the present because my 14-year-old daughter who considers herself uninformed knows more about the contest than most of my adult friends.

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I’ve long suggested that there should be an entrance exam to the voting booth complete with five basic questions about the candidates themselves. They should be factual questions that anyone who’s voting would know the answer to. Your grade on the exam would be equal to how much your vote counts. If you get only one question right, your vote only counts 20 percent. If you get them all right, your vote counts 100 percent. This would ensure that the most important decisions made in this great nation of our are being made from those in the know.

Unfortunately, it’s not that way and everyone’s vote counts the same meaning our decisions are being made by the dumb masses.

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I understand political expediency and the art of compromise, but I’m disappointed that Gov. Andrew Cuomo caved on his promise to veto the legislative district lines if they were not drawn by an independent (non-partisan) panel. As such, we are doomed to 10 more years of near-guaranteed incumbency protection.

The same people who have gotten us into the mess that we’re in are pretty much a shoe-in to keep us wallowing in the same mess for another decade.

Primary challenged

So here we are – once again – at a crossroads ... kind of.

Tuesday is primary day across the grand state of New York and there are elections galore ... kind of.

Actually, in the Niagara County Legislature, there are primary contests in less than half of the districts. The odds are higher that you don't have a legislature race to vote in Tuesday than that you do. And if you're in Erie County, your odds of voting aren't much better. Only six of 15 races have primary opponents.

And many of the races afford you the “opportunity to ballot” or right your candidate in – an arcane system designed to protect incumbency and the “party” hierarchy.

This is partly the reason so few people are willing to carry petitions and raise money and do the legwork to run for office. And then there's the people that run again and again, only to be crushed by the system and/or the electorate. It's sort of politics ... Sisyphus style. Roll the rock up the hill. Near the top. It slips and crushes you. Start over tomorrow ... or next year as the case may be for many of the perennial also-rans.

Many voters seem to sit the primary out. It's not as exciting. It's not as sexy. It's not as something. Who knows. But they wait until the November election before they decide to get out and vote. By then they have their choices between the incumbent (or a clone of that incumbent) and some person they've never heard of. And they throw their arms up in disgust, muttering something akin to, “Why do we always have to choose between the same lot of idiots?”

And they seem to forget that they had a chance to change the lot of idiots just two months prior, but took a pass.

Leonard Roberto, founder of Primary Challenge, has expressed his frustration with this process on numerous occasions. I've discussed it personally with him at a handful of chance meetings.

Primary Challenge knows that by the time you get to the general election, the die has been cast. The real opportunity for change comes in the primary itself – hence the name. And the main reason for that opportunity is the fact that fewer people get out to vote.

Simply put, if you're one of 1,000 people casting a vote, you get one one-thousandth of the decision. If you're one of 100 people voting, you get a hundredth of the vote, making your vote 10 times more powerful.

Now, the math might not be to scale. I've never been good with math. But the logic stands.

You may be to the point where you think I'm telling you to get your butt to the ballot box on Tuesday and vote. But I don't necessarily encourage that. Not unless you know what you're voting on.

Truly, the only thing worse than our apathy is our lack of knowledge on the issues before us. It doesn't matter how much you care about your community, if you don't know who stands for what, you're just voting for the sake of some misguided civic pride. It's kind of like driving with a blindfold on. You'll get somewhere, but the odds are you won't like it.

Fortunately, there are tools out there which you can inform yourself with. For example, your daily paper. Hint. Hint. Nudge. Nudge. But your time is running short. Do some reading. Figure out what you want. And pull the lever. Assuming you're in the minority of those who gets to vote.