political blah blah blah

Surprisingly I remember that compromise maybe all the way from high school. Remember that Paul Simon song, “When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” I think most of what we learned in high school was a bunch of crap, but I do remember Mr Parkhill and that US History course that wasn’t all rah rah America which opened my eyes a bit and maybe I learned it there. Another compromise we made back then was counting slaves as 3/5 of a person. That never quite worked out, and about a hundred years we had to have that war to settle it.

That thing with each state having two senators was way back when we only had thirteen states and they were much more equal in population than they are now. Just on the face of it it isn’t fair that each person in California gets 1/20,000,000th of a senator while each person in in Wyoming gets 1/300,000th. I don’t hear any national politician talking about it, probably because it would be political suicide, but I just want to point out that it is unfair.

And to a lesser extent so is the electoral college. People do talk about changing that from time to time, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a movement in that direction. There should be.

When rich guys buy advertising they are using it to buy the election. Well not always, mostly they are such dingbats that they lose, but probably they can influence that ten percent who can’t find France on a map, and in a close election that can be enough.

It has always interested me in who is at fault for the dismal level of politicos, the people or the politicians. I think it is the people who allow themselves to be manipulated. They should study the issues, isn’t that what smart guys like you and me are always telling them what to do? But then there are very few elections where you and me would agree on who is the best candidate.

Congress can’t overrule the supreme court. They can craft a bill that they hope the supremes won’t throw out, but likely they are the guys who benefit from the big spending, so fat chance they will try to do anything to stop it, and what is the chance of congress ever passing anything these days anyway?

So they made it easier to get a concealed carry permit in Michigan, which must mean that more people can carry concealed weapons, so now we not only have good citizens carrying weapons we also have pretty good citizens carrying weapons, and you somehow feel that this is a buffer, that they will have to undo this particular law, and all the other little incremental laws before they jackboot into your house and pry Old Betsy out of your hands? You know when they passed prohibition, they didn’t first outlaw scotch and then bourbon, and then wine and then beer. If they are going to outlaw guns they will likely do it in one fell swoop. Not that they will, although I expect I would have a hard time convincing you of that.

As far as I know there are no anti gun bills in congress. In the recent flurry of primaries gun control was not an issue. The only gun action going around is piddling on the borders of concealed carry. There is probably a gun control lobby somewhere, but they pale to insignificance next to the NRA, so why are you worried about losing Old Betsy?