Op-Eds

Election 2016 Reminder: Who Needs Who?

Leave a comment

RGBStock.com Vote Pencil

Memory has a way of playing tricks on the mind, but my recollection is that each of the seven presidential elections since I reached adulthood (I turned 18 the week after Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984) has been advertised — by the parties, by the candidates, by the media — as “the most important election of our lifetimes.”

Here comes the eighth. Same schtick,  even if the Jerry Springer atmospherics have been turned up a little. The world will end if Candidate X is elected. Americans will starve in the streets if Candidate Y isn’t elected. You know what I’m talking about.

Of course, each presidential election IS incredibly important to the parties, the candidates, and the media. Elections are their bread and butter. But are they really that consequential to the rest of us? On close examination, the only plausible answer is “no.”

Politicians of both major political parties trot out big plans and contrast those big plans with the big plans of the other candidates. Yes, those plans differ between the parties and from candidate to candidate, but only in degree, not kind. They all boil down to minor variations on the theme of  “let ME spend your money and run your lives.”

Look, I get it. I’m a politics junkie. I love the horse race, too. Like most Americans, I let myself get wrapped up in the dueling narratives.  Probably more so — I’ve been an activist at one level or another in every presidential election since 1992. It’s easy to forget that there’s more to life than politics. But there is.

Here’s a secret the politicians don’t want you to know: You don’t need them nearly as much as they need you. In fact, you need them like you need another hole in your head, while they need you desperately.

Without them, your life goes on. Without you, their careers screech to a halt.

Their conflicting plans are a  constant low-level social contaminant.  Sure, those plans vary by single-digit parts per million in content and composition, but that variation isn’t anything to obsess over.

We’d all be better off ignoring them until they close up their campaign offices, go home and get real jobs in the productive sector.

Okay, that’s probably not going to happen any time soon. But let’s at least commit to giving this new crop of presidential candidates the attention and respect actually due them instead of the attention and respect they demand. Turn their fake “debates” into a drinking game. Picture the various candidates in their underwear. Mentally preface each of their speeches with “if I was on drugs, I might say …”

But whatever you do, don’t take them seriously.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Pwnd Again: Don’t Trust These Jokers With Your Information

2 Comments

RGBStock Binary Background

There’s an old television trope — I’m not sure where it originated — in which a shady-looking character walks up to a group, flashes open his trenchcoat to reveal a bunch of cheap (and presumably stolen) timepieces, and asks “anyone wanna buy a watch?” That image springs to mind every time I hear it suggested that Americans should trust the security and confidentiality of their personal information or critical data to the US government.

The latest:  The US Office of Personnel Management now acknowledges that hackers (allegedly from China, but who knows?) who compromised the government records of more than 22 million individuals got away with the fingerprints of 5.6 million federal employees rather than the mere 1.1 million OPM earlier admitted to.

The US government can’t seem to keep a secret.

Sometimes that’s a good thing, as when a Chelsea Manning or an Edward Snowden exposes war crimes and other abusive and illegal state behavior.

Sometimes it may be a bad thing, as when the immediate past US Secretary of State illegally transmits classified information through, and stores that information on, a private server and apparently entrusts maintenance of that server to people who don’t even know how to delete files and make them unrecoverable.

I say that “may” be a bad thing, because Hillary Clinton’s ineptitude in data security may be better in the long run to the extent that it ends up exposing additional crimes on her part and on the part of other government functionaries. Politicians and bureaucrats don’t deserve the privacy they routinely attempt to deny the rest of us.

There’s a word for people who trust their data security to screwups like president Barack Obama, would-be presidents Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie, FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and other politicians and bureaucrats.

That word is “naive.”

When it comes to your data and personal information, the US government seems to possess two operating modes: Gathering your information by every means fair and foul, whether you want them to have it or not on one hand, and leaving it lying around unsecured for every bad actor on Earth to copy at will on the other.

The tools you need to secure your data from bad actors — including the very politicians who falsely promise to secure it FOR you — are widely and freely available. Stop trusting and start encrypting.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Religion and Politics and Presidential Qualifications

Leave a comment
Leona's bumper sticker.
“Coexist” bumper sticker. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Religious belief as a qualification or disqualification for the presidency of the United States is an old can of worms. Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon running near the front of the pack for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, cracked that can open and invited the body politic to feast on September 20 on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” Carson told host Chuck Todd. In a follow-up interview with The Hill, Carson elaborated: “I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country … Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”

Public response has been swift on both sides — affirmation from segments of the GOP base, including evangelical Christians and neoconservatives, outrage from civic-minded Muslims and, oddly, some “separation of church and state” advocates. Interestingly, US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), also seeking the nomination, pointed out that the Constitution forbids “religious tests” for public office.

Cruz is right as far as he goes. A Muslim cannot be legally forbidden to seek, or be elected to, the presidency if he or she is otherwise constitutionally qualified.

On the other hand, voters are free to impose any tests they please when considering candidates. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism gave some voters pause in 2008 and 2012. John F. Kennedy’s Roman Catholic faith was a big issue in 1960, with critics wondering if he would “take his orders from the Pope.” If Carson continues in the top tier, his own Seventh Day Adventist beliefs might come under scrutiny.

I don’t come down in the moderate center very often, but that’s where I find myself here.

Most Americans adhere to some system of religious belief. I’m one of those Americans. I don’t consider that a disqualifier for public office. What I do expect from candidates vis a vis their religious beliefs are two things:

First, if their beliefs forbid them to do the job and follow the laws relating to the job (cough … Kim Davis), they should neither seek nor accept the job.

Secondly, even if their positions on issues are informed by their faith, they should be prepared to justify those positions, using reason and logic, to persons of other faiths (or of no faith) if they expect to be elected.

Like Carson, I admit to skepticism as to whether a devout Muslim would pass these tests. Unlike Carson, I put Christian candidates to the same test and give some of them — Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, for example — a failing grade.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY