By Jim Heffernan
I’ve been thinking about Chuck McLaughlin’s excellent “Where I Stand” column of January 19* (link below), which struck a nerve with me. What I liked about it was the clear appeal of making our choices based on the pure and simple morality of the decision. Israel’s and Biden’s initial response back in October could be justified in the terms of self-defense. As time went on, it became clear that Israel was going beyond self-defense and crossing into revenge and ,yes, genocide as their primary motives. Biden’s government has made appeals for moderation, but I think the time has come to escalate from appeals to sanctions, however unpopular such a course might be. America owes its greatness to making choices based on morality.
I base my thinking largely on two excellent journalist/authors, Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman. Here’s links to the columns that support my conclusions are listed below. If you have trouble with the link, contact me at codger817@gmail.com and I can e-mail a PDF version.
I’ve also been thinking about the Iowa caucuses and, by extension, dis-affected voters. Media tells us that Donald Trump won with a whopping 55.8% of the vote. While that’s technically true, it’s also a distortion. Turnout for the Iowa caucuses was pathetic, 14.1% of registered Republican voted. 85.9% of Republican’s chose not to vote. So, it works out that just 7.8% of registered Republican’s voted for Trump. It just doesn’t seem so impressive in those terms.
Maybe my bias is talking, but I do take comfort in the fact that previous Republican winners of the Iowa caucus have been Rick Santorum (2012), Mike Huckabee (2008), and Ted Cruz (2016). You have to go back to George W. Bush (2004), as an incumbent, before a winner of the Republican Iowa caucus was elected.
I can easily understand the low turnout in Iowa. The contest doesn’t mean much, and it was very, very cold and it wasn’t easy to get to the polls. But I do find it disturbing that we have low turnouts right here in Tillamook where voting is always very easy and elections are binding. In our last election, 63.5% of registered voters couldn’t be bothered to mark their ballot and get it in the mail. That’s not the way democracy is supposed to work.
I hate to sound like a member of the “foil hat” brigade, but I truly believe one of the reasons that politics is so dysfunctional these days is an active conspiracy to generate dis-affected voters. It’s easier to control the outcome when fewer people vote.
I think the election coming up this November is extremely important. I urge everyone to look on their vote as a precious privilege and make sure it ends up in the mail and not in the trash. It’s your future, don’t let others decide it for you.
As always, discussion is welcome at codger817@gmail.com
Article links:
*https://www.tillamookcountypioneer.net/op-ed-where-i-stand/
Nicholas Kristof, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/13/opinion/israel-gaza-war.html?searchResultPosition=2 and
Thomas Friedman, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/opinion/israel-war-netanyahu.html?searchResultPosition=2