LEE’S SUMMIT, SEPTEMBER 5, 2012 – HOMEWORK: read this article by Annie Walker-Leonard (@anne_tx) of Define – Don’t Defend – http://definedontdefend.com/2012/08/31/wall-street-vs-main-street-revisited/

Now please read my opinion.

I am honestly stunned by her article.  The prose is interesting, the content appears logical, but just like the Star Trek theory for suspension of disbelief (tell two truths followed by fiction) the blog piece fell apart on me.

There is a very good reason for a two party system; the truth exists somewhere in between.  European democracies have a plethora of parties and a system where the Prime Minister (call him or her Speaker of the House – closest thing we have) has to form a coalition party and try to govern.

In America we keep it simple: Democrats and Republicans (used to be the Whig party in another incarnation recently brought up by the RNC has 1812 platform – good overture, not even close to fact).

The Republicans are the party that represents those from the middle of the road, to right of center and we call them Conservatives.

The Democrats are the party that represents those from the middle of the road, to the left of center and we call them Liberals.

In both cases – let’s be honest – there is a spectrum that statistically has what is called an X-bar (you and I call it an average), and it has a “normal” distribution in the statistical sense which reaches out to the left of the average and to the right of the average and encompasses 99.997% of the population on that end of the spectrum.

Further, if we apply the same statistics to the Country as a whole we find that at this point that X-bar (the average) is going to fall slightly right of center.  These are the facts, and those of us on one side or the other, on one end of our spectrum, the middle of it, or the other end of it will debate our side with all the vim and vigor we can call up.

Where’s the truth: Somewhere between our collective debates.

Each party has their deep pockets.  The democrats for all their attacks on the Republican Deep pockets tout some of the richest people in the world as active participants and contributors: George Soros, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, the late Steve Jobs and a number of the Forbes 400 richest people in America – notice some are actually successful businessman.

The Republicans have their lot of successful businessman like Mitt Romney who happens to be running for President.  Of the top 100 individual contributors, the Republicans have 60 contributors that account for $15 million this cycle so far.  But, when you look at the totals per person, the contribution is not that different – $250k per donor versus $225k for the Democrats.

Citizens United was more about Free Speech than it was about Public Interest versus Big Business.  Just like the Health Care Act ruling was more about the Governments taxing authority than its ability to force commerce upon individuals.  Neither side liked the finding, but from a strictly legal (as in Supreme Court Legal) sense the decisions were correct.

The right for Americans to vote with their wallets as well as with their ballot is one that was supported by each of our founding fathers (though at the time you had to be a land owner to vote – but that quickly changed, other things took longer) and defended by generations of Americans not only in the battlefield, but in the streets and in the boardrooms and in the Union Halls (stop that card check thing – it truly is un-American and totally against what the Union movement stood for and fought for back when it counted, when they risked their lives for their fellow workers – not today when they are another political arm that would no more run a lathe, drive a forklift, or tell you the difference between a two-way or a four-way hydraulic valve).

You wish to vote for A, B, C or even Omega, be my guest and I’ll truly support you 100% in your American Given and American Earned right – but stop the nonsense of saying that the other party is Un-American – that is simply not true.  Not true by Definition.  Not true by Fact.

WE – the people of the United States of America – have an Ancestor Fought and Earned Right to vote how we wish by doing our own homework – not by picking up simple talking points, accepting the truth and the wishful statements from our side; but by digging for our own truths, making up our own minds, and questioning everything not just everything the other side says, but everything everyone says – till we make up our own minds with our own facts.

How do we know when we’ve reached that point?  It’s simple!

  • We can usually articulate their point better than they can,
  • demonstrate the flaw in it clearly and without malice, and
  • then stating our opinion on how it should and could be. 

At that moment, we look for the candidate that will do the best to represent our thinking; and hold them accountable.

God all mighty!!!!  No one said a democracy was this _______ (fill in your own colorful metaphor) hard.

To that I say: Welcome to America – bring your sweat, your energy, your willingness to work, and when you are all done, bring us your OWNED (as in conceived, nurtured, developed and understood clearly) IDEAS with all your conviction.

I’m truly proud to be an American, by choice!  And I’m proud that all my children are American Born!

Respectfully Submitted
The Lee’s Summit Conservative