HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD

 

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the greatest man I have ever known, my dad.  

He was, and is my hero.

 

His early years were spent as the youngest of two sons of a Lutheran School teacher and his wife, doing whatever a child did in the 1920s and '30s, attending school, Church, and generally learning about life during the Great Depression.

When his Nation called, he enlisted in the Army and served with the 87th Infantry in Europe.  His young adulthood was spent in places like France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Czechoslovakia, driving distant relatives back into Germany.

 

Shortly after he returned, He married Phyllis Blake, and then the real adventure began.

 

They raised 6 children, and, as you might expect, the chaos got intense from time to time.  But whatever the argument, there was always an undercurrent of love for all of us.  I like to think we were the reason he developed his wonderful sense of humor.

 

He was a wonderful man.  He taught me a lot of things that have stayed with me for a lot of years:

--To love unconditionally.

--To learn by observation. 

--To teach by example.

--To value others more than myself.

--To be kind and gentle, but to be prepared not to be if the need arises.

--To honor my wife, and love my children and grandchildren.

--To think outside the box.

--To seize failure as an opportunity to learn and improve.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

I miss his wise counsel every day.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  Give Mom a hug for me.

 

The 2020 Election

It's been almost 10 years since I had any inclination to write and post in this blog, but I feel I must say something about our latest Election.

Thoughts on the 2020 Presidential Election.

I've seen maps where Mr. Biden only won a handful of the most populous counties in the Nation, yet still won the popular vote, and, as of now, enough states to make him our next President.  The evidence that these counties had massive irregularities in their vote procedures, and in some cases more votes cast than registered voters is compelling, but not really at the core of what I have to say.

The Founders gave us the Electoral College in an attempt, which has worked quite well for over 200 years, to keep the more populous, big States from dominating the smaller States.  For many years, it has forced the candidates to appeal to a broad spectrum of America.  It has done more to reduce extremism at the Presidential level than any system devised before or since.  It works as it was designed.

When the country was founded, urban areas were small, scattered, and generally where transportation routes converged.  The food supply was local.  Most government was local, and news traveled slowly.  People were, for the most part, God fearing, moral, and had a better grasp of history than people today.  

Today, cities have become huge, people living there have little grasp of the labor required to produce the food that is plentiful everywhere.  I don't know if it's true, but I heard a quote attributed to a certain failed Georgia Gubernatorial candidate along the lines of "Why do we need farmers?  We have grocery stores."  This thinking is typical of people in large urban areas.  They assume the world is as well fed as they are, and with as little thought toward where their next meal comes from.

The problem is these people don't know how things work.  They can't be bothered to learn because they're too busy with their lives.

The people living in more rural areas are closer to the land, and have a better understanding of how things work, because their  livelihoods are more closely dependent on farmers.

City people look to external sources for solutions to their problems, rural folks tend to fix it themselves.

The divisions in our country today are generally between urban and rural.  There are other differences that divide us, but this is the essence of what we see.  There have been riots this year in the cities.  My little town had a few protesters on the courthouse square, but they were peaceful, and marched with the police, not against them.  They knew these guys were their neighbors, and acted accordingly.

The problem with the election this year was the dichotomy between rural and urban votes.  The big, more populous counties of most states simply overwhelmed the rest of the state with their large numbers of votes.

All of this brings me to Bob's Simple Solution for Electile Dysfunction.

The States need to adopt an Electoral College system for all Statewide candidates.  Any race that the all the voters of a State select would be covered.  Local elections, County offices, and U. S. Representative elections would continue to be by popular vote.

The others, President, Senators, Governors, etc., would fall under the new electoral system.

Each county would continue to count the votes for statewide offices, but the winner in each county would get the electoral votes from that county.  These votes would be determined as follows.  One vote for each county, plus one additional vote for each 100,000 residents (or portion thereof).  The minimum a county could have would be 2 votes. A county with 100,500 residents would have 3, and a county with 600,000 residents would have 7.  The candidate with the most electoral votes would win the statewide office, or the Presidential Electors.

The Benefits?

The majority of small counties would not be disenfranchised as with the current system.  Candidates for office would have to appeal to people throughout the State, not just in a few major counties.  They would need to moderate their rhetoric to appeal to a broader spectrum of voters.  Magical, middle of the night, vote dumps would only affect the county where they happened, not the results for the whole state.   A large county with 125% voter turnout would not negate my vote in a small county if I voted differently, and it would not enhance my vote if I voted with the magic votes.

The Drawbacks?

I don't see any significant ones.  But then I like this idea.

The Founders were wise.  They knew we had differences, regional, Religious, ethnic, and whatever.  They devised a system to cope with the differences, and it has worked well.  Maybe, after nearly 250 years it is time to expand on their wisdom, rather than try to get rid of it.