An old white man’s rant about the election.

Here is my take on the election. I consider myself a social liberal but a fiscal conservative. I’m spiritual but don’t belong to any organized religion because in time of need the organization failed me while my beliefs sustained me. Disclaimer done.

Below is a graph of how I view the voting public.

OK, that cut an paste didn’t work.

In Santa Fe we do a lot of visualization so visualize a five peak graph. Extreme Left, Donkey Voters, Middle America, Elephant Voters, and Extreme Right.

So an election strategy is to keep the extremes committed to vote while shifting the mean of the moderates toward your candidate.

So, statements like “this election is not about candidates but is about my policies” is likely to shift the middle cluster to the right as probably Biden’s statement “he is one of us” Duh!!!!

The extremes are: pro choice / pro life; disarm the populace/conceal carry; wealth re-distribution (police state)/oligarchies (police state). If you are not addicted to reality TV you get the idea.

OK, here are the issues that I’m concerned about that no one addressed:

> credit card interest rates: 25 to 35 % of balance, which is more than 23 to 33 % above what the banks can borrow money from the Feds. I believe that in the Merchant of Venice that was considered usury.

>25 to 35 dollars late fee, now I’m middle class but I’ve been unemployed. The banks prey on the middle class because they can buy votes, which is a polite word for bribery

>IRA’s and distributions: I’m still working for a variety of reasons but being over 70 I have to start taking distributions from my retirement account so the IRS (federal government) can tax the income to pay welfare.

>HSA: I can no longer tax shelter some of my income to pay for my medical expenses. Why not? Guess I don’t know the right politician.

> Drug Testing: I consult to government agencies, or at least I did before this essay, and I have to take a drug test to get a job and I have to take random drug tests to keep a job. What is wrong with people on welfare taking a drug test to get food stamps? If drugs are a problem make them legal.

> Defined pensions aka social security: Hey, I’ve collected more than I’ve paid in but then the Feds didn’t invest they just stole. The nation cannot afford defined pensions be they city, county, state, federal or social security. At the same time we can’t trust the citizen who watches NFL and reality to invest nor can we trust the republicans. What is a body to do.

> A PAC is not an individual and it does not have the right of free speech. We need a court decision to define the separation between a citizen who has the right to vote and a corporate identity who can bribe and corrupt.

> Immigration: We need to honor those who seek a better life. We need to protect them from predators who pay them less than the legal wages. They are the ones who harvest our food because people on welfare won’t work. We need to protect our education system from corporations who won’t fund support for college education because it is cheaper to bribe Congress for green cards for immigrants who won’t complain.

There is more I could say from the view point of an old, white man who is neither left nor right, who has always worked and when unemployed was to proud to take food stamps. I have a conceal carry permit and I prefer to be judged by 12 than carried by 6

We really need a 3rd party