I was raised in the 50’s on the idea that we Americans were good,
we never lost a war,
except Korea,
and that didn’t really count,
and that how we played the game was important,
it was even a moral kind of goodness,
until it really mattered, and then breaking the rules was ok,
if you didn’t talk about it too much.
Just don’t hit below the belt,
or at least don’t get caught.
Boy has that changed!
Now we are EXCEPTIONAL,
lose wars daily, but not against near peers,
and openly game the system to prevent any semblance of fairness to function at home.
Gerrymandering is allowing 30% of the country to control 60% of the legislatures in many states. What we need is a law to prevent that, for example the John Lewis Act, the For The People Act, or the Voting Rights Act,
or even the Constitution for cripes sake,
but the original design of the government also included intentional provisions to keep the working rabble from having any real say in things, or the ability to pass democratic reforms.
A small percentage of the national population has a large amount of say in the Senate,
gerrymandering is creating the same minority rule in the House,
and now some states are reverting to the quaint idea of their legislators overruling
one-man-one-vote elections if they don’t like the result,
BUT these legislators are not majority winners of the statewide votes to begin with!!!
Catch 22, 21st Century edition.
Acceptable cheating is clear and simple,
What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.
The cost is worth the price.
It’s in our original genetics.
As colonists we stole the land from the natives, but that was Manifest Destiny, and it was based on our being a Christian nation.
As a young country we used smallpox infested blankets to mop up a few recalcitrant injuns whom we missed with bullets,but that was Western Expansion, and it allowed us to plow up the high desert.
As a former colony, we imposed ourselves on smaller societies, but that was the Monroe Doctrine, and it gave us cheap bananas.
As a superpower we installed 800 military bases around the world to keep the oil flowing, but that was Pax Americana, and it kept our gas prices cheaper than drinking water.
But this right wing cheating is too much. If only we had an organized group in our state and national governments who could do something about it.
Oh well, guess not.