Swing Vote

American politics has come down to two very dogmatic parties.  This is reflected also in the political map of the United States, where the two coasts and their cities are liberal, while the heartland is uniformly conservative.  The two countries within the United States couldn’t be any more different.

People say it is unfortunate that we don’t have more bipartisanship, but realistically we haven’t had any of that going all the way to the 60’s.  And right now the two parties couldn’t be more opposed to each other on a whole host of key issues: immigration, healthcare, welfare, climate change, gun control, taxes, abortion, tariffs, etc.  You name it, there’s just a clear black and white divide between the two parties, so that to hope for more bipartisanship, although it may sound like an attractive alternative, is merely pie in the sky thinking.

I would argue instead that, now, the block of voters who call themselves Independents are the key to the direction of the country.  They are the pivotal swing vote for either of the dogmatic parties to gain an advantage over the other party.  How the Independents vote from this point on will determine everything, so the two parties would be wise to  focus their attention on winning them over — that’s a winning strategy today, not the hope for more bipartisanship, which, perhaps sadly, is a thing of the past.

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It’s A Boy!

Henry Barnard's avatarHenry's Views

O joy! O joy! The bells are ringing!
Our bonny boy arrives, we are singing.
His future, that remains unclear,
But our hopes, they are in the stratosphere.

Might he become another Einstein?
Will age produce a very fine wine?
Or perhaps another Shakespeare?
Certainly someone without peer.

But, alas, our hopes quickly dashed by time.
What he becomes in a flash a crime.
By the age of ten, surly and fat,
Our bonny boy an ordinary brat!

All Poetry – Henry Barnard

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Abortion Ambivalence

The abortion issue is one where I am firmly in the undecided camp.  Not because I disagree with either side but because I agree with both.

The Libertarian streak in me bristles at the thought that the state should control what a woman can and cannot do with their own bodies when it comes to having babies.  What could be a more intrinsic and natural right than the right to decide one’s own reproduction?  So a part of me agrees that a woman should have an absolute right to abort a fetus if she so chooses to do so — it’s her body.  And there are ancillary arguments that are not without weight as well: 1) that if abortions aren’t legal and carried out by licensed doctors, they will be done anyway but by quacks with potentially fatal results for the woman, and 2) that if the pregnant woman is poor and without material support from either a husband or a family or both, by forcing the woman to have the baby, you are condemning her to a financially precarious and very difficult life.

But there’s the other part of me that cannot deny that killing a fetus is to some degree, inescapably, murder.  To deny that is simply that — you’re just in denial.  So if you endorse legal abortions, there is no doubt in my mind that you are also endorsing murder, and that of completely innocent, albeit still unborn, infants.  And to make matters even more egregious, you are doing this murder for what reason?  Really, just for the mere convenience of the woman — she just decides that having a baby is not something she  wants to do right now because, for whatever reason, it is inconvenient.  There you have it — murder for convenience.  How do you square that one?   No one can.

In fact, I think even young women who wholeheartedly endorse the Free-Choice point of view must know in their heart of hearts, having had an abortion, that they have killed an infant, and that must be a dreadful passing thought and a cross to bear.  But even worse, the woman who has abortions but then goes all the way through her child-bearing years without having had children, and then, when it’s too late, wants to have children, only to realize the door is now closed for that option, so she has murdered the children she could have had, but now will have none.  Dreadful.

So I am firmly in the undecided camp because both arguments seem compelling to me, which leaves me in nowheresville.  But the one thing I do think might be a better solution than what we have now is a different approach to legal abortion.  Right now, Roe v. Wade makes abortion legal throughout the entire United States, even though there are states where the Pro-Lifers are clearly in the majority, so you are forcing those people to live under a form of government that they may despise — a highly unrepresentative situation, which goes against all of our traditions of democratic government.   One can see why states like that could engender so much animosity that you end up with abortion clinic bombings and murders, as there are many fanatics on the Pro-Life side that believe they are doing god’s work by such acts.

Therefore, what I think would be a better solution than what we have now — and certainly one more in sync with representative and therefore democratic government — would be if the abortion issue were decided by each state, not by the federal government.  Fanatics on both side of the argument would then have the choice to live in a state whose abortion policy they agreed with, and since a good many states would certainly remain Free-Choice states, women who found themselves in Prof-Life states but wanted an abortion could always get a legal and medically sound one simply by travelling to one of the Free-Choice states to have it.

This alternative approach to legal abortion would go a long way toward defusing acrimony around this issue simply because a larger percentage of the population would be living under a state government whose abortion policy they agree with.

State by state voter breakdown on abortion

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Beauty Dallies Not

Henry Barnard's avatarHenry's Views

The colors of summer flowers,
Lush reds, brilliant yellows, subtle lavenders,
Reach their zenith early —
For just a moment —
And from those lofty heights
Begins their relentless decline.

As August rounds the bend
And gallops toward the finish line,
Petals droop and shrivel…and drop,
And once vibrant hues fade non-stop.

Yet even in this cruel effacement
Lingers there an echo of glory past,
As in the ravaged faces of the old
Remains there a hint of youth steadfast.

All Poetry — Henry Barnard

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The Big Slur

The Democrats — the party of the big slur.  Surprising how many people fall for this kind of thing.  Mostly the young and the gullible.  But it’s all very consistent with their fake news media — just more slurs.  I must admit, they have a gift for it.  But it definitely leaves an icky residue on them.  And it’s very transparent if you have any judgment at all.

Mind you, both parties indulge in slurring their opponents, but then again I think the Democrats are better at it, or is it that’s all they have left?  The party of Bobby Kennedy used to be a party of principles, but now it’s the party of sleazy character assassination.  He must be turning over in his grave.

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Libel

The libel laws against politicians are a much looser standard — you can pretty much say just about anything about a politician and you can’t be sued by them for libel.  But judges are not politicians.  Not only that, their reputations are very valuable to them, given the nature of their work as representatives of the law.  You should be very afraid if you have libeled a judge…very afraid.  If any of these women made false or idle allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, they are going to rue the day.  A judge is the last person in the world you want to libel.

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Flu Vaccinations

Flu vaccination is a curious thing. You willing allow a virus to enter your body, albeit one that is supposedly dead and can’t reproduce, so that it generates antibodies that can fight off a live virus should one come along.  But a few days after the injection, you get a very mild case of the flu.  Sniffles, slight fever.  You accept that — getting sick voluntarily — because theoretically those antibodies are now present and on guard for months, that is, for the upcoming “flu season.”

One wonders if there is any actual evidence that any of this works.  Evidence as in statistical proof involved two large groups — one group vaccinated and the other not — and the numbers on how many in each group get sick.  One would suppose there is such evidence, even to the point of indicating just how effective these vaccinations really are.

See  the link below for this evidence.

Flu Vaccination Effectiveness

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