When Confidence Fails

Of the many things that conspire together to make the United States of America the greatest place in the world to live, our long record of peaceful transfer of power has to among the most prominent. Throughout our 200+ year history our leaders have been replaced and disputes about power transfer have been settled with the ballot or through elected representatives. Obviously this has not always been perfectly accomplished, or done without some occasionally bitter divisions and disputes. But on January 9, 2009 George W. Bush will willingly surrender his office to the winner of this years presidential election. Such a peaceful succession of power is only possible if the citizens and the politicians involved have a reasonable level of confidence in the election process.

Surely all Americans will admit there is some amount of voter fraud in every election. We would be naive not to admit it. However, we have chosen to believe that the vast majority of voters and election officials are honest, that there are enough safeguards to ensure an accurate and fair election. We have to believe this, otherwise our system of government is a sham.

Recent evidence is beginning to call that confidence into question. Particularly in regards to the activist group ACORN. ACORN purports to be a non-partisan, non-profit organization that is interested in promoting involvement in the democratic process by as many people at possible. Admirable, if true. Nothing could be further from the truth however, they are actively partisan, supporting and promoting Barack Obama. Unashamedly so. This should be scandal enough, but there's more, and worse. They have been shown to be engaged in widespread voter registration fraud. Deroy Murdock over at National Review Online posts a good article summarizing most of the voter registration fraud connected to ACORN that is currently known. I have no doubt that more will come to light. You'll have to read the whole thing for yourself, but some relevant sections:

In Indiana, people seem really psyched for November. STATSIndiana reveals that 644,197 adults in Marion County (Indianapolis) are of voting age. Among those, 677,401 are registered to vote. Thanks to these 33,204 fake voters, Indianapolis enjoys an amazing 105.15 percent registration rate.

In Lake County, among 5,000 registration applications that ACORN submitted, all of the first 2,100 proved bogus. “All the signatures looked exactly the same,” Republican election official Ruthann Hoagland told CNN. “Everything on the card filled out looks exactly the same.” Her Democratic colleague, Sally LaSota, agreed. “We’re not handwriting experts, but what’s obvious is obvious.” These 5,000 forms were placed in what Hoagland called the “fake pile” for later scrutiny.

One card was filed by Jimmy Johns. His address is listed as 10839 Broadway in Crown Point. That turns out to be the location of a fast-food restaurant called . . . Jimmy Johns.

Don't worry, each one of those 35,000 registrations is an isolated incident by an over-enthusiastic volunteer, not typical. (Of course, my 35,000 number is HUGELY conservative considering it allows a 100% registration rate for Marion county and assumes that only the first 2,100 registrations in Lake County are fraudulent.) But wait, there's more:

In New Mexico, Bernalillo County authorities are examining 1,400 dubious registration cards. Also, ACORN illegally has hired felons there to register voters. This apparently included a child rapist. ACORN reportedly has had at least 59 felons signing up voters across America.

More isolated incidents:

According to the Wall Street Journal, a worker for one Ohio ACORN affiliate in 2004 “was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters, and pillars of the community named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, and Jive Turkey.”

And yet a few more over-enthusiastic volunteers, just wanting to help people:

In Washington State, ACORN agreed to court supervision and paid a $25,000 fine after five of its workers went to jail in July 2007 for sitting in a Seattle public library and filling out 1,800 registration forms with names they invented. In 2004, some Democratic precincts generated more mail-in ballots than there were mail voters.

This is just a sampling. ACORN is being investigated in 13 different states. This is probably the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Many states, including our own Illinois, aren't even looking at ACORN for voter fraud. It's impossible to tell how much fraud takes place when the people responsible for the safety of elections aren't interested in groups like ACORN. Of course, elections in Illinios are largely determined by the Daley machine. "Vote early, vote often!" has long been a Cook County motto. Now, a group like ACORN can handle the dirty work under the cloak of "non-partisanship."

For more on ACORN and Barack Obama's ties to the organization see Stanley Kurtz's piece, here; Mark Hemingway, here; or any one of Michelle Malkin's posts on the subject, start here.

Back to the greater point. In light of prevalent fraud of this nature, and the knowledge that we are only looking at the tip of the iceberg, what are we as a society to do? It has become rather common for elections, even national ones, to come down to thousands, even hundreds of votes. What if the candidates are separated by 2,000 votes in Indiana? 5,000 in Illinois? (unlikely I know) Iowa by 500? What would we do? Pretend that fraud didn't play a part in the selection our President? If we DO recognize the fraud, what would we be able to do about it?

Our election systems are in trouble. It's time to take a hard, honest look at some of our policies. Like even allowing a third party to register voters in the first place. Or same day registration/early voting. Or even early voting at all, I guess there are some situations where it is needed, but it should be rare. One immediate way to begin reform is to ask for a simple photo ID at the voting booth. We show photo ID for virtually everything else. I have to show a photo ID to buy cold medicine for my kids, to rent a video, to drive a car, the list is endless. The idea that this would discriminate against any eligible voter in any way is ridiculous and embarrassing. The idea that it would it would unfairly hurt minorities is condescending, offensive, and racist.

Open, honest and fair elections are among the basic foundations for our system of government and way of life. These elections are under attack. If we do nothing, we risk losing our collective confidence in the electoral process. What will happen when that confidence fails?

~Gabriel

Photoshop credit: Leo Alberti

Monday Quote of the Day

From Charles Robinson's "Winners and Losers" column at Yahoo Sports:

The decision to squib the kickoff with 11 seconds remaining cost the Bears the game, plain and simple. What was with the soft zone in the secondary, allowing Michael Jenkins to catch a 26-yard pass to put Jason Elam in field-goal range? This is a team that could be 6-0 right now with some better coaching decisions.

Agreed, with the one caveat that there is virtually never one decision that costs a game. There were plenty of poor decisions to go around. However, once you overcome your poor decisions/play to take the lead with 11 seconds... you have to stop making those same mistakes that nearly cost you the game already. "Could be" is for wimps, but still... 6-0 would have had a nice ring to it.

~ Gabriel

Catching up and Stuff

At long last I'm posting again. Life has been keeping me rather busy. An emergency surgery in the family, a family camping trip and time spent sailing into the sea of mortgages have kept me on my toes. So much has transpired since my last post that I would normally write about that I shall try to catch up with an "Impromptus"-style post (with apologies to Jay Nordlinger at National Review). A stream-of-consciousness post mixing personal, political, and sports news of interest to me (and hopefully you as well):

It's interesting to note, when I signed on to Blogger yesterday I found an unfinished post from about 4 or 5 weeks ago in which I set out to illustrate that the times we live in aren't nearly as bad or unique as they seem. Our country just isn't THAT old and each previous generation has dealt with challenges that certainly seemed to be worst the country had faced. However... given the events of the last few weeks, I'm beginning to wonder if that post is still valid. Particularly in regard to the nearly unprecedented government involvement in the banking/investment/mortgage business and the subsequent reaction and instability in the markets.

Speaking of big-government, for you Illinois folks, our own Dick Durbin is up for re-election this year. So make sure and get out on election day and vote for Steve Sauerberg. Frankly, I'd just about vote for Mickey Mouse if he was running against Durbin. We're not supposed to question politician's patriotism (couldn't tell you why not), in Durbin's case I guess you can't question what you can't see.

Since my last post we've had two debates between McCain/Obama and one between Biden/Palin. I can't really bring myself to care enough about the debates to write much by way of analysis. Suffice to say, it's too bad Fred Thompson never made it past the primaries.

On to sports. The baseball season has come to an end for our regional teams. My own St. Louis Cardinals sputtered out and finished in an entirely unspectacular fashion. Their finish not withstanding, it was a great year for the Cardinals as they outperformed all expectations and chased the first place Cubs and held off the Brewers for most of the season.

Speaking of the Cubs... "unspectacular" is about the last word you'd use for their end of season. After setting some kind of team record for back to back appearances in the post season, they proceeded to AGAIN fail to win a single game. I wonder what the record is for postseason appearances without a win? A few words from Buzz Bissenger,

"...The inevitable implosion of the Cubs – the sad fury of their futility – only gave the rivalry an added extra, with nothing more fun for a Cards fan than to watch the Cubs self-destruct with their own special brand of pathos..."

I really did think this year might be the exception.

Harvest is now in full swing. This my absolute favorite time of every year. I know, every season has it's special moments, but Autumn is far and away dearest to me. The sweltering humidity of August breaks and is replaced by 65-70 degree days and 45 degree nights. The trees go out it a blaze of glory, the fields of corn are shining and golden, the sunsets shining through the cumulative dust of hundreds of thousands of acres being harvested are spectacular.

I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but there's a certain intangible quality about this time of year. Maybe it's the romanticism of harvest. Maybe it's the bittersweet nature of Fall; beautiful in its own right, but ultimately all the beauty is a collection of endings, harbingers of winter. Maybe it's nothing more than hot apple cider on a cool evening. Whatever the reason, this time of year speaks to me in ways I can't always explain, I hope it does for you too.

I look forward to fitting in a few more posts in the near future that are currently half-written in my mind. By request I'm also planning on doing a review of "To Train up a Child" by Michael and Debbie Pearl sometime this fall. I'm still debating what sort of format to do it in, it's a rather time-consuming process to do a good job. As always, feel free to leave comments or ask questions. I'm trying out the "Live Chat" box on the right side of the screen. If it says I'm available for chat, I really am. Feel free to try it out or to leave a message for me through it.

~Gabriel

Backyard Politics

How's this for a Monday morning chuckle? Matt Gauntt posted this over at Illinois Review this weekend, I thought it was amusing.

I was talking to a friend of mine's little boy the other day. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he replied, 'I want to be President!' Both of his parents are liberal Democrats and were standing there. So then I asked him, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?'

He replied, 'I'd give houses to all the homeless people.'

'Wow - what a worthy goal.' I told him, 'You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where this homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward a new house.'

Since he is only 6, he thought that over for a few seconds while his Mom glared at me. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, 'Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?'

And I said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party.'

Out of the mouths of babes, as they say...

~Gabriel

Remembering

Hardly an attention-grabbing title I know. What else can anyone do however? There has been a plethora of tributes and memories recorded in virtually any medium imaginable about this day, what can I add? I admit, probably nothing; but I would be remiss if I let this day go by without any recognition.

Seven years ago... so odd how time passes and is recorded in our memories. Parts of that day and the following days seem etched in my memory as if it were yesterday. At the same time... it almost seems as if those events took place in a different lifetime, to a different person. Part of this, of course, is because in many ways it's true, for me personally, and for all of us in a general sense.

I was 23 years old and living in Columbia, SC. I had been married for just over two years and our children wouldn't come for several years down the road. I was back in school part-time at Columbia International University. While in school I worked for the grounds dept. as a utility player. Primarily equipment maintenance/repair/whatever Christy Lomas needed done (my job description would probably fill a post of its own). Nikki was teaching sixth grade at Crossroads Middle School, having just started her second year of teaching. Life was good. I enjoyed my work, I was in a groove with school. Nikki and I were loving married life, particularly married life in South Carolina. Weekends in Charleston, backpacking in the Appalachians, camping in all the various regions of the state. We had a great church, great friends, it was a happy carefree time for us; all was right with the world. That was Sept. 10.

September 11 was just like every other day. We got up early in order to drive Nikki to Irmo for school. I kept the car and drove to campus to start my work day. I had a John Deere 430 tractor to get to that had been giving us trouble for a few days. It was Tuesday, a chapel day, so I got to work pretty quickly as my morning would be cut short for services. I recall it was a cloudy day, not dark and sullen, but a lightly overcast day. Still summer in South Carolina (at least to my Midwestern tastes). I was shoulder-deep in the tractor when Jeff Fulton came striding through the shop, having just been in the truck listening the radio. He was all exercised about something. (If you know Jeff, you know this isn't that uncommon... if you're reading this Jeff, you know I mean that in the nicest possible way) from my position under the tractor it sounded like he said someone had run a plane into the World Trade Center.

I must admit, at this point my reaction was little more than to extracate myself from the tractor long enough to take another sip from my coffee mug (smeared with grease by now) and say something insightful like, "uh huh." I shook my head at whatever yahoo celebrity had run his little Cesna into some New York skyscraper and went back to work.

Jeff came back out from office muttering something about explosions and fire and who knows what else... I had work to do. Wasn't long before someone said they were trying to hook up a TV in the breakroom so we could catch the news. What? All for some idiot that couldn't see a 110 story building in his flight path? I dusted myself off and figured I might as well refill the 'ol coffee cup and see what the hubbub was about when someone (Dick Lindsey?) grimly tells me that a second plane had hit the towers. What? By this time I was in the breakroom and trying to discern the images on the screen as several folks tried to fabricate an antennae. You all know the images I saw. They're imprinted on our collective memories.

They were replaying the second plane hitting over and over again, trying to figure what kind of plane it was. I stood in disbelief as both towers came down. We eventually moved over to the chapel to find out that they had set up CNN on the video projector. The dust, the confusion, the replays, the speculation. We tried to take it in. The world was changing. Before our eyes. The Pearl Harbor attack couldn't have been anything like this, broadcast live on CNN. No red "meatball" on the side of the planes to identify our enemy. Just fire, dust, death, confusion.

That night and the days that followed are bit more blurry. I have memories of gathering around the radio with Mike and Ann Prime, listening to President Bush give some of the best speeches of his life. I remember listening to him and knowing we were at war. We would go to bed late, having been glued to the TV, we would get up in the dark hours of the morning, watching the TV as we got ready for work. The skies were strangely quiet with all air traffic grounded. I do have a specific memory of watching airplanes in the sky afterward and noticing contrails that indicated where a plane had sharply changed direction. Mentioning it to Nikki only to find out she had been watching it as well. It was an eerie time.

The world changed that day, particularly for Americans of course, but the world changed. We were at war. The terrorists had been at war with us, but now we finally acknowledged that, and went to fight them. You could argue we've lost our way a bit here and there, but we were fighting back.

This is another oddity of our times, both good and bad. In a very real sense the world had changed, dramatically. However, in many ways that you might expect, it still has not. Look forward to today. We still generally live in peace and prosperity. I know, I know, things aren't as good as some folks say they should be, but we really do. The little towns of middle America live from day to day, much as we always have. My kids ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk, the old men gather for coffee and donuts and watch the corn grow, we complain about taxes, gas prices and the governor. We still live as if we're not at war, we still live as if we're safe. This is a credit to our armed forces (these same middle-American towns do send a lot of guardsmen to the Middle-east, we're not that isolated), and to the unswerving dedication of our leaders, particularly George W. Bush.

I don't want to get terribly political here at the end, but I believe he is a much greater president than even I have given him credit for. I have strongly disagreed with how he has handled most domestic issues, among other things. However, I believe, at least for him, all those other issues faded pretty quickly and permanently into the background when he spoke these words on Sept. 20 to a special joint session of Congress:

"It is my hope that in the months and years ahead life will return almost to normal. We'll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good. Even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day and to whom it happened. We will remember the moment the news came, where we were and what we were doing... ...I will not forget the wound to our country and those who inflicted it. I will not yield, I will not rest, I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people."

He was absolutely right. Life for most, has returned almost to normal. We do remember that day. He has not yielded his resolve to preserve the safety of this nation. Let us not either. Let us live our lives as free Americans, let us remember that day, let us not grow complacent in that struggle that sometimes seems so far way.

~ Gabriel