So, that’s done.

[aadler]

Susan and I voted today; we’re in one of the states where early voting opened this week, and — even though I believe that national elections should take place on single specified Election Day — that’s not how it’s currently done, and so we wanted to make sure we were counted.

Counted as we want to be, not as somebody else decides would be a ‘better’ vote to have cast.

Yes, I’m one of ‘those’ people.

Do I believe there is election fraud? Absolutely; that’s not even an argument, it’s a verified fact, you can find the results in various court dockets.

Do I know how much election fraud there is, or how far it goes? Nope. I doubt anyone does, even those perpetrating these frauds … but there are many, many indications that there’s a lot, and that it reaches very far.

Do I think all the blame goes to one party? Also no; again, different court results show that you can find people on both sides who’ll fudge the process if they think they can get away from it. On the other hand, when one side pushes for voter ID, verification of voter status, and various safeguards on the process, and the other side consistently opposes those measures and visibly pushes to open voting to illegal aliens, felons, and people casting votes in multiple states … well, it’s not hard to reach a conclusion as to which direction the majority of such fraud is likely to be coming from, is it?

Do I think the last election was ‘stolen’? Yes, I do, and I have reasons for that belief, but I recognize the difference between me believing it (even if there’s more than enough reason for me to see it as effectively proven unless it can be definitively shown that the 2020 election wasn’t fraudulently decided) and knowing it for an established fact.

Do I think the people who frauded the last election (we know there was fraud, it’s just a matter of who and how much and whether all that massive, open, blatant fraud was itself enough to swing the election) will try to do it again? Mmm … I think they’ll try, but I suspect — make that urgently hope — that they recognize they can’t get away with it, and so do what they hope will be enough but don’t pull out all the stops for an obvious banana-republic overthrow of the legitimate voting process. (They didn’t want it to be so obvious last time, they just underestimated HOW MUCH fraud would be necessary, and so had to scramble at the last moment for enough hastily manufactured ballots to push their predetermined result over the line.)

So, yes, I believe the things I’ve spelled out. But then, what do I know? As I already admitted, I’m one of ‘those people’. In fact, I’ll make it explicit. I’m:

• white
• heterosexual
• male
• married (to a woman, see above)
• Catholic (Latin Mass)
• gun owner
• former military
• former Republican (switched to Independent because Republicans aren’t conservative enough)

Get it? I’m the enemy of all good, virtuous, science-following, right-thinking people as defined by the ‘news’ media, academia, the hugest majority of the entertainment industry, most of the social-media tech organizations, and all the other progressive socialists who never tire of making sure we know they’re superior to us.

I’m one of the existential threats to Our Democracy (but … don’t we live in a Constitutionally-defined representative republic? nah, that’s crazy talk), the nation, humanity itself, and the continued existence of the very planet. Nobody will ever be safe unless I, and everyone like me, can be silenced, canceled, imprisoned, or something more permanent.

But I’m still here. And I’m not going away any time soon.

Comments

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

I don't want to get into a political debate with you. I believe we've determined that nothing productive can come from that. But I was struck by one sentence in your post and that was about someone showing you definitively that the 2020 election was not stolen. I think we have a respectful enough relationship that I can ask you this. What evidence would be necessary for you to believe the 2020 election was not stolen? You have evidence you believe to be more than sufficient to prove that it was which speaks to who you think is speaking with proper authority and who isn't. So, this is mostly an academic question, but I am curious.

[aadler]

Even while I was writing that, I was aware that evidence adequate to convince me was unlikely. Because of your history of courteous back-and-forth with me, I’ll give it my best shot.

The biggest obstacle to my reaching any such conclusion is the number of institutions, from so many levels and sources, that have lied to so many people about so many things over the last five years. The health establishment, the intelligence community, the information media, the military leadership, the education spokespeople … pretty much everybody we were taught to respect and believe have openly gone in the tank for partisan propaganda, so I would start out disinclined to trust anything from the previously accepted sources. That’s a hefty handicap to overcome.

Probably the only thing that would move me in that direction would be arguments and analyses from alternative sources that I have learned to trust — yes, sources on my side of the political aisle — detailing previously unknown information that both undercut/challenged things I believe, and supported other things I have come to NOT believe, done for the explicit purpose of clearing away misconceptions among conservatives so they could proceed ahead on the basis of what is known rather than following blind trails based on misleading myths. I know there probably are some such myths, but by their nature I wouldn’t know what they are; I also know that the entirety of the Left, who have set themselves to re-educate people like me (or, more usually, demonize people like to me to those who still believe them), can’t be relied on to say anything I can accept as true without overwhelming evidence from some source other than their own reporting.

What I believe, and the principles behind my beliefs, are part of my ideology. My distrust of anything coming from the Left, however, is a matter of personal experience: every time they announce what folks like me believe and stand for and want, and I know I don’t want or stand for or believe any such things, they prove again that they’re either invincibly ignorant or actively lying (and it’s entirely possible for both to be true at once). So, yes, I’ll only accept evidence coming from my own side … because it’s already been repeatedly demonstrated that official spokespeople of any stripe can’t be trusted.

As I said, unlikely. Many things would have to change before that would be different. I wish it weren’t that way. I can remember when it wasn’t; I’ve been conservatively aligned for as long as I’ve been politically aware (I can remember realizing that my Weekly Reader had slanted its reporting against Goldwater before the 1964 election), but I’ve never seen the divide so extreme or so vicious, not even in the worst of the Sixties. And I look at the two sides, and I don’t have any problem picking out which one has changed the most, gone the farthest, become the most strident and the most intolerant and, yes, the most violent and openly supportive of political violence.

It can’t keep going this way. It has to change: not in the sense of ‘change is needed’, but ‘this can’t maintain itself, it WILL break in one direction or another’. I just hope the change isn’t something that will kill us.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

I whole heartedly agree with your last paragraph there. This is not sustainable. I pray we get back to a place where we can disagree without demonizing one another. I hear what you are saying about your personal experience. While not discounting that I can tell you in my personal experience I've had people who've loved me my whole life tell me I was going to hell, literally, because of my political views. This is a both sides issue.

Thank you for answering my question. It highlights what the fundamental problem is. There is no agreement on facts. Real political debate can happen when you disagree about the correct way to handle a problem. But when the nature of reality is in question there can be no dialogue. I don't know what the answer is, I just know we have to find one.