Of by and for the people

The United States is not, thank the merciful heavens, a democracy, that is, our system of government is not rule by mob.  The Democrat Party certainly has been pushing for mob rule, since 1912 at least, mobs being so much easier to control through demagoguery and deception than informed, thoughtful individuals.  We are a representative republic whose representatives are democratically elected.  This two tier system allows the will of the people to be represented while checking it enough, ideally, to prevent the unbridled passions of the mob from overwhelming the government.

Among other things that enable our American system to function is free and fair elections.  Our elections have always had an element of fraud in them, as there are always factions that believe that the overriding rightness of their cause and their will to power trumps honesty.  As Quid Pro Joe the Beijing Kid so aptly said, “… we’re in a situation where we have put together — and you’d [sic] guys, did it for our, the president Obama’s administration, before this — we have put together, I think, the most extensive and and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”

He wasn’t lying.  The scale of bald faced fraud in this election surpasses anything we’ve ever seen or could have imagined.  It is unnecessary to catalog the factors that comprise that fraud, what is necessary is to examine the fundamental flaws in the system and uproot them.  Nor should it be thought that these flaws have not been created and exploited solely by Democrats, they have not, as the following discussion makes clear (warning, no profanity but he speaks his mind freely which might be upsetting to some).
He makes a good, nay, vitally important point: this rigged election can only have happened because We the People allowed it.  No excuses, this has been building up for decades, and we have simply accepted it.  Yes, we made noises about how awful it all is, but we never sought out the perpetrators and brought them to account.  Further, we have allowed the integrity of the electoral process to be undercut by slow degrees, knowing full well what the effects would be.  Yes, the Demon-Rats are lying, thieving barbarians, but We the People are complicit by our silence and our failure to act.

Your Irascible Correspondent is no exception.  Whereas it is true that I am a working stiff and can say that I don’t have the time to dedicate to this, the fact is that I have not prioritized it.  Dr. Shiva outlines some starter steps, easy things that would take only a few minutes to do, such as get the election statistics from local government.  I pledge to do that this week.  He is also right in saying this fundamental evil must be addressed locally, the effort must be built from the ground up.

Two organizations have been hammering on this point, The Election Integrity Project and True the Vote.  Under funded, understaffed and under appreciated, these organizations have led the charge.  Unsurprisingly they have been easily dismissed by the powers that be who have no interest in changing the electoral system at an local level.  Sadly they have been largely unsupported by voters who seem to think that so long as they get to cast a ballot all is well.

The Election Integrity Project CA has filed suit and is going to court in the first week of January, details at their website.  They are doing great work locally, which is the place where your efforts to ensure honest elections will have the most influence and bear the most fruit.  We all know it is needed, and we can’t, as has been our custom, leave it to somebody else.  Your Irascible Correspondent was mailed three ballots this time around (but voted only once).

If this election has shown us anything it is that lacking close supervision by the electorate those in charge of elections will be co-opted and controlled by those who claim the right to disenfranchise We the People to achieve political power and the perks that come with it.

Dr. Shiva has the right of it, a large, active grass roots movement is needed to get the gatekeeper’s attention and wrestle control away from the bought and paid for hacks who run our elections now (I’m looking at you, Alex Padilla).  It is becoming clear to more and more people that our electoral process is utterly corrupt, and given the way in which this election was so brazenly rigged that these people have no fear of the electorate.  In their minds We the People are merely a veneer to provide them with the trappings of legitimacy.

Further, we have ceded out civic authority in an even more fundamental way by not maintaining a watch on our elected representatives and holding the strictly to account.  In a property functioning representative republic the electorate closely monitors the activities of their representatives and give them constant feedback during the entire length of their term in office.

Again and again we elect good people with the best of intentions and send them off to their respective offices and promptly forget about them until the next election rolls around.  Then we wonder why we elected another feckless officeholder who betrays the people who put him or her in office to begin with.

The halls of government have long since been machines to advance the goals of the officeholders themselves and the first order of business when new fish arrive is to begin the process of corrupting them.  This process is the one thing at which government excels.  A new legislator, for example, is immediately put under pressure to conform to the the existing  corrupt system, literally from day one.  Abandoned by his supporters he loses sight of why he is there and gradually yields to temptation.

He is not cut off from his supporters because of any action of the corrupt system in the legislative halls, but by the electorate itself as we shift our focus from putting our guy over the top to getting ready for Christmas and on with the rest of our lives.  If there is corruption in government it is not so much the deep state that must be held accountable, but We the People who abdicated our civic responsibility.

The People’s civic authority, properly exercised, consists in having a dedicated group in constant contact with the officeholder, informing him of the community’s concerns, listening to what is being proposed in whatever body he is a part of, supporting him in driving the constituent’s agenda by organizing them to provide needed support for whatever their agenda is.  Every day is a good day to hold your elected representatives accountable, not just election day.

As a case in point consider Greg Kirkorian, sole conservative on the Glendale School Board.  He tries to hold the line against the radical left wing agenda of his peers.  At a public presentation to the Glendale Burbank Republican Assembly he said that at EVERY public Board meeting there was some representative of one or another special interest group urging the Board to adopt yet another absurd position.  He said he almost NEVER sees a representative of any conservative position advocate before the Board.  He pleaded with us to send people.  I went, to my shame, once.  That’s it.

Greg’s great sorrow is the skyrocketing suicide rate among our young people.  Do the Marxist radicals care about that?  No.  Do Republicans and conservatives care about that?  No.  And that is his second greatest sorrow.

Fortunately there is a way to reclaim our civic authority.  The Center for Self Governance has an excellent program to teach people to form teams to regain control of our government.  I have taken some of their classes and cannot recommend them highly enough.  Their program works if you work it, as they say in AA.  Responsibility is with the one who sees.  Now you see.  Get with it.