The Power of Words

I've mentioned in previous blog posts that one of my college Linguistics professors told us when studying a society, if you come to a word they can't define you know it's one of the most basic concepts in their culture.

I believe a lot of the conflict and, possibly, the outcome of the presidential election in the United States of America depended on two definitions: What is a human being? What is a marriage?

Yes, there were lots of other issues, but many people cast their votes because of one or both of those two concepts.

Is a fetus a human being? If people believed it is, they probably voted for Trump.

Is a marriage a committed sexual relationship between two people, or only between a man and a woman? How they defined that term determined a lot of people's choice between the candidates.

And those aren't the only things that divide us. Do we continue to welcome the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free? Or do we focus on helping big businesses grow so they'll help our economy? Etc., etc., etc.

To me, this is scary.  If we can't agree on basic things like these does it mean our culture is falling apart?

They say no democracy has ever lasted more than 250 years, and we're getting close to that number of years since our country was founded.

But I believe we can rise above all these conflicts by treating one another with respect and love.

Another of my professors told us "When the happiness and well-being of another is essential to one's own happiness and well-being, a state of love exists.

As a popular song from the days of my youth says, "Come on people...Let's get together and love one another."

We need to do that right now!

Politics! (A Rant)

Are you tired of political advertising? With a little more than two weeks to go before the election in the United States it will probably only get worse. If all the money spent on campaign advertising were to be donated to the government instead, our country would be in much better financial shape.

Maybe I'm hallucinating, but I seem to remember that a few decades ago candidates mostly talked about what they, themselves, had to offer rather bad-mouthing their opponents.

Here's a crazy idea: what if when the next election comes along we all start in mid-summer keeping count of how many commercials, mailings, phone calls, etc. we get for each cause and candidate and vote for the ones with the lowest numbers?

Okay, I'm just kidding. Obviously that wouldn't be sensible.

But nobody in any government office is likely to vote for anything that offends those who finance their campaigns, so our country is actually being run by the rich. Isn't that what a lot of our ancestors came to America to avoid? Whatever happened to "government of the people, by the people, and for the people?"

I wish it would become illegal for anyone to make campaign donations and the government itself provided equal amounts to all candidates, no matter what parties they belonged to. Come to think of it, there's nothing in the Constitution about political parties so maybe they should be eliminated altogether and each candidate and issue evaluated on its own merits.

Of course that will never happen because the people who have authority because of the way things are want to keep it that way, and they're the only ones who could make the changes.

But at least we can vote and I hope everyone reading this will do that, even if it must be for the lesser of the evils. It's better to make a tiny difference than no difference at all. But please let's all actually read everything in the voter's guides and not make decisions based on the ads.

Politics

Here in the USA as the Presidential Election approaches the news is full of politics.

I wish I had a bumper sticker that said "If you don't vote, don't gripe" because lots of people who complain all the time don't bother to vote.

Does voting by ordinary citizens really make a difference? Well, maybe only a very small one, but it's certainly more likely to influence how things are done than not voting.

Unfortunately almost nobody in a high political office is likely to vote for anything that offends the people who finance their campaigns. It would be nice if campaign donations were illegal and the government provided equal amounts for all candidates to notify the public of their qualifications and stands on political issues. But since the people who could make that happen benefit from the way things are now, that probably won't change.

I understand in Canada they have three major political parties instead of two so if there's a split the third party always breaks the tie.  Maybe someday in the US a third party will become equal to the two major ones, but that's not likely to happen in the near future.

Since there's no mention of political parties in the Constitution maybe it should be illegal for Congress to differentiate between them but, again, the people who have the authority to let that happen would be opposed to it so it won't be allowed.

Yes, our system is flawed in many ways, but ordinary citizens do have a voice and can make a difference in the world if we let our opinions be heard, and voting is one way we can do that.