An Instructive Essay by John M Jones III (12/8/18)
To be an educated and informed voter one must rely on logic and truth rather than emotion and opinion. Unfortunately, we are constantly inundated with the latter instead of the former. So how can anyone sort thought this labyrinth of misinformation? First, you must accept the following facts:
ALL media, including web, tv, radio, newspapers, and magazines are biased in some way. Their goal is to attract clicks, viewers, listeners, and subscribers and to make money. They present the information in a way that THEY think their users want to hear. While some do, many media networks don't really care what the truth is as long as their content generates clicks and ad revenue. Therefore, very few news media outlets from ANY side can claim to be a subjective and non-biased source for Americans and so must be ignored when considering for whom to vote.
Every two- and four-years candidates seeking office flood the web, tv, radio, newspapers and magazines with political attack ads cumulatively worth millions. Do they present facts or truth? No, these ads are ripe with hearsay, emotion, misstatements, and many times outright fabrications and its totally legally. (1) The only beneficiaries of this million-dollar windfall are the same media outlets that we expect to fairly cover them. Anyone see a conflict of interest here? Thus, all comments, claims or statements made by these ads are not informative in any way. They only show the voters just how low each candidate will go to win their race and must be ignored when considering for whom to vote.
All Social networks like facebook, twitter, and youtube just to name a few, are businesses and do not exist for the public good. Their goal is to attract users, tweeters, and vlogger to their sites, so they can generate clicks and ad revenue. They can and do regulate the content to mirror THEIR political beliefs because they own it. They could care less about the ideals of their users or of Americans. Therefore, political information presented on these platforms might as well be written on a bathroom stall and must be ignored when considering for whom to vote.
Political rallies focus on emotions rather than facts. Recently, some candidates have successfully used the rally format to generate massive emotional support while others couldn’t even fill a hotel conference room. So, yes, they are great at generating emotional reactions and sound bites for campaigns, but they do little to factually inform the voters as to why they ought to select the particular person and so must be ignored when considering for whom to vote.
Many so called protests these days are just "riots" that are organized by groups of people who want to militantly convey their point of view upon others. While some are a peaceful many of these "protesters" simply intimidate others by suppressing their speech, by assaulting them, by destroying their property, trying to get them fired, and in some cases trying and in others killing anyone who disagrees with them. Therefore, these radical extremist views become propaganda with no value to the voters and must be ignored when considering for whom to vote.
Nonprofessional Web Bloggers and vloggers, including myself, who create videos and written political commentary can provide a unique point of view for voters. In the end though, most bloggers base their content on their own perspective and therefore it may be slanted in one way or another. For this reason, it’s not totally objective content, although it can be revealing or even entertaining but nonetheless must be ignored when considering for whom to vote.
Debates & town halls meeting do absolutely nothing to inform the voter about the potential performance of the candidate. As we’ve seen in the past the questions are plant..I mean scripted (some even are unethically given to the candidate in advance), the answers are scripted, and even the moderator who is supposed to be neutral fawns over one candidate while spending the rest of the time trying to create “Got Ya” sound bites for the other. Although, the debates are entertaining they have no political value other than to see who has the best non-answer to the questions, and so must be ignored when considering for whom to vote.
So how DOES one become and educated and informed voter then? Educated & informed voters must use objective non-biased rather than subjective and grossly skewed information to make their political decisions.
One objective measure for incumbent candidates is to look at their actual voting record or performance. What did they voter or not vote for? Did they perform their duties ethically and lawfully? Voting records can be obtained using municipal, state and federal records via the web or in person. Actual performance can be gauged by how successful they were at carrying out their duties. For example, did the supervisor of elections do their job without violating the state constitution or violating election laws or did the judge perform their duties without bias or prejudice or did the legislator use their position to benefit their constituents or just to enrich themselves? These things are easily identifiable if one is just willing to look.
In context and unedited audio & video are a necessity when searching for unbiased information. NOTHING can be misinterpreted when you see or hear someone's actual contextualized words, NOTHING. Thanks to the internet one can see almost any politician live or on replay so you can easily see and hear their words rather someone else’s bogus second hand version of reality. In addition, all governing bodies keep a written record of what was said and done in EVERY meeting, so it is possible to hold them accountable by finding, viewing, and utilizing this information.
TV, Web, and Print content can be used as a source provided that they ONLY use the above listed sources which are fact based and contain no spin, slant, skew, bias, favoritism, prejudice, preference, or partisanship. All it takes is ONE example of Biased, Subjectivity, Misleading, Omissions, Out of Context, Hearsay, Unsubstantiated and Uncorroborated or an Out-Right Untruths for it to become nothing but propaganda for politicians and their media cohorts.
Currently many politicians have no fear that they will be held answerable for their actions while in office and so they get elected over and over again deepening the corruption that exists in BOTH parties. The fact that many in the national government enter as paupers and leave as millionaires is just one example of the corruption that exists. (2) As educated and informed voters we must ensure that ALL potential and incumbent candidates “fear us.” Anyone running for office need and should understand that they will be held accountable for their actions, and if they do ANYTHING that violates their oath of office, that is unethical, that is unlawful, or even seemingly underhanded that they will be voted out, PERIOD!
We must have office holders who put America first before their selfish desires who put the Americans above their own petty wants. As a servant of the people they enter into an implicit contract with Americans that they will serve their country first and themselves second, and if they are unwilling or incapable of doing this, then they need to KNOW that they will be gone after the next election. There should be no question for them that this will happen. Only then will we get and keep candidates that believe and support truth, justice, and the American way!
Bonus Content: American Citizen Voter Code of Conduct
Do’s:
-always VOTE and be educated & informed on the issues, candidates, amendments, and referendums and make the choices that put the interests of America before your own, before your party, and before your own political & personal prejudices.
-always follow all instructions, laws, and regulations established for a free and fair election thus ensuring that your ballot and your vote can be accepted, verified and counted.
-Unless blatant voter issues have proven always respect the results AND the winner of elections and furthermore always support a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.
Don’ts:
-Don’t allow yourself to be propagandized by ANY person, politician, political party, or biased media outlets!
-Don’t vote for those who’ve lied, stolen, cheated, been corrupted, made false accusations, supported infanticide, harbored foreign spies, propagated false narratives, used their office for personal gain, committed crimes, or violated the law, and instigated gender & race wars amongst the people.
-Don’t intimidate, confront or physically attack or kill people, riot, block roads, destroy property, suppress speech, try to get people fired, or even falsely accuse them of a crime because your candidate lost even if you don’t like them, or you don’t agree with them!
-Don’t call those who disagree with you: nazis, racists, bigots, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, sexists, they want dirty air & water, hate poor people, and want to throw grandma off a cliff!
(1) https://www.statista.com/statistics/470719/political-ad-spend/
(2) https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_in_Net_Worth_of_U.S._Senators_and_Representatives_(Personal_Gain_Index)