Enough

Silence is Surrender—————————-

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                The tragic death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis policeman in May triggered widespread demonstrations which succeeded in raising national awareness of the need for policing reforms in America. Many of the reforms such as a ban on the use of chokeholds, restrictions on the use of excessive force and better training have already been implemented or started in many jurisdictions and more will soon be as we continue to re-examine policing methods. Some of the demands, however, were plainly unrealistic such as defunding or eliminating police departments which would heavily impact minority communities already suffering from high crime rates. More extensive training and recruitment methods will require more, not less, funding and even larger police forces may be required as violent crime increases in many urban areas.

                Meanwhile, many peaceful demonstrations and protest marches attracted some persons who were anything but peaceful. Informed by social media, outside agitators, mostly White, included extremists who latched on to the Black Lives Matter movement to sow chaos and fear in pursuit of their own extremist ideology which had little to do with saving Black lives. The organizers of “peaceful” demonstrations and the many who participated to show their support for the movement simply became their “useful idiots” in gathering the crowds necessary to generate the mobs they would need to produce violence and destruction.

                The great majority of the demonstrations remained mostly peaceful but too many turned violent after dark. Typically, it would be begin gradually. Slogans would turn to taunts which became threats and obscenities. Marches became standoffs with police. Streets and sometimes highways would be blocked. More aggressive protestors would get directly in the faces of policeman calling them pigs and worse. Someone would throw a rock, a bottle, aim a laser at their eyes and perhaps shoot some fireworks. More would join in, attempting to provoke the police to react. Fires would be started in dumpsters and trash cans. Store windows would be smashed. Looting would begin. Vehicles and buildings would be set ablaze. It doesn’t take much to inflame a mob and the organizers of the demonstration, which began so peacefully and with the noblest of intentions earlier that day, were clueless on how to prevent the chaos.

                The silence of liberals and their mainstream media regarding this violence in so many of our cities was deafening. Only when President Donald Trump seized upon it as a campaign issue did their condemnations begin and they were subdued. They also come too late. They were typically accompanied by the observation that most of the demonstrations were peaceful. But this isn’t about the demonstrations, it’s about the riots that sometimes followed and riots are never peaceful. Neither is spitting into the faces of police officers and calling them pigs who need to be fried like bacon. A recent liberal media report calculated that only 7% of the demonstrations nationally had actually turned violent, as if that were good news. Ask the peaceful citizens in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, New York, Kenosha and Washington, D.C. and elsewhere whose businesses and livelihoods were destroyed if they take any comfort in that statistic. And wouldn’t you just know it, all of those riots occurred in cities with Democrat mayors.  

                The consequences of this “minor” violence includes hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to public and private property, death or injury to dozens of innocent people including police, a huge increase in violent crime due to reduced police presence and a hesitation to act for fear of further inflaming a situation, a lack of confidence on the part of citizens in the ability of local law enforcement to protect them, a large increase in gun ownership and ammunition sales, plunging morale and increased retirement and voluntary termination among law enforcement personnel including a number of Black police chiefs , decreased respect for laws because of lack of enforcement and prosecution, lost jobs, an abundance of boarded-up storefronts and office vacancies in many cities as many businesses and affluent taxpayers leave crime- infested cities, a loss of sympathy and support for the Black Lives Matter movement and a prevailing sense of fear for the future of our communities and perhaps our nation itself. And this is just a partial list. If the Russians or Chinese tried their hardest to sow fear and distrust among our people on the eve of an election they could hardly match the damage we have already done to our own country and its international reputation.

                Earlier this month, two Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriffs sitting in their patrol car were shot in the face at point blank range by a thug. After they were rushed to a hospital, demonstrators blocked the entrance and someone shouted “We hope they die!” The others roared approval. This has gone far enough. This is pure hatred. We have permitted it to be OK to hate the police. It is simply evil and there will be more of it if we continue to allow law enforcement to be demonized. By failing to enforce the law in Democrat-controlled cities, we have diminished respect for the law in general and no one will be safe. When police are not empowered to be pro-active in preventing crime, criminals will commit crimes simply because they know they can and people will have no choice but to take their own measures to protect their families and homes.

                As the long blue line grows shorter and thinner, we must, before it is too late, draw a red line which may not be crossed. Laws-all laws- must be enforced and there must be consequences for breaking them. Otherwise, people will simply pick and choose which laws, if any, they intend to obey. This is not the way that most Americans want to live. Local government officials who have allowed crime to flourish in their cities and who have failed in their fundamental requirement to keep their citizens, including police, safe, need to be voted out of office if not asked to resign. Failure to act is surrender to chaos.

Dr. Kelly is a freelance writer and retired Navy Captain who commanded three San Diego-based ships, the Navy Personnel research and Development Center and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Base San Diego. He earned his doctorate at USD, taught graduate students and was senior vice-president and Director of Training and Development at Great American Bank. He has written over 1500 newspaper and journal articles and has been a regular contributor to the Eagle&Journal since 2001.

September 27, 2020

Reflections on Election Imperfections————————

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                Here’s a prediction which I sincerely hope does not come true. We won’t go to bed on election night knowing who will serve as president for the next four years as we did in 2016. That year, by 11:00 pm on the west coast, we knew that Donald Trump had enough electoral votes to win an upset victory. This year, because of heavy voting by mail, we’ll be lucky to know who won by the time electors are required to vote for president on Dec. 14 or perhaps even by Inauguration Day which is set by the Constitution as Jan. 20. If not by then, I fear that chaos follows and perhaps even sooner.

                Recall the 2000 election which came down to recounts in Florida and arguments over the meaning of hanging chads and stray marks on ballots until the Supreme Court mercifully ordered an end to recounts and Al Gore, who won the popular vote, graciously conceded to avoid further turmoil. This year, neither party may be willing to concede a close election, given the rancor and bitterness that now define politics in America. Hillary Clinton, in fact, has irresponsibly urged Joe Biden never to concede. Polls indicate that far more Democrats intend to vote by mail than Republicans so as long as there still are mailed ballots left to count, they will almost certainly add to Mr. Biden’s totals.

                President Trump has ominously warned of widespread voter fraud because of heavy mail-in voting, a warning he makes without evidence, as the mainstream media is always quick to add. But whether or not Mr. Trump can actually cite such evidence, large amounts of mailed ballots do increase the chances of mishandling because of the increased handling involved, the process of collecting or harvesting votes and delays in counting. One may fairly argue over how widespread the mishandling may be but, be that as it may, there are many things that can go wrong other than fraud, even assuming that the U.S. Postal Service is up to the challenge of dealing with large volumes of mailed ballots in a short period of time. Even then, mailed ballots have a higher rejection rate than ballots cast in person and items can and do get lost or mishandled in the mail. A recent USPS audit revealed that, on average, 8% of mail is delivered late.

                But the principal problem is the wide variety of laws dealing with elections among the states. Just as the result of presidential elections is, under our federal system, determined in the electoral college, states have wide latitude in determining the rules regarding who can vote by mail, how and when they may obtain ballots, when they are due, whether or not they must be postmarked and witnessed and when they can be counted. Some states, including eight of the so-called battleground states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), require that mailed ballots must be received by election day. But in Pennsylvania, voters can request a ballot as late as Oct. 27, only a week before they are due. The Postal Service has already warned that such a timeframe is unrealistic. A week after Pennsylvania’s June 2 primary, roughly half of its counties were still counting ballots and nine days after the primary, Philadelphia alone still had over 42,000 votes to be counted, almost the margin of Trump’s 2016 victory in the state.

                Five states allow ballots to be received after election day. In Ohio, they can be received as late as Nov. 13 if postmarked by Nov. 2. Other battleground states that allow ballots to be received after election day are North Carolina (Nov. 6), Iowa (Nov. 9) and Minnesota and Nevada (both Nov. 10).  Then there is the time consuming and difficult task of verifying the ballots by matching signatures on the mailed ballots with the voter rolls. Eight battleground states allow verification to begin as early as 22 days before election day but five don’t allow it to begin until election day itself.

                Concerns about actual widespread voter fraud may indeed be overblown as Democrat leaders maintain but concerns about lengthy delays in processing mailed ballots and determining who will occupy the Oval Office on Inauguration Day in the event of a contested outcome are real and serious. Voting by mail during a pandemic may make perfect sense from a public health standpoint but given the wide variety of rules governing voting that exist among the states, it may cause significant delays in determining the outcome which will almost certainly lead to challenges. Both parties are reportedly preparing for legal challenges. In this climate of public unrest and suspicion, protests and disorder can quickly follow. This is the last thing our deeply divided nation needs. Perhaps we needn’t worry so much about the Russians meddling in our elections. We can screw things up all by ourselves.

                The electoral college system is mandated by the Constitution but the various state procedures for dealing with mailed ballots could benefit by some degree of uniformity. Unfortunately, it may be too late to avoid serious problems this election season.      

Dr. Kelly is a freelance writer and retired Navy Captain who commanded three San Diego-based ships, the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Base San Diego. He earned his doctorate in education at USD, taught graduate students and was a senior vice-president and Director of Training and Development at Great American Bank. He has written over 1500 newspaper and journal articles and has been a regular contributor to the Eagle&Journal newspapers since 2001.

September 20, 2020

-30-

Policies Over Personalities

Policies May Matter More than Personalities——-

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                If Joe Biden were running for the title of Mr. Congeniality, he’d win in a landslide. But this election is not a popularity contest and should not be about selecting the nicest guy to fill the highest office in the nation. Policies may matter more than personality traits and the election this year may be less about the candidates themselves than about the policies they plan to implement. 

                As I’ve said before on these pages, I didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2016 despite being a registered Republican because I disapproved of his confrontational manner, his impulsiveness, some of his remarks concerning women, his communications style and his lack of experience in government. I still do. I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, either, because of her email security scandals, the Benghazi fiasco and her liberal policies. Instead, I wrote in the names of others for president and vice-president whose policies I could support.

                But times have changed and we face much greater challenges than we did in 2016 including dealing with a pandemic, rebuilding the economy, dealing with racial unrest and violence, improving policing, eliminating all remaining racism, getting Americans back to work and dealing with a resurgent Communist China whose objective is to surpass us in both economic and military strength and global influence. In dealing with China and other potential adversaries a strong and resolute leader is absolutely essential and in this regard it is instructive that Beijing would much prefer the easily-persuadable Mr. Biden to win the U. S. presidency. As for the domestic issues noted above, choosing the right policies matters most.

                In 2020, Mr. Trump is no longer burdened by lack of experience, if it ever was a burden. Inexperience didn’t hurt him in2016. In fact, many voted for him because he was a political outsider and they were tired of politics as usual. And there is no better preparation for the job of president than having been president. Eight years as vice-president and several decades as a U.S. Senator doesn’t match four years in the oval office as the ultimate decision maker.

                When Mr. Trump campaigned in 2016 he promised to make America great again by, among other things, trade deals and immigration policies that would put America’s interests first. He promised tax reform that that would boost the economy that was in the midst of an historically slow recovery from the Great Recession. He lowered taxes instead of raising them and the economy grew by 3% the following year. Labor rate participation increased to 89% of working age men before he was halfway through his term.

                Before the pandemic struck, unemployment had fallen to a record low of 3.5%. Unemployment for minorities, including Blacks, was the lowest since such records were first kept. He eliminated scores of regulations that inhibited business expansion and got rid of many restrictions on energy production including drilling, fracking and pipeline construction that catapulted the nation to become the largest producer and a net exporter of energy, ending our dependence on foreign oil and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. He slowed the exporting of businesses and jobs overseas and brought some manufacturing jobs home. He increased border security. He increased funding for the military but kept us from engaging in more endless wars. He facilitated the establishment of relations between Israel and the UAE and moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem as some of his predecessors had promised but failed to do. He appointed hundreds of judges and justices who interpret laws as they are actually written, not as others wished they had been written.

                In short, he actually did most of what he said he’d do and he did it with little or no cooperation from the opposition party which expended most of its time and energy in undermining his administration and trying to remove him from office. They disputed the very legitimacy of his election, launched a politically-motivated investigation based upon a discredited Russian collusion theory. The Democrat-controlled House finally voted to impeach him in an election year without a single Republican vote, even though they knew full well that he would not be convicted in the Senate. They did it anyway, hoping it would at least hurt his re-election chances.

                Donald Trump certainly didn’t do everything right but he did do more of what he promised in three years than any president in recent times, whether one agrees with what he did or not. Whatever one may think about his performance, it has not been politics as usual. He now runs for reelection on the same platform as in 2016 but adds that he will rebuild this economy, restore the growth and jobs, restore respect for law and order and the safety of all Americans. Democrats, on the other hand, seem focused mainly on removing Donald Trump, undoing most of his accomplishments and implementing the Sanders/Biden platform offering free stuff for all, wealth re-distribution, higher taxes, abortion on demand and open borders. Policies matter and they will affect the rest of your life and the lives of your kids and grandkids. Dr. Kelly is a freelance writer and retired Navy Captain who commanded three san Diego-based ships and a personnel research and development center and taught ship handling, seamanship and navigation at Naval Base San Diego. He earned his doctorate in education from USD, taught graduate students and was a senior vice-president at Great American Bank. He has written over 1500 newspaper and journal articles.

September 13, 2020.