Archive: Opinions

When my dad was the mayor of a small Florida city, not one rival politician, to my knowledge, attacked me or my sister in a public forum.  I guess we dodged a bullet.  Look at what's happened recently to Hunter Biden, and to Ivanka Trump's business. The fact is that the children of politicians, for the longest time off limits, are now political targets.  And that is bad for our democracy, because it is another distraction on the heap of side-shows that obfuscates actual issues and what candidates might do to make life better for constituents.

In the Trump family a case may be made that some of his children, including Ivanka, were fair game because he brought them into the White House as presidential advisors.  But for the most part kids have been off limits.  And rightly so.  When they are children there is no possible excuse for bringing them inside the political center ring unless their parents put them there, in which case an argument could be made that Social Services should step in because they are abusive parents.  But even when the kids are grown up, the only reason they might be legitimate targets is if they are doing something illegal involving their elected or soon to be possibly elected parents.

As far as I can tell from news reports Hunter Biden has done nothing that is actually illegal, and in any case has not involved his father in what he was doing.  But it has been headline news for days now, and doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.  Is there anything in this news that tells me what kind of a president Joe Biden will be if he is elected?  Nope.  Assuming he wins the primary, how do I decide whether I want to vote for him if I can't slog through the swamp of distractions to make an informed decision?

Remember Billy Carter and Billy Beer?  The press had a field day chronicling his antics, which had not one jot to do with his brother Jimmy's presidency.  And all that Patty Reagan stuff?   I guess Patty Reagan brought whatever notoriety she gained on herself, but it didn't have anything to do with her father's presidency that I could figure out.

But people pick up on unsubstantiated accusations and assume the worst.  There's the problem.  People assume.  They don't get the facts.  That would be too much work.

I shut down when someone bases an impassioned point of view on assumptions.  Assumptions are not facts, and presenting them as facts and then basing a rant on them doesn't impress me.  When people tell me "I assume you..." when they choose to attack me... interesting that they know what I am thinking and how terrible it is that I am acting on those thoughts, when they haven't actually asked me what I am thinking and I haven't told them.  I turn away.  Because I am pretty sure that they don't have a clue what I am thinking.  And continuing to engage with such people violates Rule 1.  When Rule 1 kicks in I'm outta here!

But a lot of people do assume, and the constant harping on side-show issues by the main stream media encourages doing that.  That impulse is clearly capitalized on by politicians or their organizations as they point their flame throwers at opponents, hoping that nobody will check the facts.  That's a pretty good hope, because most people don't.  Who has time in their busy lives to do that?

So people assume, especially when it dovetails with their own political beliefs.  Facts and issues become non-issues.

I know this sludge is interesting to a lot of people, because the major news outlets thrive on it.  But how does it serve the public?  It's hard enough to navigate through what politicians say and what they actually do when election day draws near.  I would really like to cut election news by 99% and just have features of substance on actual issues.

And children should be off limits.  If they are running or serving in office or a public function relevant to the office in question, OK.  If they're not, leave them out of it.

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