The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume LXX

Mike's Voting Guide

It is time once again. That great American tradition in the abject futility of discriminant choice is upon us. The migration to the polls has begun.

While I dare not tell you exactly how to cast your vote, I will offer my sage advice, to take as you wish. For my friends abroad, who will not be participating in the USA's democratic process, rest assured, that my concepts also have your welfare in mind, as I strive to convey a unifying vision for the most logical choices in reaching your goals.

Because this is what voting is all about. It is about you and what you want to achieve. Sure, you may need to choose between what is best for you versus what is best for humanity, but you always win, no matter how you vote. A vote for you, is a vote for humanity either way, even if your vote pumps more oil out of the ground and dioxins into the air, you will ultimately find a way to justify it whether you are right or actually wrong, for humanity.

Now, before you give yourself a great big pat on the back, ask yourself this: What do I want from my government and how will my vote help me get it? This is the starting point for every voting decision.

The way you come to your decisions are as complex as choosing a route through a forest during a lightning storm, as much of it needs to come from what your gut tells you, because a clear path may not be evident. Your course narrows as candidates are whittled down to only a few and most times, only two final options. The first thing to do is not worry.

#1 - DO NOT WORRY

Your single vote is not the tiebreaker. Unless you are trapped in a cave and drawing straws to see who will be eating whom, your vote is a tiny drop in a huge bucket that will only have any effect, if in fact, your vote is on the winning side. Fretting about whether or not you made the right choice, or if your vote is on the losing side, does nothing for your well-being. It just gets you upset. When you don't get what you want, even though you voted not to eat Henry, he may taste great with that barbecue sauce. So, deal with it.

#2 - VOTE EARLY

I beat the crowds because I vote by mail. I voted two weeks ago. They sent me the voting slips and a privacy sleeve with a postage paid envelope. I filled in the little circles, signed on the fold, and that was it. Easy-peasy.

But Mike, what if somebody steals the mail and messes with your vote?

Please refer to #1 - DO NOT WORRY.

I mailed the ballot. I'm done. No carving out time on a Tuesday to stand in line with who knows who, having my voters registration card and photo ID scrutinized by people who may or may not be doing their job correctly. I like doing things the easy way.

I trust the US Postal Service. I do not recall ever losing anything that I mailed or had mailed to me. Once in a while I get stuff for my neighbor at 1109 and he gets ours (at 1009), but we bring the lost mailings over to each other, say "Hi, nice to see you," and that is that. I am not paranoid about lost mail or election fraud. I didn't take my ballot to the post office, nor did I drop it in a secure mail box. I left it in my own mailbox at the curb in front of my house where anybody could get it. I have unwavering faith that the person who did was the duly authorized US Postal Service representative on my route. I expect that it was taken to the polling place without incident and that my votes have already been properly tallied.

But Mike, what if they weren't? What then?

Not much I can do about that now, is there. Just like if there were voter fraud at your polling place, there would be nothing you would be able to do about it, because you would have no idea that it is taking place. Unless you are the one doing it. So, again, I'm not going to worry.

Voting by mail affords me the luxury of taking my time to scrutinize each candidate and referendum, looking up big words I don't know the definition of (like referendum), and weighing my options against one another without having to write up a bunch of notes that I may later forget to take with me into the polling place. What is more important is voting for the most logical choice that will help me reach my goals.

#3 - KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE

This is easier said than done. It is the hardest part of casting your votes. Because the choices on your ballot may not reflect exactly who you like, and they may not be capable of doing everything you want them to do. No matter where you live, you get what you get, and you can only work with what they give you. Unless you are running for office yourself, many choices come down to a coin flip when both candidates represent themselves quite well. Then, there is the other extreme: a choice between two people you absolutely abhor. Again, flip a coin or just don't vote.

You do not have to vote for everything on your ballot. Leaving blanks are allowed. Undervoting is common for those who have not researched their options thoroughly or despise their choices. But I do not do that. I research everything and everyone to make a solid decision. I know what I want to achieve.

I want to put people in charge who will do a lot of work for me so that I will not have to do it myself. That is full democratic utility. It is the American way. I recently heard it said that "We are a nation built on stolen land by people who were stolen from their land." That is absolute truth in many ways. So, it only makes sense to search for the easiest path to get what you want, as our forebears did. To do that, you need to vote for people who want what you want. When a candidate makes it clear that they do not want to work toward my goals, in essence, for me, they won't get my vote.

The process of elimination is a huge factor. Knowing what you do not want and striking out candidates based on incompatibility sometimes leaves you with an obvious choice. To make it easier to find that obvious choice it is imperative to create your own ranking system that makes sense to you.

#4 - PRIORITIZE

My goal for America, and the world, is to level the playing field. To have more equal opportunity than we already do. I am lucky to live in a land of diversification. In Florida, we get to enjoy influences from multiple denominations and ethnicities. I work among people who care for the environment, are not racist, and care for others. I am extremely fortunate to thrive as I do.

What surprises me most is that after fifty-eight years on the planet, especially coming from economically challenged beginnings, I experience what feels like privilege to be a man, and be white. I thought that over the course of my life, since I was a kid who witnessed racism first-hand, at my age there would finally be greater equality everywhere, just like in Star Trek.

Maybe having some gray in my hair has a bit to do with it, but I do not feel old. I am not big or tall. I am not handicapped. I do not bully my way though anything. But, when I grocery shop, many times a line will open up and I get waved ahead. Women and people of color step aside or defer to me when they are obviously next. When I notice it happen, I refuse and tell them to go ahead. Sometimes I notice too late. I think I used to not notice at all.

White privilege should not exist, so I vote against it. Some people get that it is a joke. Black entrepreneur Joel Patrick has turned the joke into a business by selling White Privilege Cards. Yes, for real!

White Privilege Card – Official Joel Patrick — officialjoelpatrick.com

  The White Privilege Card trumps everything. This card grants its bearer happiness and success because it's the color of your skin and not the choices you make that determine your abilities to be successful.  

Ideology is a great place to start with deciding how to vote. Weeding out racists and misogynists helps me know who not to vote for. Sometimes it is just that simple.

Other times, not so much. If neither candidate is a Nazi or a womanizer, how do you decide who to vote against? My first choice is to vote for women.

Women have been sitting in the political back seat for far too long. It is time to let them drive. If women were in charge of everything, maybe men would not have to work.

Gentlemen, imagine if you will, a world where every important decision was made for you. We could just stay home and tinker in the garage. Mow the lawn. Watch TV. You know, just do stuff we really like. This is not reality right now, but if we make a concerted effort to vote men out of office and replace them with women, future generations may enjoy unfettered happiness.

Flip that patriarchal dynamic and let the ladies rule. Empower young women to take control of their bodies as they see fit and then just stay out of it. Don't even try to compete. Step aside and help them get hired for everything. If every man gets on board with putting women in charge, there will be a lot less for us to do. School board meetings? I don't have kids, but I am sure that if I did, I would not want to attend, and most wives would not want their husbands there anyway. So, you're welcome. There are tons of things women can probably do better than men. War? Organized mud-wrestling could solve everything and it would be way more fun to watch than people getting killed.

Mike, that is offensive!

Not to most guys I know, honey. Besides, it's my blog and this is America. Freedom of the press and all that.

Okay, fine.

Whether or not the candidates are women, you still need to pick the one that will work hardest toward your personal agenda. To create a more inclusive world, when I can't vote for a woman, or a champion of women's rights, I lean toward voting for minorities. Once again, to destroy the myth of white privilege.

The world is not just one color and should not be ruled as such. Nor, is it one religion that should encompass and guide our lives. Our world is made up of a lot of different stuff. We are not just a mosaic of molecular structures that stand alone. For the health of the planet and everything on it, we must discover not just what there is to value in others, but what is of no value within us. That means shedding preconceived notions of superiority. Accepting that there may be functions of your religion that simply do not apply to the world at large. Recognizing that you may have bought into a fiction. Understanding that the whole world would be better off without something you were taught to believe in, because it is false.

I first went to DisneyWorld in 1972, the year it opened. One of the rides a kid as little as me was allowed to go was "it's a small world." I loved it. It is basically a gentle boat ride past a bunch of animatronic children representing the population of the planet. Corny, but even then, I saw how connected we all were. When I became a teenager, I urged my buddies to go on that kid's ride, and we did. It looked childish from the outside, as it is meant to, but the ten-minute ride succeeds in making a teenager forget that he is a rowdy youth, and in my twenties, and even in my thirties and forties, it was a calming experience that had the same effect. We are all so different, but also the same.

As we elect officials who identify as minorities, in race, in lifestyle, and in religion, we open up door upon door of understanding about what it is to be different and also more accepting. Diversification and inclusion lead to harmony within a much more colorful world. Just like that DisneyWorld ride, it's fun to see everything there is to see and get to know so much more than you can from a stagnated viewpoint.

Bulldozing the walls of inequality that have been in place for centuries will take commitment, not just from me, but from everyone. Some concepts need to be retired. You know which ones they are, just as you know right from wrong, because you can feel it in your gut.

Voting for the things and people that will improve the world is easy. Getting everyone else to join you in making those wise decisions, so that those improvements come about, is the hard part.

If you have ever thrown a party that was not particularly well attended, this is what I am talking about. You can't get everybody to show up. You just can't. The ones who don't might have just had other plans, or forgot, or didn't care about your party. It is the same with voting. Not everybody is going to do it.

That is why you see so much political advertising. Somebody wants your vote. They need you to show up. They will harp on your fears, your sense of pride, your love of something that somebody else might not love as much as you do, to get you to vote the way they want you to, whether it is the right vote for you or not.

That is why you need to do your research and #2 - VOTE EARLY.

When you vote early, you are done, and all the advertising in the world won't change a thing. Not that advertising should matter anyway. Ads are opinions more than they are facts, and sometimes they are outright lies. They are created to bank on emotion. Stephen King says it best in these Tweets about the enormous amount of money that is wasted to capture votes. Because he is one of our greatest advocates for being free to read and write anything, I have not censored him.

Stephen King makes a great point. You may wonder where he gets his information. He probably learned about the first figure from CNBC, and the larger one from someplace like AdImpact. This is true and accurate.

Spending for political advertising is horrific. Instead of thinking about what that money could have been used for, I think of where it actually went. I worked in advertising for over a decade, so I know. It pays to keep TV and radio stations on, to fill billboards and mailboxes with junk, and to profit those who sold all of it. That money trickles into the economy, for sure, but the advertising doesn't do much good. Not when you vote early, and not when it scares somebody into voting for something that may not be good for them.

Where did they get so much money to spend to begin with? Donations, for one. How much and why some people choose to donate is their own business. It is part of their stratagem and that of corporations who donate, to get what they want. Besides donations, some candidates are rich, so they spend their own dough. But they still take donations. I don't donate to politicians or their action committees. I can do much better things with my money than they can.

Some wealthy people who run for office are well suited for public service. After doing well in their business and personal life, they decide that by becoming a mayor, or a state representative, or a governor, or senator, they will share their expertise to do something worthwhile, maybe even something great. But, some wealthy people who run are absolutely not qualified for government, and they only enter the public forum to garner attention, and sadly, just to make more money.

Some candidates are well into retirement years. While there is nothing wrong with staying active and keeping busy, governing may not be what is best for their constituents. Older folks are out of touch with younger generations. Their ability to relate to children, young parents, and working middle aged people are diminished because they see through a lens that is too old and clouded to be on par with the needs of those half their age.

Every day I meet and work with people who are thirty years younger than me. I see so many differences between our generations that it is sometimes diffficult to relate. Their world is not what I experienced in the 1980's. The perception of common ground is only relative to the work we do, but our world experiences outside of work are vastly different. Younger generations can't see through my lens, nor should they. If they want to, they can read a history book. For an older person than myself, common ground is even more elusive, as the life and work experiences they forged in the 1950's - 1970's become distant memories of a world that no longer exists. They definitely can't relate and should not be making decisions for people of the 21st century.

The same goes for rich folks. They have no way to relate to the poor and middle class. Unless they came up out of poverty, their vision of the world is formed by a completely different upbringing and education. They cannot see the world the same way.

Besides that, those who are rich, I mean really, millions in the bank rich, do not need jobs. They should leave work to those who do and governing to those who can relate to the majority of their constituents.

#5 - VOTE OUT THE OLD AND RICH

Just as there is a minimum age for many things, (one must be at least 35 years old to be a US president) there should be a maximum age to run for government office. I would make that age 55.

Nobody over 55 should be running for office. If they win, they may serve their term until they are about 60.

Put the younger generations to work. Let them make decisions and do the heavy lifting. That's why so many people had kids to begin with. You got your cast of characters together, now step back and watch the show.

Vote against the rich, too. Don't take work away from somebody who needs the money. Rich people will be fine without jobs. They can "invest" in something fun, like building communities to eliminate homelessness, or one of my movie scripts. Or help fund cures for diseases or bring wells and farming to those who need it. There are lots of things they can do on their own they do not need to be elected for.

#6 - VOTE FOR MINORITIES

Vote for candidates who identify with and are able to represent a wider range of people within their constituency, not just those of their own ethnicity. I know this sounds like I am describing a majority leader, but what I mean by this, is to support the candidate who relates to those who are most underserved. Many people in the world who have little representation in their government heavily outnumber those who enjoy the fruits of it, and as such, have only distant voices in their political system.

Candidates who can bring those voices a megaphone and fight for them to level the playing field are the ones who will do the most for everyone. They are generally relatable to whatever niche they come from, and through their experience as a minority, are also able to understand the plight of other less represented communities.

If I could build a flow chart or something like a football gambling grid that actually made sense, to pick one over the other, I would. But there are too many variables. What if a dark-skinned man of foreign descent, who is also a third generation Ivy League educated person of wealth, who wants to lower taxes while building better infrastructure runs against a transgender woman who says that abortion is a crime, but also supports a new clean energy initiative that will create more jobs? How do you choose between these two? Flip a coin?

I don't know. You have to start asking a lot of questions. Do you consider the transgender woman to be a man and vote against her? Do you see the man with the long name you can't pronounce as too rich? If these two are your only choices to represent you and what you want to achieve, how do you decide which one will do the best job?

This may be a crazy and convoluted example, but the question is fair.

You must #3 - KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE and #4 - PRIORITIZE.

If my goal is to lower taxes, Mr. Whoeverheiswiththehardtosayname may get my vote, especially since Ms. Whoevertheyare is not pro-choice. On the other hand, I might let that slide, since Mr. Whoeverheiswiththehardtosayname is pretty darn rich and doesn't really need a job. He may not really care about people as much as he says he does and could be doing this just to make more money. Then, I find out that Ms. Whoevertheyare came from humble beginnings and was raised as a white supremacist before converting to Judaism and getting a sex change.

Do I hold her past against her? Tough call. Especially when her opponent has been indicted four times for securities fraud. But he pleaded no contest every time and paid all the fines, saying it was an accounting error. To top it off, he is not a white guy and she used to be. So, what does that mean?

In the United States, white people are not minorities, but when measured against the rest of the world population, they are. There are way too many data studies with numbers too sketchy to decide which statistician got it exactly right, but that does not matter. It comes down to not who they are, but who they represent.

Do I vote for the Democrat or the Republican?

It is about character.

#7 - DECLINE PARTY AFFILIATION

It does not matter how they identify.

If you like, call me Repudemoculan, a hybrid between the two parties. I am not on anyone's team. Whichever one checks the most boxes in helping me reaching my goals and works the hardest for me is the one who gets my vote.

Some people would never vote this way. They stick with their party, come hell or high water. Never give the other side an inch!

Or do you?

Maybe the person you vote for is just the sleeper cell that party needs to shake it up and make some real change. Changes in your favor, to help build the world you want to create.

After researching exactly who these candidates are to understand their vision, I learn that Mr. Whoeverheiswiththehardtosayname is a mega-philanthropist, spearheading initiatives to weaken poverty with the hope of eliminating homelessness. I really like that. Then I find that Ms. Whoevertheyare and her husband have adopted and raised multiple children of various ethnic backgrounds. She is truly empathetic. I like that, too.

Which one will do a better job in my government?

Finally, I choose based on ideological concepts. Not religion, race, or party affiliation, but who the person is as a person. I look at them not only as they are today, but where they came from, and who they are likely to become.

The fine gentleman, Mr. Whoeverheiswiththehardtosayname, is the most likely of the two candidates to strike business deals from his office, because he is from the world of money and that is what he knows best. He may offer great economic value, but he would also be able to do a lot of good work as a private citizen. The wonderful Ms. Whoevertheyare will use her new position to help reform other wayward racists and bridge gaps between minorities and religions, hopefully bringing the world together with clean energy and fair play for all. She may even change her stance on abortion rights.

While I may not agree with everything about Ms. Whoevertheyare, I identify more with her ideology and her potential for positive change than I do with Mr. Whoeverheiswiththehardtosayname's, so she gets my vote.

I hope you enjoyed this hypothetical example of how to weigh your voting options. While the candidates are fictional, the choices you face as a voter are quite real, but only tough if you refuse to see and accept another point of view. Remember that your ideology may not align with those who seem to be an obvious choice, and that you may wish to reconsider your own ideals as the world progresses and circumstances change.

Also, remember that some people's ideologies and convictions are much too dangerous not to fight, and for the good of the planet and everyone on it, they need to be stopped. This is why you must vote.

Whatever you do, once you weigh it all out, trust your gut. The only way to fight an ideology you do not subscribe to is to create one of your own. Voting helps you do that.

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.