Double standards never work

Most voters just want to know about each candidate as best they can…before they vote for them. So why do so many fellow Americans hold out on facts about any candidate before an election, or even during a ruling period. The answer is the double standard, and the judgment of the person holding out the facts as they know them.

Now give most Americans some credit for savvy. Those that spread malicious rumors as a way to discredit anybody, to include candidates running for office, will suffer ruinously when the scheme comes out in the open. But savvy works both ways, and competitors for office and their proponents who time the release of facts to embarrass an opponent also suffer from showing their weakness as potential rulers, if that is what they need to influence the future. And news reporters and producers and editors and government employees who withhold information that is important to voting decisions have inserted themselves into the voting decisions that only the voters own. Even a media news reporter or producer or editor or government employee that is not sure whether they are rumor mongering or doing good investigative reporting should just report their uncertainly as part of their report. To not give the voters some credit for savvy is un-American. Partisan manipulation of the facts and news is no excuse for superceding the voters right to know, and to filter as they, the voters, deem necessary. Like in the old TV series Dragnet…”just the facts”.

Much like mafia hits, there are political hits also. What happened to former Senator Bob Kerry is such an example. But, again, give credit to most Americans as recognizing it for what it was. As a citizen he looks better and better for both the hit put on him, his response, and our citizen judgment as to what went on.

What is frustrating to many voters is the present two party system, and the emphasis on campaign tactics to both win a party nomination, and hopefully the general election. Right behind this frustration is the rise of federal government bureaucracy’s present employees trying to influence things for their benefit. What is missing in the previous statements is any thought or discussion as to our national interests, as to us, our families, and our futures.

The status quo seems so strong, as if the two national parties and present federal bureaucracies are all that matter, with the nation and the citizens coming in a smaller fourth. And the double standard as to informing the voting citizens only seems to exacerbate all this. Said another way, some partisans do their tactics to promote someone else in the other party, knowing they can expose them later so as to gain an advantage in getting their own candidate elected.

Pardon me, but this may have worked in the past, but the future of this method is in doubt. Some of we voting citizens just want the facts as known, before we vote. And we can filter it out just as well as the present controllers of the facts. Some of the dirt about McCain might have been better known a few months ago. Some of the new dirt about the Clintons might have been better known over a decade ago. Add in all the others, and we voters just want to know, or at least have access to knowing. Some of the voters even recognize the most modern propaganda methods being used, to include the double standard, and resent it.

The bottom line again, is the double standard. The balance has tipped in the past to keeping us in the dark, according to the judgment of the reporter or government employee, or whoever. It is time to tip things the other way, as in to change the balance to favor more knowledge, before we vote. To the squeamish, the hand wringers, or even the lazy, just let us voters have a chance to decide, before we vote. Our America is a big deal in so many ways. We deserve to be able to vote for our future, and not to be embarrassed by our past leaders behavior and politics.