By Ray DiLorenzo
Lord of the Flies
Politics has always been a dirty business, and politicians have never been trusted to any great extent. Almost all of them have never produced anything in their lives—never had to make a payroll, show a profit, or employ people. And yet they approach the podium, talking as if they have the wisdom of the ages.
We have long forgotten what Truman said many years ago: “You can’t get rich in politics unless you’re a crook.” And we have first-class crooks in our political establishment. We have politicians who warn us continually about the rising oceans and yet buy seaside mansions. They push and make laws that have no effect on them. They inform us we must sacrifice while they sacrifice nothing. And then, after they raise our taxes, screw up the economy, and give us massive inflation, they introduce a new candidate that sells us ‘hope.’
Comes Donald J. Trump, a successful builder and developer who rebuilt cities, employed or caused to employ tens of thousands of people, and didn’t even take a salary as president. He knows business and how to make a deal without losing your shirt. He knows more about the human condition than any politician who has spent his or her life looking inward instead of outward. He knows what he wants, and it’s the same as what America needs. How quaint. And yet, the man is vilified 24/7 because he is not one of them. I say, you’re damn right, he’s not one of them. He didn’t start any wars because some politicians thought it was good business. He put the fear of God in our enemies, while stupid politicians like Maxine Waters and others were saying, “Trump, he gonna get us in a war.” While Trump’s opposition was busy planning the next war.
I don’t give a damn about liking Trump personally or not, or even if he is interesting to talk to. He’s not coming to live with us. I just want him to do his job and do it so we can live the American dream and still have some money left over. Anything else is callow. Was he perfect? Of course, not. But what I do know is what it cost me then and what it’s costing me now. That information alone allows a person to draw some fairly accurate conclusions.
Voting used to be a quiet, solemn, experience. Voting in the United States has now become an act of defiance. At least half the country now has to go through the gauntlet of poll oversampling of Democrats, a media and political party that hates Republicans and Americans who display any semblance of Judeo-Christian values. Don’t forget about the political opposition. From Hillary Clinton, who has been targeting nearly half of the country: “Republicans are a collection of deplorables.”
For a generation enamored with technology, the idea of paper ballots is a foreign concept, only to be considered a topic of discussion with one’s grandparents.
The pandemic raised concerns about voting machines that hadn’t been seen since hanging chads in Florida. But it’s back again. We do know that voting machines have vulnerabilities. At least half of the nation believes that tampering occurred during the 2020 election. The technology is certainly there to do simple counting, but states, cities, and counties seem to want more. What they say they want is a machine that can conduct an honest election, is auditable, and has ballots that can express the intent of the voter. At least that is what they say.
The basic problem with voting machines is like any computer: garbage in, garbage out. A basic flaw of direct-recording voting machines is that you pull a lever or use a touch screen. A touch screen is more modern, but with the same flaw as the old mechanical machine, it is impossible to audit. We have had to trust the programmers. Have you ever listened to a joke programmers find funny. You will find yourself staring at him or her with a befuddled face.
Coding is a frustrating, trying occupation. I congratulate them for their work. But many of them live on the edge. The slightest error can break things. The misplaced dot or bracket can cause the entire project to tumble and fall with no help from the computer. The idea that an entire nation’s future or fate is reliant on a programmer or group of programmers is frightening, to say the least. That is not a slight on programmers, but voting should be almost a religious experience. It’s the act of exercising the most basic of freedoms. It should be about a relationship between the voter and a piece of paper. Not a computer.
Dominion machines have been in the news these past few years. President Trump says their machines have lost him millions of votes and insists that the deletion of votes and the inappropriate influence over the company by his political opponents have been problematic. Whether it is true or not, it is immaterial. Why? Because any voting machine can be hacked!
Trump certainly has a point. Any competent computer engineer can extract or plant programming that is alien to the machine’s intention.
Some of the best hackers gathered together recently in Las Vegas to try to break into voting machines. And these machines will be used in this coming election. The result? They found weaknesses, and it is too late to fix them.
This wasn’t positive news for a citizenry that has developed a healthy mistrust of the whole system. This is not the first test of voting machines; there have been many, and what is worse, manufacturers, in many cases, ignore these findings.
Every year for the last ten years, weaknesses have been found in these systems, and in the latest case, “multiple pages” worth. Even more frustrating is that the hackers find, in many cases, the same amount of vulnerabilities year after year.
So, are paper ballots foolproof? Not by a long shot. For instance, in 2020, a Wisconsin Election Commission Executive Director faced termination for her involvement in manipulating the 2020 election to favor Biden. She printed 64,000 ballots in the back conference room of city hall, room 501. She had city employees and others fill out ballots on at least three floors of city hall. At around 10:00 to 10:30 p.m., she dismissed all the observers and then brought in a large number of ballots at 1:15 a.m. on 11/4/20.
Nationally, there are several million ballots missing.
They counted the ballots and held them in reserve, AS NEEDED! If you remember, Trump was winning when suddenly the voting stopped. When the voting resumed, Biden was in the lead. The woman has since been fired. But that is just one person; God knows how many more there are.
This was just one example. It happened in almost every battleground state. The Democrats have been quite effective in labeling election protesters as election deniers and accusing them of what the Democrats were doing—conducting a coup d’état. They successfully carried out this tactic and managed to escape punishment.
You must understand that Democrats mean business. They will not accept a Trump presidency, and they will do everything possible to prevent one.
With states, cities, and counties saying they want honest elections, finding a machine that can achieve it is probably asking too much. Given the scarcity of trust and the potential for mistakes or fraud to incite widespread violence, the only viable option for the foreseeable future is to rely on manual paper ballots under strict monitoring. We will not allow the dismissal of observers.
Voting machines with modems, the internet, and programming where only other coders can discern the language is indeed asking too much. One can hack or tamper with any machine. It is manual, paper-ballot voting that makes for an honest election. Voting machines can never duplicate the performance of paper ballots with proper monitoring.
Democrats have become like a Whack-A-Mole game, they pop up everywhere you don’t expect. They are like old communists, working their way through any opening, any doorway, any window, or any opening at all. They insist they are saving democracy while destroying it, preserving our country while dismantling it.
They lie with aplomb, saying anything that will get a vote. Like James Carville said back in 2020, “I became a Democrat operative because Democrats are clueless.” And clueless they are. I remember some Blacks saying, “I didn’t know how racist America was until Obama became president.” Not only did they fail to recognize the irony in their statement, but they also expected Obama to receive cheers regardless of his words or actions. Anything to the contrary was considered racist. They love that accusation. It covers a multitude of sins on the Left.
The mainstream media has made the turn complete. They are no longer pro-America or even pro-freedom and democracy. Our political system is overloaded with political operatives, not trying to devise good government, but working overtime to make you believe it’s good government.
The standards for ‘honorable’ have changed.
