Voter Registration in 353 Counties in 29 States Exceeds 100% of Eligible Voters -- Says Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch has long been working to force reluctant local and state governments to comply with the federal law that requires them to keep accurate voter registration rolls.  This is a critical task if we are to have legitimate elections and it is one of several reasons why I am a Judicial Watch contributor.

Judicial Watch has released an updated study of the problem.  This problem is especially acute when the states are sending out mass mailings of ballots to everyone on the absurdly inflated voter registration rolls.  The highlights of the results follow from an email I just received from Judicial Watch:

Voter Registration in 353 Counties in 29 States Exceeds 100%

In 2018 the Supreme Court upheld a voter-roll cleanup program that resulted from our settlement of a federal lawsuit with Ohio. California settled a NVRA lawsuit with us and last year began the process of removing up to 1.6 million inactive names from Los Angeles County’s voter rolls. Kentucky also began a cleanup of hundreds of thousands of old registrations last year after it entered into a consent decree to end another Judicial Watch lawsuit. In September 2020, we sued Illinois for refusing to disclose voter roll data in violation of Federal law.

So we’ve been busy and effective. Unfortunately, the problem persists.

Our newly released study reveals that 353 U.S. counties had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens. In other words, the registration rates of those counties exceeded 100% of eligible voters. The study finds eight states showing statewide registration rates exceeding 100%: Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The September 2020 study collected the most recent registration data posted online by the states themselves. This data was then compared to the Census Bureau’s most recent five-year population estimates, gathered by the American Community Survey (ACS) from 2014 through 2018. ACS surveys are sent to 3.5 million addresses each month, and its five-year estimates are considered to be the most reliable estimates outside of the decennial census.

Our latest study is necessarily limited to 37 states that post regular updates to their registration data. Certain state voter registration lists may also be even larger than reported, because they may have excluded “inactive voters” from their data. Inactive voters, who may have moved elsewhere, are still registered voters and may show up and vote on election day and/or request mail-in ballots.

We rely on our voter registration studies to warn states that they are failing to comply with the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to make reasonable efforts to clean their voter rolls. We can and have sued to enforce compliance with federal law.

Earlier this month, we sued Colorado over its failure to comply with the National Voter Registration Act. In our new study, 42 Colorado counties—or two thirds of the state’s counties—had registration rates exceeding 100%. Particular data from the state confirms this general picture. As the complaint explains, a month-by-month comparison of the ACS’s five-year survey period with Colorado’s own registration numbers for the exact same months shows that large proportions of Colorado’s counties have registration rates exceeding 100%. Earlier this year, we sued Pennsylvania and North Carolina for failing to make reasonable efforts to remove ineligible voters from their rolls as required by federal law. The lawsuits allege that the two states have nearly 2 million inactive names on their voter registration rolls. We also sued Illinois for refusing to disclose voter roll data in violation of Federal law.

Our study updates the results of a similar study from last year. In August 2019 we analyzed registration data that states reported to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in response to a survey conducted every two years on how states maintain their voter rolls. That registration data was compared to the then-most-recent ACS five-year survey from 2013 through 2017. The study showed that 378 U.S. counties had registration rates exceeding 100%.
The new study shows 1.8 million excess, or ‘ghost’ voters in 353 counties across 29 states. The data highlights the recklessness of mailing blindly ballots and ballot applications to voter registration lists. Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections.

STATES AND COUNTIES WITH REGISTRATION RATES EXCEEDING 100%

(* means no separate reporting of inactive registrations)
 

Alabama: Lowndes County (130%); Macon County (114%); Wilcox (113%); Perry County (111%); Madison County (109%); Hale County (108%); Marengo County (108%); Baldwin (108%); Greene County (107%); Washington County (106%); Dallas County (106%); Choctaw County (105%); Conecuh County (105%); Randolph County (104%); Shelby County (104%); Lamar County (103%); Autauga County (103%); Clarke County (103%); Henry County (103%); Monroe County (102%); Colbert County (101%); Jefferson County (101%); Lee County (100%); Houston County (100%); Crenshaw County (100%)

*Alaska: Statewide (111%)

Arizona: Santa Cruz County (107%); Apache County (106%)

*Arkansas: Newton County (103%)

Colorado: Statewide (102%); San Juan County (158%); Dolores County (127%); Jackson County (125%); Mineral County (119%); Ouray County (119%); Phillips County (116%); Douglas County (116%); Broomfield County (115%); Elbert County (113%); Custer County (112%); Gilpin County (111%); Park County (111%); Archuleta County (111%); Cheyenne County (111%); Clear Creek County (110%); Teller County (108%); Grand County (107%); La Plata County (106%); Summit County (106%); Baca County (106%); Pitkin County (106%); San Miguel County (106%); Routt County (106%); Hinsdale County (105%); Garfield County (105%); Gunnison County (105%); Sedgwick County (104%); Eagle County (104%); Larimer County (104%); Weld County (104%); Boulder County (103%); Costilla County (103%); Chaffee County (103%); Kiowa County (103%); Denver County (103%); Huerfano County (102%); Montezuma County (102%); Moffat County (102%); Arapahoe County (102%); Jefferson County (101%); Las Animas County (101%); Mesa County (100%.

*Florida: St. Johns County (112%); Nassau County (109%); Walton County (108%); Santa Rosa County (108%); Flagler County (104%); Clay County (103%); Indian River County (101%); Osceola County (100%)

*Georgia: Bryan County (118%); Forsyth County (114%); Dawson County (113%); Oconee County (111%); Fayette County (111%); Fulton County (109%); Cherokee County (109%); Jackson County (107%); Henry County (106%); Lee County (106%); Morgan County (105%); Clayton County (105%); DeKalb County (105%); Gwinnett County (104%); Greene County (104%); Cobb County (104%); Effingham County (103%); Walton County (102%); Rockdale County (102%); Barrow County (101%); Douglas County (101%); Newton County (100%); Hall County (100%)

*Indiana: Hamilton County (113%); Boone County (112%); Clark County (105%); Floyd County (103%); Hancock County (103%); Ohio County (102%); Hendricks County (102%); Lake County (101%); Warrick County (100%); Dearborn County (100%)
Iowa: Dallas County (115%); Johnson County (104%); Lyon County (103%); Dickinson County (103%); Scott County (102%); Madison County (101%); Warren County (100%)

*Kansas: Johnson County (105%)
Maine: Statewide (101%); Cumberland County (110%); Sagadahoc County (107%); Hancock County (105%); Lincoln County (104%); Waldo County (102%); York County (100%)

Maryland: Statewide (102%); Montgomery County (113%); Howard County (111%); Frederick County (110%); Charles County (108%); Prince George’s County (106%); Queen Anne’s County (104%); Calvert County (104%); Harford County (104%); Worcester County (103%); Carroll County (103%); Anne Arundel County (102%); Talbot County (100%)

*Massachusetts: Dukes County (120%); Nantucket County (115%); Barnstable County (103%)

*Michigan: Statewide (105%); Leelanau County (119%); Otsego County (118%); Antrim County (116%); Kalkaska County (115%); Emmet County (114%); Berrien County (114%); Keweenaw County (114%); Benzie County (113%); Washtenaw County (113%); Mackinac County (112%); Dickinson County (112%); Roscommon County (112%); Charlevoix County (112%); Grand Traverse County (111%); Oakland County (110%); Iron County (110%); Monroe County (109%); Genesee County (109%); Ontonagon County (109%); Gogebic County (109%); Livingston County (109%); Alcona County (108%); Cass County (108%); Allegan County (108%); Oceana County (107%); Midland County (107%); Kent County (107%); Montmorency County (107%); Van Buren County (107%); Wayne County (107%); Schoolcraft County (107%); Mason County (107%); Oscoda County (107%); Iosco County (107%); Wexford County (106%); Presque Isle County (106%); Delta County (106%); Alpena County (106%); St Clair County (106%); Cheboygan County (105%); Newaygo County (105%); Barry County (105%); Gladwin County (105%); Menominee County (105%); Crawford County (105%); Muskegon County (105%); Kalamazoo County (104%); St. Joseph County (104%); Ottawa County (103%); Clinton County (103%); Saginaw County (103%); Manistee County (103%); Lapeer County (103%); Calhoun County (103%); Ogemaw County (103%); Macomb County (103%); Missaukee County (102%); Eaton County (102%); Shiawassee County (102%); Huron County (102%); Lenawee County (101%); Branch County (101%); Osceola County (101%); Clare County (100%); Arenac County (100%); Bay County (100%); Lake County (100%)

*Missouri: St. Louis County (102%)

*Montana: Petroleum County (113%); Gallatin County (103%); Park County (103%); Madison County (102%); Broadwater County (102%)

*Nebraska: Arthur County (108%); Loup County (103%); Keya Paha County (102%); Banner County (100%); McPherson County (100%)

Nevada: Storey County (108%); Douglas County (105%); Nye County (101%)
*New Jersey: Statewide (102%); Somerset County (110%); Hunterdon County (108%); Morris County (107%); Essex County (106%); Monmouth County (104%); Bergen County (103%); Middlesex County (103%); Union County (103%); Camden County (102%); Warren County (102%); Atlantic County (102%); Sussex County (101%); Salem County (101%); Hudson County (100%); Gloucester County (100%)

*New Mexico: Harding County (177%); Los Alamos County (110%)

New York: Hamilton County (118%); Nassau County (109%); New York (103%); Rockland County (101%); Suffolk County (100%)

*Oregon: Sherman County (107%); Crook County (107%); Deschutes County (105%); Wallowa County (103%); Hood River County (103%); Columbia County (102%); Linn County (101%); Polk County (100%); Tillamook County (100%)

Rhode Island: Statewide (101%); Bristol County (104%); Washington County (103%); Providence County (101%)

*South Carolina: Jasper County (103%)

South Dakota: Hanson County (171%); Union County (120%); Jones County (116%); Sully County (115%); Lincoln County (113%); Custer County (110%); Fall River County (108%); Pennington County (106%); Harding County (105%); Minnehaha County (104%); Potter County (104%); Campbell County (103%); McPherson County (101%); Hamlin County (101%); Stanley County (101%); Lake County (100%); Perkins County (100%)

Tennessee: Williamson County (110%); Moore County (101%); Polk County (101%)

Texas: Loving County (187%); Presidio County (149%); McMullen County (147%); Brooks County (117%); Roberts County (116%); Sterling County (115%); Zapata County (115%); Maverick County (112%); Starr County (110%); King County (110%); Chambers County (109%); Irion County (108%); Jim Hogg County (107%); Polk County (107%); Comal County (106%); Oldham County (104%); Culberson County (104%); Kendall County (103%); Dimmit County (103%); Rockwall County (102%); Motley County (102%); Parker County (102%); Hudspeth County (101%); Travis County (101%); Fort Bend County (101%); Kent County (101%); Webb County (101%); Mason County (101%); Crockett County (101%); Waller County (100%); Gillespie County (100%); Duval County (100%); Brewster County (100%)

Vermont: Statewide (100%)

Virginia: Loudoun County (116%); Falls Church City (114%); Fairfax City (109%); Goochland County (108%); Arlington County (106%); Fairfax County (106%); Prince William County (105%); James City County (105%); Alexandria City (105%); Fauquier County (105%); Isle of Wight County (104%); Chesterfield County (104%); Surry County (103%); Hanover County (103%); New Kent County (103%); Clarke County (103%); King William County (102%); Spotsylvania County (102%); Rappahannock County (102%); Albemarle County (101%); Stafford County (101%); Northampton County (101%); Poquoson City (100%); Frederick County (100%)

Washington: Garfield County (119%); Pend Oreille County (112%); Jefferson County (111%); San Juan County (108%); Wahkiakum County (108%); Stevens County (103%); Pacific County (103%); Clark County (102%); Island County (102%); Klickitat County (102%); Thurston County (102%); Lincoln County (101%); Whatcom County (100%); Asotin County (100%)

*West Virginia: Mingo County (104%); Wyoming County (103%); McDowell County (102%); Brooke County (102%); Hancock County (100%)

My Comments:

One of the reasons the Democratic Party opposed the Citizenship question on the 2020 Census so adamantly is because the only way the Census population can be used in the future to spot obviously bloated voter registration polls is if the registered voters exceed the sum of the age-eligible citizens and the same age range of non-citizens, who cannot legally vote.  The Democratic Party, for all its pretense of claiming that every vote must count, has long had a strongly vested interest in inflated voter registration rolls.  Of course, every legal vote is watered down when the dead, the out of district, and non-citizens vote in an election.  The Democratic Party is not concerned with this.

More buckets of icy cold energy reality by Paul Driessen

Democrats, Green New Dealers and UN gabfest attendees need to get ‘woke’ on eco-energy

The full-court press is on for climate chaos disaster and renewable energy salvation. CNN recently hosted a seven-hour climate event for Democrat presidential aspirants. Every day brings more gloom-and-doom stories about absurd, often taxpayer-funded pseudo-scientific reports on yet another natural event or supposed calamity that alarmists insist is due to fossil fuels that provide 80% of US and global energy.

MSNBC just hosted another two-day Democrat presidential candidates climate forum at Georgetown University – where I spoke at a contrarian program. Meanwhile, a big Climate March took place in New York City, while protesters tried to block Washington, DC streets. They were all kicking off the UN’s “Global Climate Week” in NYC, featuring a Youth Climate Summit and UN General Assembly event where world leaders will demand “global action” to supposedly stop the supposed climate crisis.

Their standard solution is biofuel, solar, wind and battery power. My recent article dumped buckets of icy cold reality on several of those claims. They obviously need to be doused with a few more icy buckets.

To reiterate: Wind and sunshine are free, renewable, sustainable and eco-friendly. However, the lands and raw materials required for technologies to harness this widely dispersed, intermittent, weather-dependent energy to benefit humanity absolutely are not. In fact, their environmental impacts are monumental.

The Democrat candidates and their supporters want to replace coal and gas backup power plants with batteries, to ensure we have (much more expensive) electricity even when intermittent, weather-dependent wind and sunshine refuse to cooperate with our need for 24/7/365 power for our electricity-based homes, schools, hospitals, factories, businesses, computers, social media and civilization.

So let’s suppose we blanket the United States with enough industrial-scale wind and solar facilities to replace the 3.9 billion megawatt-hours Americans used in 2018 – and we manufacture and install enough king-sized batteries to store sufficient electricity for seven straight windless or sunless days.

We would need something on the order of one billion 100-kilowatt-hour, 1,000-pound lithium and cobalt-based battery packs – similar to what Tesla uses in its electric vehicles. (This does not include the extra battery storage required to charge up the cars, trucks and buses we are supposed to replace with EVs.)

All these batteries would support the millions and millions of Green New Deal solar panels and wind turbines we would have to build and install. They would require prodigious amounts of iron, copper, rare earth metals, concrete and other raw materials. And every one of these batteries, turbines and panels would have to be replaced far more often than coal, gas, nuclear or hydroelectric power plants.

Indeed, what are we going do with all those worn-out and broken-down turbines, panels and batteries? The International Renewable Energy Agency has said disposing of just the worn out solar panels that the UN wants erected around the world by 2050, under the Paris Climate Treaty’s solar energy goals, could result in two times the tonnage of the United States’ total plastic waste in 2017!

So another icy cold reality is this: All this “free, renewable, sustainable, eco-friendly, ethical” energy would require the biggest expansion in mining the world has ever seen. But when was the last time any environmentalist or Democrat supported opening a single US mine? They detest mining.

Which brings us to the dirtiest pseudo-renewable, pseudo-sustainable energy secret of all – the one these folks absolutely do not want to talk about: slave and child labor.

Because of rabid environmentalist opposition, the United States and Europe no longer permit much mining within their borders. They just import minerals – many of them from China and Russia. And the same groups that extol the virtues of wind, solar and battery power are equally opposed to Western mining companies extracting rare earth, lithium, cadmium, cobalt and other minerals almost anywhere on Planet Earth – even under rigorous Western labor, safety, environmental and reclamation rules.

That means those materials are mined and processed in places like Baotou, Inner Mongolia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, mostly under Chinese control. They are dug out and processed by fathers, mothers and children – under horrific, unsafe, inhuman conditions that few of us can even imagine ... under almost nonexistent labor, wage, health, safety and pollution standards.

Those renewable energy, high-tech slaves get a few pennies or dollars a day – while risking cave-ins and being exposed constantly to filthy, toxic, radioactive mud, dust, water and air. The mining and industrial areas become vast toxic wastelands, where nothing grows, and no people or wildlife can live.

For cobalt alone – say UNICEF and Amnesty International – over 40,000 Congolese children, as young as four years old, slave away in mines, from sunrise to sundown, six or even seven days a week. That’s today. Imagine how many will be needed to serve the “ethical green energy utopia.”

Green New Dealers demand sustainable, ethical, human rights-based coffee, sneakers, T-shirts, handbags and diamonds. Absolutely no child labor, sweat shop, or toxic, polluted workplace conditions allowed. But they have little or nothing to say about the Chinese, Russian and other companies that run the horrid operations that provide their wind turbines, solar panels, smart grids – and batteries for their cell phones, Teslas, laptops and backup electrical power.

I’ve never seen them make ethical wind turbines, solar panels and batteries an issue. They’ve never protested outside a Chinese, Russian or Congolese embassy, or corporate headquarters in Beijing, Moscow or Kinshasa. They probably don’t want to get shot or sent to gulags.

And just a few weeks ago, California legislators voted down Assembly Bill 735. The bill simply said California would certify that “zero emission” electric vehicles sold in the state must be free of any materials or components that involve child labor. The issue is complicated, the legislators said. It would be too hard to enforce. It would imperil state climate goals. And besides, lots of other industries also use child labor ... they “explained.”

As Milton Friedman said, there is no free lunch. Wind, solar, biofuel and battery power are not free, clean, green, renewable or sustainable. America must not let delusion, dishonesty and ideology drive public policies that will determine our future jobs, prosperity, living standards, freedoms and civilization.

What Green New Dealers are talking about has nothing to do with stopping dangerous manmade climate change – or with real sustainability, resource conservation or environmental protection. It has everything to do with increasingly socialist, largely taxpayer-financed activists, politicians, regulators and crony capitalists controlling people’s lives; dictating our energy use, economic growth, job opportunities and living standards; and getting richer, more powerful and more privileged in the process.

Meanwhile poor, minority and working class families – pay the price. And destitute families in hungry, impoverished, electricity-deprived nations pay the highest price. China, India, Indonesia and Africa are not about to give up their determined efforts to take their rightful, God-given places among Earth’s healthy and prosperous people. They are not going to stop using fossil fuels to reach their goals.

They are not going to let anyone – including the UN, EU, US Democrats and other eco-imperialists – tell them they can never enjoy those blessings. Or they will be “allowed” to improve their health and living standards only at the margins, only to levels achievable with wind, solar and cow dung power.

That’s why, even as the United States reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 12% between 2000 and 2017 – India’s plant-fertilizing CO2 emissions soared by 140% and China’s skyrocketed 194% – further greening Planet Earth. In 2019 alone, China alone will add more coal-fired generating capacity than what all existing US coal-fired power plants generate.

While all these countries continue using more and more fossil fuels to improve their economies, health and living standards – why in heaven’s name would the United States want to join Green New Dealers and other crazies in an environment-destroying ban-fossil-fuels economic suicide pact?

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate, environmental and human rights issues.

The Minimum Wage in Maryland

Maryland is a very progressive state with the Progressive Elitists dominating both legislative bodies.  It did just elect a Republican governor, after the last two Democrat governors with the help of the Democrat state legislature enacted 40 straight tax increases, including the tax on rain and one on high income citizens.  The last governor, Martin O'Folley, er.... O'Malley, claims to have done the people of Maryland a favor by mandating that employers will pay a higher minimum wage for their services, if employer's can find a reason to hire them any more at all.

From December 2007 to December 2014, Maryland had a 0.15% increase in the number of jobs in the state even before this state minimum wage was added to the problems of doing business in Maryland.  This wee increase in jobs vastly lagged the population growth.  This was in spite of Maryland doing better than most states in the early years of the Great Recession due to the huge, horrendous increase in federal spending.  Maryland received a much larger fraction of that windfall than did the median state.

Minimum Wage Rates for Employers
$7.25 Until 12/31/14
$8.00 Effective 1/1/15
$8.25 Effective 7/1/15
$8.75 Effective 7/1/16
$9.25 Effective 7/1/17
$10.10 Effective 7/1/18

One of the Ph.D. scientists who works in my laboratory just had jury duty.  He was paid $15 per day.  I am not sure he was in court for exactly 8 hours, but he absolutely could not be at the laboratory for 8 hours.  Effectively, the government paid him $1.875/hour for his services.

Sure, the government would say he was just expected to do his civic duty.  I might respect that argument if the government were acting legitimately to protect every citizen's equal and sovereign rights.  But the governments in Maryland are highly attuned to special interests and rob the majority of the citizens to provide advantages to many special interests and to buy the votes of many low-information and relatively unthinking citizens, the many non-citizens who vote in this state, and the many citizens that vote both in this state and in others.  I absolutely refuse to buy the argument that civic duty to this form of tyrannical government is morally superior to providing materials problem-solving services to companies that are trying to raise the American standard of living with superior goods and services in the private sector.

It is highly hypocritical for Maryland to require private sector businesses to pay a minimum wage of $8.00/hour when it is paying a minimum wage of $1.875/hour.  While my employee will receive his normal pay for those days he was on jury duty, a self-employed person might very well not be able to pay himself for the time he spent on jury duty.  For my laboratory, the loss of our scientist's billable work is a significant loss.  It would help if we could pay him the difference between his usual salary and the amount paid him by the government for that time, but since they paid him so little, making any such correction is more trouble than it is worth.

As usual, we see that Democrat government is a poser without substance at the business of justice.  It cares not the least about interfering with the individual right to earn a living, whether it be to deprive an employer or an employee of that freedom with a minimum wage law or by imposing a duty with far less than what it claims is subsistence pay when it talks to employers.

Wall Street Journal Says Below Average White Rural Areas Are Becoming More Republican

The Friday Wall Street Journal had a front page story in which it said that the "GOP Tightens Its Grip on White Working Class."  It says that it tracks the House seats held by each party in House districts dominated by white, working-class voters.  In 1993, the Democrats held 36 such districts and the Republicans held 35.  By 2013, this division of such districts had changed drastically, with the Republicans holding 59 white, working-class districts and the Democrats holding only 11.

The article has the usual large number of stories about individuals and what they think and how their voting may have changed or not.  Among the stories it tells are those of people from Aitkin, Minnesota in the 8th Congressional District of Minnesota.  Aitkin is the county seat of rural Aitkin County, with a population of 2,597 people.  It is about 50 miles west southwest of Duluth, Minnesota.  The 8th Congressional District is almost 93% white.  We are told by the Wall Street Journal that the median household income is $49,860, compared to the national median of $53,000.  We are told that only a bit more than 22% of the people in the district have a Bachelor's degree or higher, compared to a national median of 28.5%.  So, we are supposed to conclude that these people are not quite as well-educated as they ought to be and not quite as successful as the average American.  So, maybe this is why they are becoming Republicans in larger numbers.

Let us consider the measure of their economic success given as their income.  Democrats obsess about materialistic measures such as comparative incomes.  But in fact, the people of Aitkin, Minnesota are a bit too sly for the median American.  There is a pretty good reason to believe the Wall Street Journal is underestimating them, both their income and their ability to recognize a perfectly fine way of living.

The median household income of $53,000 mentioned is that earned by households with a mean cost of living index of 100.  The good people of Aitkin, Minnesota have a local cost of living of 92.  Do the math,

$49,860 / 0.92 = $54,196 > $53,000.

So, it may not be the case that everyone in Aitkin, Minnesota is above average, but it is the case that their median income allows them to live a bit better than the median income in America allows the average American household.

So, being such sly folks, they are coming to realize that the Republican Party is better than the Democrat Party.  The story is that Millennials and Hispanics are beginning to learn the same lesson.  Mostly, those who are coming awake are coming to an increasing understanding that being productive is critical and that far too many people are making welfare a way of life.  The people called the white working class are learning this in larger numbers, but young people now a few years separated from the Progressive Elitist indoctrination of years of Progressive Elitist education and unable to find jobs at all or jobs anything like what they thought they would have are beginning to learn this as well.  Some are actually seeing that government actions have prevented any reasonable economic recovery.  More and more Hispanic Americans are at the least disgusted with the failed promises of the Democrats and in some cases are coming to resent others living off of their hard work also.

While some signs of understanding are beginning to show up, there is a long way to go.  A Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll in June found out that 53% of white people said that the government was doing too much to meet the needs of people and more should be left to businesses and individuals.  Only 44% of Hispanics said the same.  Still fewer Black Americans agreed with this.  They were stuck at a mere 32%.  We still live in a largely entitlement society.

A Democrat Wants to Know, Sort Of

A young Democrat of my acquaintance, who was educated as an engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology and has a Wharton School of Business MBA, sent me the following note:

Again the GOP strikes with the Govt shutdown. It all stinks of politics, and the unfortunately for the GOP, they are not very likeable right now, so the American people don't buy what they are selling. How childish was Cruz the other day?? If every politician threw a tantrum every time they didn't get what they wanted or believed in, where would we as a country be? 

Simple questions. Why is there no leadership in the GOP? Why is the Tea Party effectively blocking the everything? This GOP is frankly a shitshow (excuse my french), and there is no site in end. It is a shame, I am starting to think that an independent may have just as good a chance as the GOP in the next presidential elections, because almost everyone there is either useless, or has to flip flop numerous times just to get the party nomination (a la Romney - a good candidate). I know how you feel about the Affordable Care Act, but I don't think it is a bad idea to ask people to chip in when it is health related. America needs to go away from the "every man for himself" motto when it comes to basic fundamentals like health. The Affordable Care Act does not make America a socialist country.

Now despite this thinking, this young man is of considerable importance to me.  As a consequence, I have had several discussions with him, though as is usually the case when talking to a Democrat, there has been no change of his opinions despite my sterling reason!  There is always the sense that a Democrat simply lives in a different universe and all the laws of physics and economics are different there and they cannot imagine what those laws are on Earth.

Here is my reply:

When government spends 24 to 25% of the entire GDP and has a couple of hundred thousand pages of regulations that impose restrictions on the actions of individuals and many cost and time requirements on individuals in addition to its actual spending, then passions will run high on political issues.  And contrary to the pretense of those who believe wholeheartedly in Big Government, government is all about the use of force.  With our democratic pretense, we suppose that 50.1% of the voters have the right to use that force to make 49.9% do anything they please.  This is not the case.  It does make every government act of the legislature and of the President a matter of politics.

The purpose of legitimate government is to protect the rights of the individual.  These rights are very broad with respect to freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and the freedom to take all actions which support your own life and happiness without the use of force against others.  Those broad freedoms are only partially spelled out as a few particulars in the Bill of Rights.  The 9th Amendment which might protect the full scope of our individual rights is ignored and this is not surprising because too few people have thought out the complete scope of our individual rights.
 
The Constitution listed the few powers of the government and the list was short.  Had the government and many special interests not long fought to ignore the limits of that list, most individual rights would not be violated by the government.  In fact, many of the Framers of the Constitution made this very argument against a Bill of Rights, noting that a Bill of Rights would be too narrow a protection and just protect a portion of one's individual rights.  They argued that this would be taken as a reason to say the government can do anything to anyone which is not then denied by the Bill of Rights.  This is what has happened and then some.  Now even rights explicit in the Bill of Rights are violated, such as Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom to Assemble, Freedom to Petition the Government, and the right to own and bear arms.
 

Let us return to the problems of unfettered democracy with a big government.  This creates a society in which on issue after issue a slim majority (in the ideal case, in actuality, special interests very often control such a government and the beliefs of the people be damned) uses force to impose their will on a minority.  The minority is enraged both by having to do something they think is wrong and by the fact that they are forced to do it by force-wielding thugs, agents of the government.  There is the wrongness of the thing itself and there is the wrongness of the force itself.

Even if you are on the majority side in many cases, you will inevitably be on the minority side many times also.  This is an awful way to live life.  It is very stressful and very confrontational.  But, it is the nature of unfettered democracy and is a substantial part of the reason such democracies soon collapse.  They destroy the society and replace a natural tendency to cooperate with one another in the private sector with a mob or gang mentality striving to control the use of government force to their advantage.  They also make laws to cover many activities they simply do not understand.  This really gums up the works by removing the specialists in the private sector from the decision process.
 
If a minority and a number of special interests combine with a socialist President, they can even impose a monster system such as ObamaCare, despite most of the People opposing it.  Most of the things that big government does have some special interest group wanting it and most of the People are actually remarkably uninformed about it.  They are also generally victims of that action and do not understand that.

Big Government is all about every faction for itself.  It is not about the welfare of the People.  That is the pretense and it is very clear these days that it is a very hollow pretense.  Contrary to your statement, the private sector is not properly characterized as "every man for himself."  The private sector is characterized by people cooperating with one another for a multitude of purposes of their own choosing and helping one another to achieve the goals that each has chosen of his own free will.  The private sector, unlike the government sector, does not live by the use of force and does not allow some to impose their will on others.  It is the government sector that refuses to allow us to work out mutually agreeable contracts and associations with others in many, many ways.  The government limits our activities mostly in interactions with others and thereby forces us to go it alone in many cases where we would have sought out a mutually beneficial cooperative enterprise with others.

Such effects are very clear with such laws as the Minimum Wage Law.  If I wish to hire an under-educated and inexperienced young person and he wishes to take the job I may be able to give him, we are not allowed to negotiate any wage lower than the minimum wage.  I never get to evaluate his work ethic and ability to do productive work and he never gets to prove he can do the job and move on to a higher pay grade.  I have to go it without his potentially good production and he gets to turn to a life of crime.

Or take the fact that ObamaCare is forcing employers to stop hiring before they grow to 50 employees and it pushes them to reduce the hours worked in a week to fewer than 30 hours.  In effect, ObamaCare is forcing the employer to go it alone.  His ability to cooperate with others for their mutual benefit is restricted.  Then there are many, many medical providers who are now being laid off because their employers cannot make enough money to survive under ObamaCare.  Once again, Big Government is making people go it alone.

You say you do not think it is a bad idea to ask people to chip in to provide health care to others.  I do not much care whether you ask them to do so or not.  Go ahead and ask all you want, provided you are not being terribly dishonest and are not actually using force to make them contribute their hard-earned income to provide for the health of others.  But you are being dishonest here.  There is nothing that gives you the right to make others do this.  This is nothing but your particular wish.  Unfortunately, others wish that everyone had the same income.  Others wish that everyone has a nice home.  Others want everyone to eat well.  There is no end to what people wish with respect to others.  Imagine how awful a society would be if everyone got to use force to make everyone else live according to their wishes.

By and large, the Republican Party is for a slightly smaller government than is the Democrat Party.  To have a slightly smaller Big Government, such a party will often say no to the Party that is constantly proposing a new government program.  Some of the People actually want a substantially smaller government.  Many of these people are in the Tea Party movement, which I associate with myself.  They generally are Republicans, though not very happy Republicans.  Some are in the Libertarian Party.  But, naturally they are not going to join the party most enthusiastic about Big Government.  So, they have become a fractious element in the Republican Party.  They want that party to stand up for something closer to a constitutional government.  Naturally, they are opposed to most programs that would make the government still bigger and still more intrusive in our lives.

You bemoan the lack of Republican leaders holding the membership in an iron grip of control.  Well, what do you really expect of people who want to manage their own lives and choose their own values.  Those who want government to do this for them are naturally inclined to follow leaders.  Those who like to think independently and control their own decisions in life do not naturally turn to a leader to tell them what to do.  Traditionally, Americans never did, but after 100 years of growing Progressive Elitist effort and influence in the government-run or bribed schools, there are many people now well-conditioned to do as they are told.  I am of the old school and never allowed myself to be so conditioned.

The iron grip of control of the Democrat Party line is actually very exposed as it forces them to maintain beliefs obviously contrary to reality.  They still maintain that Americans will have better healthcare under ObamaCare at a lower cost and that enough medical care providers will be available.  This is clearly not going to be the case.  Many employers are dropping health insurance plans, many people will find that their doctor is no longer available, most people will find their costs will go up and that much of the cost provides them with care they do not want.  Many young people especially will not be able to get jobs because they would cost the employer more under ObamaCare than they used to.  It used to be that if you hired a young person, the average age in your insurance pool dropped so your health insurance cost went down and gave you some incentive to train the young hire.  Now you add a young person and his affordable plan cost at 9.5% of his pay is likely to force the company to reduce the coverage offered to its longer time employees to keep the young hire's health insurance below 9.5% or cost you a $3000 penalty tax.  Or you do not hire the young person.  It is so simple.  More and more Americans are realizing how ridiculous the Democrat Party claims are and the lock-step adherence to the party line will be deadly to the Democrats.

Another clear example of the inability of the Democrats to think rationally and independently is the adherence to the claim that man's emissions of CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming.  After 17 years of no surface temperature increase and rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, this claim has become entirely laughable.  Yet Obama just recently made the claim that 97% of scientists support the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis, which is also a very untrue statement.  So his EPA is putting out a new regulation to keep anyone from building a coal-fired power plant and he still has not approved the Keystone XL Pipeline using this specious argument as the justification.  It is imposing many uneconomic mandates such as for the use of ethanol in gasoline, an increase in vehicle gasoline efficiency, electric vehicle programs, and programs pushing solar and wind energy generation that are very much hurting the economy and helping to raise the unemployment rate.  Despite these obvious deleterious effects, few Democrats have departed from the party line.

No X, I prefer to think for myself and be a member of the Republican Party that at least sometimes acts to slow down or stop the growth of society-destroying government.  I will remain in the libertarian and the Tea Party wing which is most determined to keep the iron hob-nailed boot of government off of our necks.  However many people want to be dependents of the government, I will not be one who wants that.  I want to be left alone by gangs of thugs to establish my own cooperative agreements with others to work toward our mutually chosen goals.  It really matters to me both that I am able to pursue my goals and that they are able to pursue theirs.

Please give what I am saying some real thought X.