Lions and Eagles

A good friend from church sent me a forwarded email, one of those "Trump is bad but still have to vote against him to stop Hillary" things. This was the reply I sent back to him:

PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS I'm going to have to do some jumping around here, but I'll make up for summarizing at the end. Items #1 and #3 are each standalone, but each of them has a bunch of story that is not being told on the ballot that has to be shared. #2 and #4 each seem to follow a pattern that I want to explore, to make sure that I can vote with principle and consistency, so that I can decide not just the question of whether this particular proposal is good, but whether this type of proposal is sound.

I'm not going to write about the Presidential race. I'm done with it. Let's go down the ballot. For United States Senate JOHNNY ISAKSON (Incumbent) Republican Talks conservative, but votes liberal.  https://www.conservativereview.com/members/johnny-isakson/liberty-card/ . JIM BARKSDALE Democrat Typical Democrat party line of being “for the little guy”... With more taxes, regulation, Federal control. ALLEN BUCKLEY Libertarian Seems to be a Libertarian of the “not wacko” sort, really for bringing Washington back to its proper place. For Public Service Commissioner TIM ECHOLS (Incumbent) Republican ERIC HOSKINS Libertarian During the primary I voted for Echols’ Republican challenger. Echols’ website bragged on some great causes that in my mind are very worthy for private undertaking but not related at all to the role of Public Service Commissioner. Now, I'd like to give the Libertarians a chance, but Hoskins doesn't even seem to b...

Maybe it's a dream, or a parable, or maybe just the invention of my wild imagination...  Picture a D&D-type setting, if you will. Two great dragons are preparing to battle for dominion over the land. But rather than fight directly, each is recruiting armies of supporters from the land's population. One dragon is Neutral Evil. She claims to be Lawful, but her misdeeds are well known, in spite of the fact that bards dare not speak of them and no one has the courage to hold her accountable. The other dragon challenging her is Chaotic Evil. He has claimed a recent conversion to Good, but this dragon has a reputation for deceit, and everyone knows that a dragon doesn't change their scales easily. Besides, before this contest began, this dragon was best of friends with the other. I am but a low level Paladin. Lawful and Good. I have friends who have tried to convince me to side with one dragon or the other. Some say that the Chaotic dragon will be less of a d...

I've had this idea rolling around in my head on the economic effects of health insurance coverage mandates. It started in my mind over contraceptives, but could be applied to just about anything, from prescriptions to doctor visits. My wife had an economics teacher who told her, "If you don't know about supply and demand, you will fail!" You have to understand supply and demand. Quick Micro Econ 101 review. Look at the graph over here. If you've taken an econ class, you should have seen variations on this again and again. The blue line shows that as price goes up, the number of people willing to jump in and buy goes down, and vice versa. Red line shows that when price goes up, sellers are more excited about selling. Somewhere in the middle, the quantity of product that buyers want to buy meets up with the quantity that sellers want to sell, and there we have what we call market equilibrium. That market equilibrium price is what you will pay without insur...

I've been lurking lately in a NeverTrump discussion group on Reddit. A Trump Train guy dropped in recently to ask, very respectfully, how NeverTrumpers were going to react personally should Trump win the election. I thought that it was a question worth thinking about, and after I finished writing my reply below, I decided to hold on to it. I might need it in the near future, and some of my friends are bound to be in the same place as I am. Here's what I said: Thanks for asking, and more than that, thanks for asking in a spirit of kindness. No matter what our differences of opinion, we need to be kind to each other, that's the only way forward . Speaking only for myself, when Obama was elected to a second term, I was initially very frustrated. Had to tune out of politics for a short bit. Nothing new or unusual about that, when you stand on principle you have to get used to siding with lost causes. After the frustration faded, and my wife and I spent some time in ...

Now that I've been through my research, here's the "bottom line" on where I'm voting for each race: Part 1: US Senate:  Mary Kay Bacallo US Representative:  Mike Crane Part 2: Public Service Commissioner:  Kellie Pollard Austin District Attorney:  Rudjard Hayes Sheriff: Barry Babb Coroner: W. Bee Huddleston Part 3: County Commissioner: Eric Maxwell for District 1 Allen McCarty for District 5 Board of Education Brian Anderson Part 4: Republican Party Question "Yes" for empowering parents Part 5: Judge, for Superior Court Mack Crawford (Was leaning Sanderson, but getting more information that is swinging my vote)  Scott Ballard Judge, for Magistrate Court Christy A. Dunkelberger

Last post in my voter guide for this election! I'll follow up with the "summary", now that I've been through the whole ballot. For Judge, Superior Court of the Griffin Judicial Circuit Mack Crawford (Incumbent) https://www.facebook.com/Judge-Mack-Crawford-480952888779042/?fref=ts Appointed by Perdue in 2010. Previously director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council. Catherine Sanderson http://www.electcatherinesanderson.com/default.html Challenging Crawford on the basis that family law cases, divorces, and other proceedings have not been handled expediently. Update: I was leaning towards Sanderson, but I have learned a few things this morning. First, her campaign has apparently included some smear and false claims. I'm still researching this, but I have no patience for dirty campaigning. Second, looking over her Facebook page, she seems to strongly lean towards progressive, left-leaning causes. I want my judges to be Co...

Let's take a moment to look at the Party Questions. This time, I'm not going to look at just the one Party Question on the Republican ballot, but also the five on the Democrat ballot.

I know I'm running late, early voting is almost over and the actual voting day is this coming Tuesday, so I'm hurrying up! County Commission and Board of Education!

Moving on to Public Service Commissioner, District Attorney, Sheriff ,and Coroner

Once again, it's time to write about our upcoming races! Long list of candidates to look over, let's get this show on the road! Federal Seats For United States Senate Mary Kay Bacallo http://lionsandeagles.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-voting-guide-for-november-2012-part-2.html http://www.marykaybacallao.com Served on Fayette County school board. Also ran for State School Superintendent. Has spoken out often against Federal over-regulation particularly in Education. Has been particularly outspoken against Isakson. Derrick Grayson http://www.grayson2016.com Don't see much on his website about his background Has several issue positions I like, but I am worried about his opposition to Citizens United. Johnny Isakson (Incumbent) Basic party guy In this race, Mary Kay Bacallo gets my vote. I see where she’s coming from, why she’s running, and I approve. She is a local/state education person going to Washington, to get Washington out ...

I am shaking my head that this is even an issue. The world really is going downhill. In a sensible world, people would be free to set sensible boundaries for whatever bathrooms are within their control, and decide for themselves how strictly to enforce those boundaries. If you have a shop, and you want to designate a single bathroom as "employees only", but you're willing to make an exception for the parent whose kid is doing the potty dance, that's cool. If you have a couple of single-stall bathrooms, and you put a "man-ish-shaped" sign on one and a "woman-ish-shaped" sign on the other, but you don't really care as long as people are being mature, that's cool too. Even if the signs aren't "enforced", I as a customer am generally going to follow them just because I think that's the sensible and courteous thing to do. And if a shop owner is going to be a jerk about it, well, I don't like to buy from jerks anyway. For ...

I've been volunteering at a school lately, as a reading mentor. I've been reading Charlotte's Web to this kid. Of course I read the book a few times when I was young, but it's always interesting what you can pick up on from a really good book when you are an adult sharing it with a child who is hearing it for the first time. For one thing, I am noticing how E. B. White takes the time to paint vivid pictures of farm life, the people, and the animals. Sights, sounds, smells. How the children play on the rope swing in the barn. The trash that Templeton likes finding down at the dump. Charlotte's actions and movements as she weaves her Web, legs and spinarettes working together, as she talks to herself. This is good storytelling. I have run into enough disappointing stories over the years that it's refreshing to get back to quality, and having a child to share it with makes it like new again. I can't wait for my girls to be old enough to share it. Another thin...

Another Facebook conversation on a different friend's post. This time, the topic was disaster relief bills being held up by Senator Cruz invoking parliamentary procedures. I had pointed out that it was not the disaster relief itself that Cruz is opposing, but rather the pork riders, amendments, and other additions that always seem to get added. The friend-of-my-friend arguing the other side went on to assert that the bill currently on the table for Flint, Michigan has "only a little bit" of pork attached to it, and expressed his anger at the Tea Party for "trying to break" everything in Washington. News flash: Washington is already broken. Washington has been broken. And the Tea Party movement didn't cause the problem. Since I am in the Quality Assurance business, I liken it to the little guy at the company who discovers serious underlying problems, reports them, and pushes to get them fixed. Only in this case, the higher ups already knew that it was bro...

Earlier this week I found myself in a Facebook discussion with a friend of a friend. This guy Jim sits on the far opposite side of the political and religious spectrum. I like to try to engage with people who don't see the world as I do, it can be very enlightening. In this conversation, I had just espoused my preference for Senator Ted Cruz as a presidential candidate, given my perception that his honesty is unwavering and he has a strong understanding of and allegiance to the Constitution. Jim replied with his own opinion that Senator Cruz would be "worse than Trump", and described him as a "Dominionist". I like to think that I am reasonably aware when it comes to political and theological "isms". In the political world, I know about conservatism, libertarianism, liberalism, progressivism, communism, socialism, and more. In the Christian theological arena, I have heard of dispensationalism, pre- and post-millenial tribulationism, gnosticism, Ariani...