Gavel Gamut
By Jim Redwine
Peg, who was born a New Yorker and spent some of her formative years in Massachusetts, has a favorite tee shirt that says on the front “A Bostonian’s View of America†and on the back has an outline of the U.S. showing the east coast states and the west coast states with nothing in between. I thought of this image election night when I saw all the blue states on the coasts separated by all the red states in the middle.
Except for the occasional outlier, from west of the Alleghenies to the crests of the Rockies nary (as we Hoosiers are wont to say) a blue state appeared. And, from California to Washington by the Pacific and New York south along the Atlantic Ocean red was as rare as truth in war.
Now I have no idea what, if anything, this distribution signifies. I did note that every now and then some television wag would paint a toss up state kind of pinkish/robin egg blue. Indiana actually fell within that spectrum thanks mainly to the ouster of a Rhodes Scholar by a regressive in the primary.
One thing I do take from the Blue/Red/Blue portrait of our fair land is that those of us who live in less densely populated states are pretty much bystanders in presidential elections where the Electoral College is king. President Obama and Governor Romney took up residence in Florida, but hardly darkened our door in Indiana.
That would be just fine with me if the IRS would take the same attitude. I say we who are deemed irrelevant in the decision making process ought to be able to opt out of the financing of the dreams and schemes of the chosen ones. If we are not good enough to be invited to the party, we should not have to pay for it.
I know Joan Baez once tried this approach with the Vietnam War and the IRS was not amused. However, perhaps as her buddy Bob Dylan sang, “The Times They Are a Changingâ€. Why don’t we in the hinter lands test my theory? You go first and let me know if it works.
This is precisely the reason that citizens of 47 states (perhaps more in the last few weeks) have petitioned to secede from the Federal Government.
Please explain how being a constitutionalists and a respecter of the sanctity of human life makes one “regressive”?
I had so hoped you would keep your columns in the historical vein and leave partisan political digs out of it. We all know about Mt. Vernon’s political history and could easily dig back, but lets not go there. I know you have plenty of historical data that would be of great interest to your readers.
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Luger was in the senate during most of the current national debt. What was he thinking? We’ve lost nothing because of his outster. The nuclear policy has not changed, mutual assured destruction is still in effect. Luger and a lot of others stood by and let this country go to ruins.
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