The "Keyboard Kommando Kulture"

I'd like to take a few minutes today to discuss something I've seen taking place pretty much my entire "career" on the internet...but for the last year or so and particularly within the last few months has reached epidemic proportions: The Keyboard Kommando.

What am I talking about, you ask? Let me define what a "Keyboard Kommando" is, and I think you'll see where I'm going from there. A Keyboard Kommando is a "netizen" who thinks it's perfectly OK to sit in the safety of their own home, behind the relative anonymity of a computer keyboard, and say the most outrageous of things. That's a Keyboard Kommando.

Now...please do NOT get me wrong...those of you that know me, know that I am a VERY strong proponent of "speaking your mind" and not necessarily pulling any punches when you do so. I am not only a "student" of the First Amendment of our Constitution...I am a fervent practitioner. That is NOT being a Keyboard Kommando, in my opinion. When you fervently believe what you are saying, and do so in a respectful manner, you are expressing your opinion, and I am beyond fine with that.

However...the Keyboard Kommando is a completely different beast from that. These are the people who say things that:

1. They would never in a million years say publicly
2. In the rudest possible manner they can come up with to say it
3. All the while not even necessarily BELIEVING the crap that is falling from their own mouths (or fingers, in this case)
4. They invariably fall back on their "right" to "free speech" whenever someone calls them on said crap
5. And to "cap off" how disgusting the practice is, completely oblivious to the stench of the crap as it falls from said fingers.

Here...let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. This fellow has taken the time to put together a compendium of FB posts and Tweets on various topics, the latest being the Steubenville rape case, on a website.

WARNING: prepare to be shocked, disgusted, dismayed, and generally despair for humanity reading some of these:

Public Shaming

See what I mean?

Try, just for a moment, to imagine being at a cocktail party and someone spewing this filth for everyone to hear. Hard to conceive isn't it? Because they WOULDN'T!!! Not without fearing someone absolutely knocking the living crap out of them for doing so!

What has caused this? And, more importantly, why is it just becoming more and more rampant? And most importantly, what can we do to reverse this trend, if anything? I'll try to tackle these questions in the remainder of this post...and look forward to your input as readers too, so please feel free to add your thoughts to the comments section here after you've finished reading my thoughts. I love putting my thoughts to "paper"...but I love more seeing your responses!

Cause and Increasing Prevalence

Just as with any other sociological issue, there is no one "cause". It's a complex mix of things, so I think I'm just going to do a sort of "laundry list" of what I think some of the causes might be, and let you decide from there.

• It's "safe"...or so they think. Relatively speaking, from behind a keyboard, in the comfort and safety of your own home, you can pretty much say anything and everything you want and "get away" with doing so. (Hence the term, "Keyboard Kommando"). Sure, you hear of the occasional person getting fired from their job...but most people have at least a subconcious belief that "ahh that won't happen to me...it only happens to idiots". Certainly, no one is going to come busting into their living rooms and give them a thorough beating for their crass heartlessness. (Although it would not surprise me to eventually read a news story on just such a thing happening.)
• We currently have a "public culture"...pioneered by the "shock jock" radio (bowel) "movement" that actually glorifies saying ridiculous things.
• We have a LONG standing love affair with our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, and in the last several years this "right" has become to be interpreted by many to think that they can say whatever they want whenever they want without repercussion
• Largely speaking, there are no real repercussions for saying such things. (I am glad to see that 2 girls were charged for making death threats via social media to the victim in the Steubenville rape case, but that's the exception, not the norm.) Look at all the posts on that website that are direct threats to the President of the United States, talking about assassinating him, and ask yourself the question: Why aren't the Secret Service knocking on these people's doors? They should be!
• In relation to my last bullet point...no one takes these sorts of posts "seriously". It's just "venting" or "blowing steam". This makes it more "acceptable".
• Generally speaking, I think parents in society as a whole are less mindful of teaching children the concept of speaking your mind while at the same time remaining respectful of others as you do so. And I think all of the prior bullet points I've listed are contributing factors as to why this is...with the "right to free speech" as the bedrock for allowing such crassness. Our culture celebrates the out-spoken...always has...and in general that is a good thing. The missing element in recent times is that key element of being respectful toward others as you are being out-spoken. Those of us are older, know full well that it is quite possible to do both. Our younger generations, for a variety of reasons, are either not being taught this lesson, or are simply not learning what they are being taught. I rather think it's the former of the two, but even if they are being taught, I think the poor examples I have listed here that they are seeing in society at large are over-riding what the parents are trying to teach.
• We are increasingly a society that does not have the respect for ourselves that we should have. We preach a good game...but we go about it in a lot of the wrong ways. I personally think that even the "it's our First Amendment right" is an attempt to teach self respect: "You should respect yourself enough to be able to speak your mind how and when you wish." But it's being taught the wrong way. We keep forgetting the age-old adage that "respect is a two-way street". And our kids are not catching that message. People, especially in early stages of maturity, are egocentric. They're going to assume that they deserve respect, and ignore that other human beings do as well. We need to change that.

Reversing the Trend

This is where it becomes even more tricky than enumerating the causes. The causes are becoming firmly entrenched in our society, and as we all know, entrenched attitudes...and mores in particular...are difficult to shed once entrenched. Let's give it a shot together though, shall we?

• Without doubt, I think the #1 thing we can do as thinking, caring, and respectful people is to call the ones who aren't all those things out on the carpet for their horrible behavior. Silence, in my book, is tacit approval. Only when we turn people into pariahs for these actions will anything change.
• Stop using the First Amendment as your excuse for being rude. On a personal level. If you don't do this, it obviously does not apply to you. But I think that pretty much all of us, at one time or another (and yes, I include myself in that group) have done so. Commit to never doing it again.
• Call out "celebrities" when they pull this crap. A friend of mine made a post earlier today about a comment Wendy Williams made on her show about Lindsay Lohan "getting away with it because she's white". While I think there's a lot of reasons why Lindsay gets away with her misbehaviour, I think the color of her skin is, at the very least, very far down that list. IF that were the reason for it, I think there's nothing wrong with pointing it out. But this is one of those cases where people are just saying outrageous garbage to hear themselves talk and garner attention. Those need to stop, and they need to be called out when they are made. Apparently, they even went so far as to delete every comment on their website that made any mention of the "it's racist" comment from Wendy. So...she knows what she said was wrong...make her pay for it by ostracizing her for doing so. Don't let her and others get away with it.
• At the top of this list of pariahs should be every "shock jock" of every ilk...whether ultra-right wing or ultra-left or anywhere in the middle. They can make their point without all the hatred and bile-spewing. I have hated this "genre" of communication from its inception, and can say with solid confidence that I saw almost all of what we are seeing as repercussions...the general hatefulness from it slowly permeating and poisoning our society as a whole. So much so that the up-and-coming prevalence of this genre, at the time, was instrumental in my leaving the industry when I did. (It wasn't the only reason, but it was definitely #1 on the list, even if I wasn't fully aware of that myself at the time.)
• Next on the list is all of the "reality" shows (another genre of communication/entertainment that I have despised from inception) that glorify confrontation. I know, I know...that's pretty much all of them. But I promise you...this is where our children are getting their worst examples of this. If you're going to watch these shows yourselves (for whatever reason), then at least do your children the favor of not watching them when they are around to be influenced by their glorification of all things rude. DVR it...watch it online after they go to bed...whatever. And forbid them to watch it on their own until they are old enough to understand that even though they're called "reality" shows...they are the furthest away from an example of how people in society should behave!!! 
• Teach your children well. Not just by telling them to be respectful, either. Show that respectfulness in your daily lives. As we all know, or should by now, the best way to teach, especially our young, is through example.
• Calling bad behavior out in others when you see it along with your child is key in that education of our children as well. If you're sitting there watching a TV program or you overhear a conversation along with your child...make a "teachable moment" of it...discuss with them why it's wrong...and why they should never do so themselves.

Well I think that covers the "high points". Again, I'd like to hear your views on this, but I'd also like to ask you to do me the favor of posting your thoughts in the comments here...and not on my FaceBook page. I use FaceBook as a means to get the link out to my audience, but I really prefer that my blogs not be discussed on FaceBook itself. I like to try and keep my FaceBook experience more one of fun and information, even though, as any of you who are friends with me there know, I do make my opinions known. That being said, I always try to do so in a respectful manner, and I would rather you have the option to express your opinions as you wish here, without any worries for whether you offend anyone, intentionally or otherwise. Given the topic at hand, I would like to think that you would not turn around and offend someone just for the sake of doing so...but I respect you enough to give you that freedom to do so here. Don't be surprised when I call you out on it, though. ;)

One more thing: Yes...the three "K's" in my title were intentional.....because the bile-spewing I see from Keyboard Kommandos, in my mind, is akin to the bile-spewing of a certain group that also uses those initials. The topic may be different, but the hatred remains the same...

Making the World Safe for Idiots

Yep...let's put "warning labels" on coke because some whack job drank 2 gallons of it a day and ended up dying at 31. (Let's ignore the fact that she also smoked a pack and a half a day, and, while not being judgemental about the fact...she had 8 kids. Having that many kids takes a toll on any woman's body, and then she added 2 addictions on top of that.)

Here's a better idea. Let's stop putting warning labels on anything. In this day and age...the "information age"...if you don't know something is bad/dangerous for you (i.e. using a hair dryer in the bathtub), then Darwin's law of "survival of the fittest" should just be allowed to kick in and wreak its havoc. I have said for many years that a large part of the problem with society today is that we've made it "safe for idiots". It's time for us to stop making the world safe for stupid people, and allowed for the natural "thinning of the herd".

We talk almost incessantly about the "dumbing down of society..." and yet in this instance we do everything imaginable to keep the dumb ones around. We have to create laws requiring people to wear seatbelts when every shred of research has shown that it saves lives...and yet people continue to drive without them, and even complain that the government is "in their business" and "over-stepping their bounds" by requiring them to do so. The same with helmet laws. You want to go against everything every intelligent person on the planet agrees is a safe course of action? Fine. Great. Awesome. Reap what you sow, "genius."

And let's face it...the ones that these "warnings" are aimed at are the stupid ones, remember? What makes you think:
a) that they're actually going to READ those warnings (and in many cases are even capable of reading)? Do you really think the 2-gallon a day coke drinker would have bothered reading a "warning" on her 20+ cans of coke per day?

b) they would have the sense to heed those warnings even if they did bother reading them? Literally millions of people get into vehicles all day every day and don't bother to put on their seatbelts, despite the fact that it's against the law to do so, and it has been proven over and over that wearing seatbelts saves lives.

So...let's get back to the way the world is supposed to work. Let Darwin do his handiwork. I guarantee you that within a generation the "average IQ" will jump a good 20 points. And that can only be good for society as a whole.

"Keep calm and......" Facebook's newest Yawnable Moment.

Let me start off by saying I'm not calm about this subject....

So the new "thing" I guess is to preface any random thought/feeling with "keep calm and....." ???
God can't anyone come up with something better? I mean seriously....
"Keep calm and move to Colorado..."
"Keep calm and love pitbulls...."
"Keep calm and ride a Harley..."
(just a few off the top of my head from the past few weeks.)

I'm being serious here...wtf is that supposed to MEAN?? That I can't move to Colorado unless I'm calm? Or that the only way to love pitbulls is to be calm? I can't ride a Honda and be calm?

This...thing. This...virtual place called FaceBook is seriously starting to erode what little faith I had left in the human race. It's done more to turn people into a herd of unthinking, unoriginal sheep/lemmings than any serruptitious drug any tyrannical government could have possibly dreamed of inventing. I go entire days...weeks...and probably even MONTHS, in some instances, seeing posts from many people that don't tell me a damn THING about what's actually going on in their lives, because it's nothing but a damn copy/paste/share from some site that they "think" is funny/insightful/whatever.

I joined Facebook to find out what my friends and family were doing. What was going on in their lives. And to share the same about me with them. Not to turn my life into an eternally-scrolling-by billboard full of trite and boring "isms." Don't get me wrong...these things are ok, using in sparing, infinitesimally small doses. They're boring as hell if you're posting more than 3 of them a day. It's just that no one wants to "hurt your feelings" by telling you so. Well guess what? I'm telling you so. Boring. As. Hell.

And if I've "offended" you because you've posted one or more of these "Keep calm and" things? Or because all you ever do is come on here and hit "share" on 30 different things in under ten minutes? GOOD. That was my intent. You're quickly going to find your way into my "delete" pile in 2013 anyway...so if I'm going to delete you anyway, I might as well offend you on your way out my door.

Why is my brand-new computer so blinkinblankinfrickinfrackin SLOW???

OK...here's a blog post I probably should have done a long time ago and just never got around to doing. This started out as a response to a friend's question on FB and quickly turned into a book so I figured rather than clog up my friend's newsfeed with it, I'd kill two birds with one stone and "share" it with all my other friends via a blog post.

In my years working with computers, both on a hobby level and running my own computer repair business, probably one of the most common questions/problems my friends and customers have had is this:

"I've got this brand new computer and it's not working the way I think it should! I've got a terabyte of memory, it shouldn't do that!"

So, here's the first problem...the end user commonly confuses "memory" with "hard drive space." (I can always tell by the # quoted.) Memory and hard drive storage are two completely different beasts, serving completely different functions.

Here's an analogy to the "analog" world I always share to explain the difference:

Think of "memory" as the "inbox/outbox" on your old fashioned analog world desktop. It's the stuff you're currently working on...taking stuff in and out of it...but it's nice and handy so you don't have to expend the extra energy (computing power) to walk over to your...

"Hard drive space"...the 4 drawer file cabinet of your analog world. This is "stuff" you're mostly already done with, but need to keep around for reference use at other times. In the digital world this consists of documents, videos, pictures...anything you have "stored" or "saved" or "downloaded."

Memory is in use for anything that is currently running on your computer (the inbox/outbox on your desk). So whatever programs (or documents, or videos or music or websites) that you are actually USING on the computer are held in memory so they're nice and handy...you don't have to sit and wait while the computer uses resources to pull them off of the hard-drive (or walk over to the file cabinet, dig through all your files, and find that particularly one you need and bring it back over to your desk.)

Now, that being said...memory can easily get clogged up on even a new computer for a variety of reasons. The most common one is, you've got this brand new "smokin' fast" machine and  you have more expectations of it than it is actually capable of handing. "This baby can do ANYTHING!" And yes, to an extent, you are right...especially when you compare it to the old POS you probably just threw out (or handed down to your poor unsuspecting kid/grandkid/niece/nephew). But even the newest fastest computers have their limitations. (Just because I replaced my Gremlin with it's top speed of 60mph with a brand new Mercedes E class doesn't mean my top speed is now the speed of light. Get it?) So if you're not actually using a program and won't be for a bit, go ahead and close that baby out. It will clear out your inbox/outbox and improve performance of the machine overall.

The other "biggy" with new computers is that the major manufacturers just LOVE to clog them up with useless applications that *automatically* start running in the background as soon as you turn your computer on. It's actually a "good thing" for the end user in that those software companies generally have paid the manufacturers for the "privilege" of being included on their new machines, and this in turn keeps the overall cost of that computer down for us the consumer. Think of it as a "subsidy" helping you pay the actual cost of your computer.

BUT...guess what? All those programs running in the background are taking up MEMORY! And thereby slowing down that brand-spanking-new-blazing-fast computer of yours! Imagine loading up the trunk of your brand-new Mercedes E class with a load of bricks. Think that's gonna slow down the performance of your "new baby" a bit? Of course it is! And for no particular reason! Look down there by your system clock.

 See all those little icons there? Each one of them represents a program that's running in the background...and slowing things down! Each one represents a brick in the trunk of your Mercedes! As an example, most new computers have a "print monitor" program sitting in the system tray. Why? Do you print non-stop? No? Then shut it off! When you hit "print" on a document...guess what? It's going to open that program anyway! Will you have to wait a second or two for it to start? Of course you will...but the savings of a few seconds of time waiting for it to open is NOT worth the performance hit your computer takes by having it run constantly in the background!

Yeah yeah I know...your next question is "So how do I turn that stuff off???" The common way is to right-click that little icon in the system tray and hit "close program" or "exit" or whatever option it gives you to shut the software down. Problem with that is...those darn software developers and computer manufacturers...they're sneaky! The software developers have paid for that software to be there...so they want it "in your face" as much as possible. Free advertisement! And the hardware manufacturers...well...they want their customers (no, NOT you, for God's sake! The software developers!) to be happy...so they oblige. They've given your computer specific instructions to automatically start that program every time you turn your computer on! So the next time you turn your computer off and back on, all those programs that you right-clicked and exited from are going to load themselves right back into your system memory.

So let me show you the easy way. Click, the "start" button and depending on your operating system you're going to either click on "run" or click into the "search" box and type "msconfig" and click the tab over toward the right labelled "startup". You will see this:

See all those checkboxes? Each one is a program that potentially loads whenever you start your computer. Uncheck as many as possible. The only one you REALLY need running is your anti-virus software. The rest, for the most part, can be unchecked. In fact, while typing this, I see a couple that sneaked their way in there that I can uncheck. Can you guess which ones? If you chose AdobeARM, GoogleUpdate and FacebookUpdate, you are correct Sir/Madame!

You'll also see a few that don't really make a whole lot of sense...like the "ctfmon" one in this example. Sometimes looking at the information to the right can help you, but if it doesn't, then the "rule of thumb" is to just leave it checked. Generally speaking, you can't really "hurt" anything by unchecking startup software, but better safe than sorry. You should be able to find plenty to uncheck in there to help save on system resources that you don't have to worry about leaving a few checked.

When you're done hit the "apply" button and "close". You'll get a message telling you that changes won't take place until you reboot. You can either reboot right then or wait until next time you go to shut down your computer. Doesn't matter. And when you reboot the computer you will probably get another message saying you've run the program and blah blah blah. Just hit "don't show this again."

There...now you've been given a quick tutorial on the difference between hard drive space and memory and what it means for your computer's performance, along with some tips on how to improve said performance. Hope you paid attention...there'll be a quiz later!

A Matter of "Demographics"?

Hello everyone. Been awhile since we spoke. Most of you know I've had more pressing personal issues to deal with.

I see much ado being made today about "demographics" being the "issue" for the Republican party. I think looking at their "problem" as just being one of "demographics" is a bit self-deluding. It is, to an extent, about "demographics"...but their issue is not that they don't appeal to a broad enough demographic...it's that they have chosen to appeal to a very narrow demographic.

John Danforth saw the hand-writing on the wall seven years ago...

There are two key quotes from the article itself I want to bring to focus and elaborate upon:

"When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another." (emphasis mine)

When the Republican Pundits shout out that their problem is a problem of "demographics"...they are being disingenuous both with themselves and with those would do what they can to help the Republican party not continue to see the sorts of embarrassments they saw at the polls on Tuesday. They deliberately chose the demographic, as Senator Danforth points out, based on early successes they saw by doing so. But the pendulum has swung the other way. The choice is now hurting them more than it's helping. And the only way to reverse that trend is to unchoose that demographic.

They need to get back to core Republican beliefs...fiscal conservatism and keeping government out of your daily life. What has really killed them, in my estimation, is that while they spout those two key principles out of one side of their mouths, when it comes to actually doing the work of governing, they work at exactly the opposite. Pushing legislation that, rightly or wrongly, women have seen as declaring a "war" on their rights. Trying to tell people who they can and cannot fall in love with and marry. And at the same time virtually ignoring the bigger issues of ever-growing spending, poor unemployment numbers, etc. etc. etc. The outright hypocrisy of spouting those two key Republican pillars while actually working for just the opposite is not lost on the average voter.

Senator Danforth goes on to say in the article:

"As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around."

This is by far the most salient point of Senator Danforth's article...and until the Republican Party "gets it"...they are only going to keep seeing the sorts of defeats they saw on Tuesday.

Dear Mr. Romney: Here's a job offer for you.

Since you have obviously kissed off any chance you might ever have had to be the President with your idiotic 47% remark, and will therefore not have much to do come the second week of November, I'd like to make you an offer:

Come be me.
Just for a week.

I don't even want to "trade you places," mostly because if being born with a silver spoon in your mouth requires having your head up your ass in perpetuity, I want no part of that.

So, what's it like to be me? Well, I got a pretty good job about eight months ago, so that's a good thing. I had been feeling bad for a few months before that, but, despite the excruciating pain, I just chalked it up to a fairly common ailment that lots of people have. Let's just say a tell "tale" sign of the ailment is the rubber ring that people afflicted by it sit on. I figured it would be all good while I waited out the 2 months for my insurance to kick in and then I'd go see the doc and get it "taken care of." (What I did not do was rush off like one of your "victims" to an emergency room and expect to suck off your disdained "government teat.")

It was all good...I sat through my month-long, 8 hour a day training (notice: sat), and barely made it to "that" day when my insurance kicked in. I only had 1 episode of pain so excruciating that I physically blacked out sitting at my desk at work. And I finally made it to a doctor without having to worry about how I would pay for the bill. Yep, sure enough, 8 weeks after that first doctor visit, it was "taken care of." The chemo and radiation had knocked that cancer right out of my ass. Literally.

Of course, I didn't get to work any of that time, but it was OK. My employer was awesome about my time away and greeted me back with open arms. I found ways to "get through" that two months of no pay without becoming one of your "victims," and went back to work. I'm just very fortunate that way.

Today, as I write this, I am sitting at the doctor's office, waiting to hear from him how we're going to battle with round two of  cancer for me. I've been off work again going on three weeks with it now, and we haven't even started the battle. If I'm lucky though, this time, I'll be able to draw my short-term disability insurance, so at least I'll get 1/2 pay instead of no pay. But in the meantime, all those bills I thought I would be able to catch up on when I went back to work are mostly still there, and the pile is again steadily growing by the day.

So, come be me Mitt. By the time the election is over, I should be towards the end of whatever treatments I'm going to get this round, so you will step into the shoes of a man who feels like walking from the kitchen to the living room of his tiny apartment is  like running the Boston Marathon. (Something your running mate should be able to tell you all about, right?)

Sorry for the interruption, doc wanted to go over "the plan." The plan is to pretty much kick my ass with chemo every four weeks for the foreseeable future, Mitt. He didn't put any kid gloves on. It's gonna kick my ass even worse than the last set of treatments, and let me tell you, boy, those treatments kicked my ASS. 
And the best I can hope for is a good, long remission if the treatments work.

Yeah, this time around I'm gonna have to be one of those 47% moochers you love so well, buddy. If you haven't done the math so far, I've been off work more than on so far this year, and I don't see myself being able to get back to it any time soon. (Because that's just how us moochers are, you know). So yeah, I'm going to prop my head up with a pole if necessary to research what I need to do to get whatever assistance I can. I'm going to be one of those moochers that you so flippantly write off when you're joking with your billionaire buddies over a dinner that you charged them fifty grand for, Mitt. Fifty grand for the honor of hanging out with the likes of you. Fifty grand so you can mooch off them instead of digging into your own overflowing pockets.

So....come be me, Mitt. There's only 2 conditions: 1) you can't bring your money and 2) you can't be me without the cancer, so you have to take that as part of the deal too.

Let's see if it takes even a full week for you to change your mind about who's a "victim" and a "moocher." 

Bet it don't........

Series, Part 2: Taking Back Our Government (Part 1)

Okay folks, remember those "insurmountable tasks" I referred to in my introduction to this series? Here's the first, most insurmountable, and yet most absolutely critical task we need to undertake in order to take our country back from those who have usurped it:

1. Abolish ALL private funding of political campaigns, replacing it with limited PUBLIC funding.

Just absorb that for one moment. Read it again, if you need to do so.

I would submit to you that the number one reason we no longer have a government "by the people" is that our politicians are willing to sell their souls to whatever devil has the money in hand to finance their election and re-election campaigns. Neither I nor 90% of the people living in this country have the financial capability to influence a politician's thinking. So, effectively, this country is being run by that 10% (or less) who does. That's not government "by the people..."

And I know what you're thinking "Seriously? You want me to pay MORE in taxes to finance these thugs' election campaigns?" It's a simple choice, my friends. Either you let them keep being bought and sold by special interest groups who NEVER have your best interest at heart, OR, you make them beholden to every single taxpayer in this Country just by upping your taxes a few dollars a year! I'd pay the extra taxes to get my government back, wouldn't you? The key would be to sharply limit how much any politician received. If you're running for a local office, you get XXXX amount of dollars. If you're running for state, you get XXXXX. Federal, XXXXXX. And not a dime nor even a PENNY shall you spend beyond that which you receive from the taxpayer. Not your own money, not anyone's money but what is allotted to you by the public coffers. And, I would further argue that giving them a flat, taxpayer-funded amount would virtually eliminate any and all "thugs" considering a run for public office.

Our current system of campaign finance is nothing short of legalized, thinly-disguised bribery. You know this, I know this, the people doing the bribing know this, and most acrimonious of all...the politicians know this.


And therein lies the rub, doesn't it? We're going to have to find some way, as citizens, to make this become the law of the land. Because we all know there's not a single politician, from the local city board all the way up to the White House, "left" "right" or "in between" that would ever vote "yea" on a bill that would enact this as law. Hell, you'd be hard-pressed to find a politician who would even propose such a bill with a straight face!

I'm not going to tell you I know how to make this happen...because I don't. But for anything else to be accomplished, this must be the first step.