Treat the voters with honesty and respect

Published 6:16 pm Thursday, October 29, 2020

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In slang, the phrase, “come on man,”  is used to convey the speaker’s frustration or annoyance with someone else.

The term has been used repeatedly by former Vice President Joe Biden.  He uses it with the rare reporter or voter that is able to catch him away from his handlers.  Biden frequently uses the term when asked to explain his current position on issues today and how they differed eight months ago when he was fighting for the Democrat nomination.  He used the phrase when asked about his position on our Second Amendment rights.  Likewise, when asked if he supported fracking to get natural gas, he got testy and assured the listener that he did.

People who have watched him over the years should not be surprised that he uses such a technique to get past anyone who questions his political beliefs.  He has a history of using flowery speeches to get attention while not being beholden to any particular political philosophy.  Years ago, in his first race for the presidency, he was caught using the exact wording of a British politician about his humble background.  The end result was that he had to drop out of the race in disgrace.

More recently, he seems to have forgotten that in this age of recording devices all around us he does not have the freedom to say to one group one thing and then turn around to a different group and say something else.  In the example of the Second Amendment conversation, he “forgot” that there was a tape of him chumming up to that famous gun confiscator Beto O’Rourke and bragging that he would put him in charge of rounding up your guns.  In the case of fracking, during the Democratic debates, to gain the support of Alexandria Ortego-Cortes (AOC), he came out strongly against fracking for natural gas.  Today, however, when campaigning in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and elsewhere, he swears he never said that.  He even challenged President Trump to prove it.

Of course, it took but a few minutes for anyone to pull up his quote opposing it.  His second line of defense was to say he only opposed fracking on federal property not private property, but he never made that distinction at the time, only now to cover himself.

The former vice president believes his past long legislative service in Washington can just as easily be explained away.  Last year, when debating Bernie Sanders, he tried to deny that he had pushed unsuccessfully to cut or freeze social security payments.  The records prove he did.  In the debate last week, an effort was made to claim that President Trump is a racist.  In response, the president named off a list of things that he has done to counter past racism.  In that list he included his success with prison reform.  Trump questioned Biden’s commitment to do something rather than simply talking about it.  He pointed out that when Biden was in the Senate, he was the one that wrote and sponsored the “Criminal Reform Act”.  This one bill was one of the main reasons for the high percentage of minorities in our prison.  Biden then tried to blunt that reality by suggesting that it was the states’ fault for following his law.

Joe Biden is not the only politician to believe he can tell one group one thing and another something entirely different.  I guess there is simply too much glamour associated with making big promises, such as promises of free everything while pretending to cut taxes.  His record is quite different. In 1983, he voted to tax one-half of social security.  In 1993, he voted to raise the tax to 85%.  Now the Democrat platform is to tax 401Ks and IRAs.

Consider U.S. Senator Mark Warner who has served for 12 years.  He only this year (an election year) discovered that we have a problem with how we provide healthcare to our veterans, and that we lack broadband internet in rural communities.

Some politicians will say and do whatever they believe is necessary to convince you to vote for them.  Come on man, treat the voters with honesty and respect.