QUOTATION: People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. - Walter H. Judd
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2004-11-06 - 8:20 a.m. Forgive Them...by Paul Craig Roberts On November 2 Americans blew their only chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the world. 
Please don�t paint Americans with such a broad brush. 48% of Americans, maybe even more, agree with the world�s impressions of the Bush administration. Many who voted for Bush agreed with the �never change horses in midstream�; others were all caught up in the �moral values� Supreme Court appointment and gay marriage/abortion fears. The world was waiting hopefully for the sensible American people to rectify the ill-advised actions of a rogue neoconservative administration. Instead, Americans placed the stamp of approval on the least justifiable military action since Hitler invaded Poland. Please take a look at the electoral map. Again, don�t paint ALL Americans with the same brush. Notice that the people who live nearest the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the Great Lakes voted for Kerry (or if not FOR Kerry, AGAINST Bush!) Even in the part of the country that went for Bush, those who lived in the Cities (the Starbucks crowd, they're being described as) seemed to have voted predominantly for Kerry, whereas those in more rural areas (near a Wal-Mart, they say) voted for Bush; the latter are said to have been swayed by the moral issues. Certainly, they should not have been terrorized into voting that way. Even in California,[At this site, you can click on your state and see how people voted predominantly in given areas or look at this map for a different view.] people in the more rural areas voted predominantly Republican, whereas people in the cities voted Democratic. People near Disneyland or the Golden Gate Bridge or New York City�or even Washington, D.C., which voted something like 90% for Kerry, should have been the ones to respond to the fear of terrorists. What�s the target in the middle of Wyoming or Montana? Go figure! The world�s sympathy for America that followed the September 11 attacks has been squandered. If the US suffers terrorist attacks in the future, the world will say that America invited the attacks and got what it asked for. Please, please stop using that word Americans! Find some other word for those people. At least, label them conservative Americans, although I always thought conservative meant fiscally responsible, too. The crude propagandistic Republican campaign against John Kerry is shocking to Europeans. The childishness of American conservatives scares them. November 6, 2004 Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. And in Orange, California, SANTA ANA, Calif., voters elected Steve Rocco, who didn't file a candidate statement or mount a campaign for the school board. He's unknown to teachers and the district and only barely known to his neighbors. Nonetheless, the man being called a "mystery candidate" easily beat an opponent who is active, and relatively well known, in the Orange Unified School District. Now all that's left is to find him. "Absolutely nobody, but nobody has seen this guy," said Paul Pruss, a middle school teacher and the president of the union. "The whole thing is just bizarre." Rocco provided little information about himself in his candidate filings. He ignored mail from district officials and the teachers' union during the campaign. When the PTA sent him an invitation to a candidate forum, the letter came back unopened. Rocco ran for mayor of Santa Ana in 2000 and raised eyebrows then as well....He came in last place, with 12 percent of the vote. What might have helped him this time around was that he identified himself as a writer/educator on the ballot, though he offered no proof of those occupations. "Not knowing anything more, most people voted for the educator/writer over the park ranger," said John Hanna, an attorney who ran successfully against an equally elusive Rocco two years ago for a seat on a local community college district. The union endorsed Rocco's opponent, Phil Martinez, a park ranger who has three children in the district, is president of the PTA at his kids' school and is active with the Boy Scouts. Still, Rocco, who has no children and whose job is uncertain, won with nearly 54 percent of the vote. Martinez raised contributions, attended forums and sent out a political mailing to homes of voters in the district - none of which Rocco did. Hanna, who has followed local politics for 30 years, dismissed one scenario that has been suggested, that voters chose the non-Hispanic name over Martinez. "This is just one of the rough edges in our electoral system, where the voters can elect someone they know nothing about," he said. Or "Forgive them for they know not what they do."
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