Letters: Past time to vote; The most dangerous enemies

Editor’s note: A previous version of the letter titled “Past time to vote” included inaccurate information about gerrymandering playing a role in statewide elections.

Past time to vote

2010: Five legislators, three Republicans and two Democrats (no independents) gather behind closed doors and draw voting districts favoring the Republican majority. They use computer technology to examine personal voter information to decide who’s included and who’s not.

This rigs the vote. It makes fake elections.

Both parties do it. The Democrats’ turn is soon.

Gerrymandering, it’s all around us.

Steve Yesko, a candidate for the 77th Legislative District canvasing neighborhoods, liked our sign, “End Gerrymandering!” His district was huge! He questioned, how are Huston Township’s needs related to State College’s?

Volunteering for WPSU fundraiser, we saw Glenn Thompson, warm, welcoming, a standout for Pennsylvania jobs. CDT headlines proclaimed his candidacy. Are headlines needed with an inheritance of gerrymandering?

2020: We’re at crossroads. Democrats have advantage. Computer technology develops. Our voting data is now an app! Do we trust five legislators drawing maps? Should community needs subordinate to partisanship and rigged elections?

FairDistrictsPA perseveres, supporting bipartisan bills proposing citizens, including independents, drawing voting districts with public review. More than 2/3 of Pennsylvania and 92% of Centre County endorse this. While some bills pass in 35 minutes, it’s been nearly four years!

Still no vote. Legislators! Represent us — vote.

The most dangerous enemies

Who is the most dangerous enemy of democracy? I welcome competing arguments to the one posed below.

Democracy, like science, is not a destination we achieve, it is a methods we practice.

Neither guarantees attainment of perfection through any one vote, law, election or experiment. Both have been abused through conflicts of interests and questionable practices.

The virtue of Democratic and scientific institutions is not their inherent ability to produce the correct outcome in any one instance, but rather extolling humble submission to critique and acknowledging one’s respective knowledge limitations and assumptions.

So who is the most dangerous enemy of science? Is it the experimenter who repeatedly conducts faulty experiments? Is it the self-righteous experimenter who proudly denies, chastises and shuns pragmatic critique?

Who is the most dangerous enemy of democracy? Is it the advocate of policies we find morally repugnant? Is it the self-righteous media commentator, elected official who proudly denies, chastises and shuns pragmatic critique?

Answer: The most dangerous enemies of democracy and science are not such self-righteous individuals. Statistically, they will always exist. The most dangerous enemy of democracy and science is the individual that loyally supports and resorts to self-righteous one-sided arguments, broad-swath us vs. them categorizations, inflammatory rhetoric, knee-jerk repudiation and disdain for those who concede complexity or articulate pragmatic reason and critique among competing perspectives.

If we ourselves tacitly champion individuals trafficking in this commentary, neither they nor their boogey-man opponents are the most dangerous enemy.

Defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. First look inward.

Re-fund the police

Re-fund the police. Narrow their mandate and pay them through taxes. Forty years of tax cuts and a get tough on crime mood have perverted the relationship between the police and the citizens they are sworn to serve.

When communities decide to fund the police through fines, fees and civil asset forfeiture police officers are incentivized to view interactions with citizens as an opportunity for funding. Similar incentives pervade our entire criminal “justice” system leading to outcomes like the “kids-for-cash” scandal. Such is the legacy of Reagan’s “government is the problem” philosophy.

We’ve outsourced and privatized public services to the extent that they have become private gains, but there are just some things, or some just things, that shouldn’t be driven by the profit motive.

And while we’re at it, re-fund education too.

This story was originally published June 22, 2020 at 7:00 AM.