House of Eratosthenes

We’ve had this lingering disagreement about voting; half of us say it’s too easy to vote, the other half tremble in fear over these “schemes” of “voter suppression,” thickly suggesting such schemes are race-based. But whether they are or not, the narrative says they’re always awful because everyone should be allowed to vote, in fact encouraged to vote. So half of us say there are too many voters and the other half say there aren’t enough and there are never enough.

We’re also divided on the ideas in circulation. Roughly half of us say there are too many and we need some restrictions. “Misinformation” shouldn’t find an outlet anywhere, CNN did the wrong thing giving Trump such an “outlet,” the First Amendment does not and should not protect “hate speech.” The other half of us say there cannot be an idea so dangerous that we have to keep it from being at least discussed; if it’s reckless, toxic or stupid, that should come out in the discussions. We should fear the censorship more than we fear the ideas.

Now I haven’t conducted a poll, but it seems to me like there’s a near perfect “seesaw” arrangement here. The people who say there are too many ideas being discussed are the ones who say there aren’t enough people voting. And the people who say there are too many people voting, point to some ideas we should be able to at least discuss, and we’re not allowed to discuss them. So those who say there is a deficiency of voters and a need to “harvest” some more, say there is a glut of questionable ideas and a need to restrict them. Those who say there is a glut of questionable voters and a need to restrict those voters, say there is a deficiency of ideas being discussed and we need to look at relaxing the restrictions we’ve placed on those.

To me, it makes a lot of sense that voters should be qualified. On what critical matters are we voting? How to spend money…and many of these ways are new and innovative, unheard-of just a few years ago. And on raising the “debt ceiling” so the country can become more insolvent. It’s lunacy to insist people should have a say in such things when they’re not paying into the system.

On the other hand, if the ideas to be discussed have to be filtered and conditionally declared off-limits, with posts flagged and removed, accounts suspended and closed…there has to be a decider. And I notice these deciders are not elected. I’ve seen them in action, learned of their decisions and the restrictions they impose, occasionally been affected directly by them. They don’t have my faith. I join ranks with those who say, if the idea really is all that bad, it should come out in the wash. We ought to be able to at least explore it and compare notes on it. We ought to be able to at least talk about it.

People who oppose me on both positions, and there’s no shortage of the ones who do, paint themselves into the awkward corner of insisting we need to hear from every last person in the country who can fog a mirror with their breath, to make sure no one’s left with their voice unheard. But when we’re done hearing from all these voices, there’s only a limited range of ideas they should be allowed to consider, or speak of, or hear of, let alone support…

The one thing that can possibly explain this: Vanity.

It’s like a wife, so vain that she wants the entire zip code polled on whether or not these pants make her butt look big. And make sure everyone capable of writing their own name can participate in the vote, leaving no one unheard. So that all can cast their vote…no honey, it looks just fine.

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The SeesawSaturday, June 17th, 2023

The Seesaw
Saturday, June 17th, 2023