Virginia is very close to the elections. There are specific, beaten-up talking points you hear from candidates of both parties every election cycle. What puzzles me every time is how many people still do not get it. They not only get entangled in these useless, baseless debates but also become very emotional and passionate about them. They still also get very fearful under the influence of negative ads. Most people who still waste their time following these candidates and voting have a black-and-white view of them. One is pure evil and the other is pure angel. The candidates usually promise whatever they think can win them the elections. What is almost always missing in these campaigns is how?
A candidate for governor in Virginia is constantly promising to fix the Virginia schools. Honey, schools are under the local governments. How are you going to do that as governor? Plus, the problem is far beyond just increasing funding or teachers’ pay. Public schools, on a per-student basis, already cost more than private schools, and their standards are not only lower than private schools’ but also continuously falling. Every time funding goes up, the standards take another plunge. The question of how a governor can fix public schools run by local governments is a logical and factual dilemma. The problem is very complicated. Attending the school in your zip code, unless parents have the time, resources, and capabilities to send kids to a private school or homeschool. So, there is np competition and hence no incentive to improve.
Government regulations and unions are also significant hurdles to improving standards. There are no performance incentives for teachers, and rewards and punishments for performance are almost non-existent. Firing a teacher is nearly impossible. The curriculum is detached from real-world requirements and far behind rapidly advancing technologies. A shocking proportion of high school graduates fail the simple math test. Many even fail the English reading tests. Unless the kid was born with these capabilities or acquired them from the home environment, most graduates seriously lack creativity, innovation, inventiveness, problem-solving, communication, and writing skills.
Of course, this is not only true of education. Everything the government touches becomes trash. It becomes costly, inefficient, corrupt, wasteful, and even fraudulent and dangerous. Yet the political candidates pursuing office keep making the wildest promises, as if the government had come into existence today. And then some voters are always ready to get fooled again and again. Many of them firmly believe that if you vote for them this time, somehow they are so honest, capable, qualified, skilled, knowledgeable, and dedicated that all the problems will be magically gone. But God forbid if you voted for the other candidate, all hell will break loose on us.
In all elections except the presidential, fewer than 50% of eligible voters vote, and even in presidential elections, the voting percentage never reaches 60%. So, overall, the people who do not vote are in the majority. They are mistakenly and mischievously labeled as a silent majority. In fact, they are not quiet. They are telling the world they have zero interest in this political theater that plays out from time to time. They have no hope in this system, and they know very well that it will be the same old thing regardless of who wins and who loses. So, they do not want to be part of this wasteful exercise and would rather spend that time and energy on activities they love and that are more productive. They also spend this time with the people they love, instead.
Despite all this data screaming at us and all the statistical facts, the system is still supposedly in place for our own good. Despite only a minority participating, it is still called Democracy—the government of the people, by the people, for the people. First of all, the non-participating majority is telling us that the system has failed them. So, it must go, and it would have gone a long time ago if it had not been kept in place by the brute force of the government. The coercive force that they acquire by stealing money from the people, in the name of taxation, is used to force them into slavery. Second of all, how can you, in your right mind, honestly call it a democratically elected government when the majority is not even voting? It clearly means that the majority does not want this government.
It is an undeniable fact throughout the entire course of human history, globally, that governments and organized religions have only existed and survived by deceiving people into the fearful binary thinking. Unlike free markets, which encourage and build peaceful cooperation and international interdependence, religion and politics depend solely on divide-and-conquer and rule. We are the ones who can save and protect you. Everyone else is after you, your family, your property, your business, your job, and is a threat to your well-being. Without us, the blood will be flowing on the streets, no one will be safe, and you will be subjugated and enslaved. Although statistically speaking, there is no threat to your life, property, family, business, job, wealth, and safety greater than religions and governments.
In the twentieth century, governments killed about two hundred million of their own people (Deaths in wars not included). They have stolen a large proportion of incomes from the people and still owe over a hundred trillion in debt. They have promised liabilities that exceed a thousand trillion, for which these governments, drowning in debt, have no money. They have seriously curbed the natural rights like speech, right to bear arms, privacy, property rights, ability to put whatever you want in your body, and even who you can marry and have sex with.