Swickard: What it takes to get my vote

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “This is a frightening statistic. More people vote in ‘American Idol’ than in any US election? Rush Limbaugh

     It is frightening when more Americans vote in television shows than in real elections. Something must prompt them to do so; to make American Idol more important to them than Congress. There must be some reward to be so taken in by television and not real life. Trouble is I cannot for the life of me guess what that is.

     We have 545 politicians (Congress, Supreme Court and President) who are running rough-shod over the American public while most Americans do not notice. One reason they do not notice is that the media operates as part of the ruling class and not as a watchdog to freedom. Politicians love it. Why our citizens allow the media to enable politicians to lie and cheat the American public, I cannot understand it.

     In the coming mid-term elections our nation teeters on the brink of disaster far more than at any time after the Civil War. We are a nation so disconnected to the news that Man-made Global Warming is believed more than that Americans landed on the Moon and returned safely. I cannot for the life of me guess why.

     As to the elections, we have people professing to have the best wishes for the teens who cannot get jobs. These same people want to raise the minimum wage even higher. The minimum wage does not let employers pay for what someone can trade productively.

     That is exactly why low-skilled young people cannot find work and yet it is the very thing some political leaders are pushing. These politicians are running on raising the minimum wage which will keep more of our young people unemployed. And, go figure, most of the young people vote for them because a higher minimum wage sounds like they will be making more money. No, they will still be unemployed and unemployable.

     What unemployed workers need more than anything is to get a job, any job for any wage because any wage will be more than they are making now. But their elected leaders seem to want to keep them jobless and in poverty. Worse, the media conspired to obscure the result of minimum wages: joblessness. Read full column

Swickard: What it takes to get my vote