TRUING THE VOTE
It is a sad state of affairs when you read the results of an
important meeting between your country’s leader(s) and the heads of state of a
foreign government—and you are at a loss as to who to believe! For instance,
our President informs us that it is spelled out clearly in an agreement with
the nation of Iran that they will not refine weapons-grade plutonium for at
least ten years. The Iranian leader then informs his people he made no such
agreement with the American leader—that Iran will continue to enrich plutonium
for nuclear warheads. Somebody is lying--but who?
I don’t trust the Iranians. Unless you are a little bit long
in the tooth, you might not recall or have ever heard that America and Iran
were once very close allies. American pilots trained Iranians to the point that
their skill with jets that we sold them was approaching that of the Israeli
pilots. We had many servicemen stationed in Iran in the early and mid seventies,
and these men and women had close personal relationships with their Iranian
counterparts. In the higher echelons of Iranian society at least, the men and
women of Iran dressed in the same style as Americans, drove American
cars—smoked and drank like Americans. For an American, being given an
assignment in Iran was considered a positive move in the development of his/her career.
Then - President Jimmy Carter decided that Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
of Iran was not moving as quickly in adopting democratic reforms in the nation
of Iran as he would like, and so Carter let those in opposition to the Shah
know that he (Carter) would not be averse to their sending the Shah, very ill
at that time, into exile from Iran. That move paved the way for the Grand Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, then in exile himself in France, to return to Iran and
assume control of that nation’s government. Overnight, the government was
transformed from a secular underpinning to one whose real power is in the hands
of Muslim religious leaders, who preach Sharia as the law of the land.
While some would attempt to persuade you that the government
of Iran is kinder and gentler than that of the earlier Ayatollahs, evidence of
any such softening is in short supply. Iran became, and continues to this day
to be, an importer of the philosophy of hate and of weapons to help the
faithful eliminate the infidel object of that hatred. Who is an infidel? Anyone
who does not pledge fealty to Allah, the Muslim god, is an infidel. By the way,
were you aware that there is a tenet of the Islam religion that removes any stigma from lying to an infidel?
That is a somewhat circuitous route to bring us to the
question as to whether you think that any information coming from a wretched
government like that of Iran should not be instantly rejected, discounted,
disbelieved?
You would—unless your own government was led by a person or
persons who themselves seem to have difficulty with the truth.
You see, each of us is given the option to lie or to tell
the truth any time we speak. Unfortunately, when we make a habit of the former,
we lose believability exponentially with each successive lie we tell; to the
point that anyone who believes what we say, without independent verification,
must be considered a fool.
That brings us to the news story about a group of people,
presumably of Russian extraction, who have allegedly hacked into the machines
that will be used to count votes in upcoming elections. They have supposedly
only penetrated the security of a couple of states, but the potential for much
greater mischief cannot be discounted.
In order to make certain that American elections are fair
and just, Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson has suggested that the federal
government supervise the entire election process—“to ensure the sanctity of the
vote.”
The question is—do you trust the leaders of your government,
with its record of obfuscation, delay and outright lying to protect its own—do
you trust them to fairly and equably monitor the presidential election?
Are you at all interested in knowing in which direction
Russian intervention might tip the American elections? Who would they rather
see head of the American ship of state? While you are contemplating that,
consider whether you think the current administration has a vested interest in
the outcome of the elections in November?
Do you trust EITHER the Russians or our own government to
allow the American people to elect their leaders without any outside
intervention?
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