Wow this post is late! The semester started back up, and the fun surrounding that delayed things a little.... I tried to address some of the comments I got about the Lappa, please let me know how I did! Y'all always have such cool perspectives and it gives me ideas for future nonsense....
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This is the worst idea you’ve ever had. Well, technically it wasn’t my idea. Seaman O’Rourke came up with it, and then the diplomats got all excited about it, and then I approved it.
Which was a terrible idea. At least no one had been killed or maimed yet?
Murphy’s law, the moment I had that thought a pair of players went crashing into a bulkhead. The ball shot out of the winded Z’lask’s grip and into Kahuanui’s waiting arms, who in turn was flattened by a charging Z’lask, who fumbled and enabled O’Rourke to steal, turn, and shoot.
Flyball. The noble sport. The zero-g, full-contact pastime of choice on all ships in the black. Some of the younger sailors, with all the judgement skills exercised by eighteen-year-olds in a bunch, had challenged the crew of the
Courage of Z’raa to a friendly match. Once I had explained that flyball was not, as the highly-offended Z’lask originally thought, the human equivalent of a mock-war, and that therefore my guys’ invitation was not a challenge to their honor but a gesture of friendship, the Z’lask were only too eager to play.
I’m not sure how many gestures of friendship this alliance can stand. I darted a glance at Commander First Rank Zeran H’laath, our new sister ship’s captain, who was watching the game in a state of high puzzlement. The idea of “offsides” was a very foreign concept to the Z’lask, as it turned out, a fact I was plotting to use to claim that the game ended in a tie, since I was fairly certain this alliance also could not stand one side losing.
Yay diplomacy! The Z’lask keeper blocked O’Rourke’s shot with his tail and winged the ball back into play. It disappeared into a knot of viciously grappling humans and Z’lask, as a vindictive O’Rourke flew past to slam into the Z’lask keeper. Ramirez, who I had voluntold into refereeing, was studiously looking the other way.
Definitely the worst idea you’ve ever had. Somehow, the game ended without any major injuries, and the two teams accepted the pronouncement of a tie with a reasonable imitation of sportsmanship. As far as I was concerned, this rendezvous was going fantastic.
The diplomats, however, were fretting. They were convinced that unless the two crews became best of friends during the three days allotted for the purpose, we would spontaneously decide to slaughter one another on arrival at the Council. In an attempt to avoid such poor optics, we were supposed to be playing flyball, listening to music, and having nuanced discussions about one another’s history. Which actually was, to a certain extent, more or less happening.
The sharing music point, as I predicted, was going the best. The green-eyed Z’lask had been correct when he said that the Z’lask got the same things out of our music as we did, and they were turning out to have as broad a range of individual tastes as humans. I supposed the cliché about music being the language that transcended languages was holding true. Funny how much of diplomacy seemed to be clichéd: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. If you want peace be prepared for war. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
“Captain,” H’laath had snuck up on me, looking down on me in both senses of the word. He really seemed to be one of those Z’lask who was having a lot of trouble with the idea of “shamed” not being a human category. He was standing as far away from me as he could, and angling his body backward, as though he thought he was going to catch it. It was minorly hilarious. I smothered a smirk and looked politely interested. “Our crews seem to be getting along.” He didn’t look entirely convinced that that was a good thing.
“Yes, they do,” I said, in my diplomatic voice. “This is going to be a significant adjustment, it’s good to see that they’re approaching it so eagerly.”
And they actually are. Thousands of years of adherence to the Code had made the Z’lask starved for novelty, and their curiosity about even the most mundane aspects of human culture had…endeared them to the crew. It made it feel unique, interesting, exciting, just to be human. More people than not were engaging with our former enemies, and more people that not seemed to be willing to attempt a wary sort of friendliness. I was sure we were going to have problems with the “not” portion of the population eventually, but I was holding out hope that what good manners couldn’t accomplish, fear of a new cold war might.
The Lappa had gotten a little pushier in the Council about reining in our acceptance to the wider galaxy, and the UN was starting to think they’d found their next external threat against which to unify the squabbling nations of humanity.
“Mm.” The Z’lask, with their clacking language, could make a sound of doubting ambivalence more cutting than duratitanium. And H’laath managed to somehow put distaste into his as well. “I wonder if the Lappa shall feel that way.”
So he’s thinking about them too. I didn’t know how the Z’lask felt about the Lappa’s attempts to ostracize us, it would be useful to find out.
“I didn’t know they made judgments based on emotions,” I said. “I thought they did everything logically.”
If you want the right answer, say the wrong one. H’laath flicked his tongue, a gesture that just fell on the right side of being impatient. “They are…inexperienced when it comes to the human idea of diplomacy. They are frightened—they are confronting the unknown and for the first time their instruments tell them nothing, their theories are unable to guide them. They do not know what to do.” H’laath flicked his tongue again, this time in their equivalent of an eye roll. “They act like hatchlings.”
“Why would they be afraid of us?” I was genuinely confused, they’re supposed to be vastly our technological superiors. And if they’re so logical, shouldn’t they long since have learned to coexist with drastically different species? There was no shortage of odd inclinations in the galaxy, I would have thought that before now they’d have encountered a species so different as to be mystifying.
H’laath’s eyes brightened to resemble amber warning lights. “It is my personal belief, and that of many others in the Fleet, that the Lappa have gone soft, become used to peace. They have no Code to keep them strong, to remind them that even if no enemies present themselves, honor demands constant readiness.”
God these guys are weird. “Without a Code to demand they test themselves, several generations have gone by wherein no Lappa was forced to endure insecurity. When confronted with the specter of it now, they have lost their heads.” He curled his tail in a gesture I’d never seen before, but had read indicated disdain. “We never considered them worthy allies, their unconcern for honor disqualified them from that distinction. However, their disgraceful recent behavior has made High Command determined not to attempt to appease them.” And he swept his tail to the side as though brushing away something unpleasant and unsubstantial.
Martinez and Adams were now attempting to teach a few Z’lask to dance. It was true that dancing could be a beautiful showcase of grace and athleticism, a wonderful expression of human art. That was not true of this particular group of dancers.
“I have been meaning to ask you something,” H’laath snapped again. “Are you familiar with the Z’lask conception of the status of those who become prisoners of war?”
You’re a direct son of a bitch. “I am.” I made eye contact and smiled with my teeth showing. It took five one-thousands before the jaundice-eyed moron looked away.
And the record for staring contests with lizards stays perfect! That was not the way to think right now. I took a breath. “I recognize that this must very difficult for you, the Code rarely demands such quick, drastic changes. But I see that your crew is adapting admirably.” I nodded at a pair of young Z’lask who were attempting to imitate Martinez’s moves, to general hilarity.
H’laath looked consummately unconvinced.
“Look,” I said, resigning myself. “I’m not here to try to change your mind. I’m here to transport these diplomats to the Council, and to represent my species well while I do it. Like you said, the Lappa are thinking of making themselves a threat. Therefore, my first priority is the completion of my mission, followed closely by doing it in such a manner that the Lappa become convinced that the Human-Z’lask alliance would be an unsuitable adversary. Somewhere
way down the list is worrying about—and I say this with great respect, Commander—what you think of me. Think whatever you damn well please, as long as you don’t let it interfere with our mission.”
H’laath’s eyes got even brighter, and he drew himself up so I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. I smiled at him again.
I had counted to seven-one-thousand when he suddenly flung his tail above his head, then brought it slicing down to ring against the deck plating so loudly people turned to look.
“Very well, I think we shall get along nicely.” His eyes went back to a conversational shine.
“Huh?” I said.
Damn it, damn it, you said it again! H’laath looked…relaxed? “During the war, I escorted convoys. I had the opportunity to observe the tactics of human stealth ships, of a variety of nations, hunting both singly and in packs. They frequently employed tricks that the Code deemed dishonorable, but that nevertheless exacted a heavy toll. I thought of these devices as merely the cunning of beasts, before I observed the lengths to which humans would go to assist other vessels in distress, and before I heard reports of human warships taking aboard shipwrecked Z’lask. The revelation of your Geneva Conventions cemented for me and for many a new conception of your species: as our equals in honor, if not in technology or civility.”
H’laath paused to pull a face.
“And yet, you were still different from us in every possible way. So different, that I doubted those differences could truly exist. The Code said you were our brothers, so how could you
be so dissimilar? Surely it must be an act, another human silliness of deception like you so loved to employ.” H’laath’s eyes were flickering, a sign of agitation.
“I considered chief among these ‘deceptions’ to be your insistence that you did not recognize shame. I had no idea what purpose such a charade might serve, I was not interested in taxing myself to attempt to divine it. So I was quite surprised when I learned that it was no falsehood that you had been a prisoner. A shamed in command would be unthinkable even to a lunatic—no Z’lask could endure such a fate, and return still able to assume responsibility for the lives of others.”
H’laath paused again to shudder theatrically, and I began fantasizing about smacking him.
“But, evidently, for humans, it is possible.” He wiggled his tail, like he was trying to dislodge ants.
“I believe that this phenomenon is due to your development. It was deprived of a Code, so you became capable of many actions which a Z’lask could never even contemplate. Often this results in criminal behavior. But, here we see a useful example of something uniquely human. Therefore, it shall not trouble me. It is simply another thing which makes you human, like your dull hide or, with great respect, your disgusting teeth.”
“How in the galaxy are our teeth disgusting?” I was indignant. My parents paid for two rounds of braces, I wanted a damn good explanation of why my teeth were “
disgusting.”
H’laath flipped his tail. “They are far too large for your mouths. They overlap one another grotesquely. And the fact that as hatchlings you
lose them and then grow a second set is—is
gruesome.”
“What in…you people shed your whole
skins.” I said, outraged. “Under what rational system of judgement is losing teeth more disgusting that losing your entire damn
skin.”
“The time of shedding is a time of spiritual renewal, coinciding with the trees’ shedding of their leaves.” H’laath responded, with great dignity. “One strips away the trials and transgressions of the previous year, and emerges pure and strengthened for the coming year.”
I flashed a big winning smile. H’laath flinched.
“Disgusting teeth for the win,” I said happily. H’laath flexed his jaw, probably grinding his stubby little not-teeth.
“What in Z’aa’s name are they doing,” he asked irritably to change the subject, pointing a claw at Martinez’s knot of admirers and imitators.
“The individual in the center is dancing,” I explained. “Moving to music. Everyone else is attempting to copy his steps, or making up their own.”
“Are…are they supposed to look as though they have been afflicted with disorders of the nervous system?” H’laath actually appeared faintly alarmed. I stifled a laugh with great difficulty.
“Er…not really, but…dancing can be difficult for beginners, with a little practice they should look…much more coordinated.” I managed to deliver that with a straight face.
H’laath nodded slowly, imitating the human gesture, while still looking extremely unconvinced, but at least he didn’t look unhappy anymore. For not the first and probably not the last time, I gave up trying to understand what the
fuck was going on inside the Z’lask’s heads.
A pair of very perky diplomats came up, inquired how we were getting along. A further area of common ground appeared to be our mutual low tolerance for overeager diplomats. Once the pair had departed H’laath turned back to me, his warning-light eyes beady again.
“What have you been told of the Lappa’s grievances?”
I decided to like H’laath—he didn’t fuck around.
“I’ve been told they find humanity’s execution of scientific development unacceptable,” I said carefully. I’d already heard his rather strong opinions on their foreign policy, so I imagined that he felt even more strongly about whatever perceived wrongs motivated them.
H’laath clicked shortly, soaking more derision into one sound than most people could muster in paragraphs. “That is true. But it is deeper than that. They believe that your ‘unacceptable’ actions stem from an unacceptable nature; that you are innately and inherently uncivilized. Therefore, whether you want to or not, whether you are taught to or not, you will always behave like animals.” H’laath’s yellow eyes glowed evilly.
Is he actually angry on our behalf? “One of their representatives, a Shar Diplomat, has even issued a challenge, for someone to produce ‘just one example of human nature causing anything other than bloodshed.’ They are beginning to add structure and specifics to their generalized, philosophical arguments. They are alleging that many of humanity’s past crimes, or actions, or technological developments, were crimes not merely against other humans but against the order of the galaxy, and therefore against every member of the galactic community. As yet, their arguments have been met with the ridicule they deserve, but the High Command worries that, with their influence, the Lappa could win over a species or two, and begin to make life difficult for us.”
“You said technological developments?” I was very confused, that was an illogical level of fear to have, and they shouldn’t fear our tech, theirs was so superior….
Oh. “They’re not scared, they’re jealous.” I realized. H’laath’s eyes flashed like radiation warnings. “I don’t know anything about their history, but I’m willing to bet anything both of us can do, we did faster. I think they’re jealous. They’re trying to cast everything about us, even what we claim to be ‘good,’ as wrong in execution or origin if not in outcome, and contaminate everything we do. This isn’t just about fearing a result, this is also about being jealous of an ability.”
H’laath was flicking his tail, slowly from side to side, like a cat considering whether to pounce.
“Perhaps you should answer Mr. Diplomat’s challenge,” he said slowly. “I certainly would be interested to know what you have to say for humanity on that point.”
I opened my mouth, intending to object, to plead that I was much too busy, but before I could the proverbial stroke of inspiration struck me a nasty blow.
“It looks like the diplomats are ready for this little gathering to end,” I noted, watching our crews start to separate. “I’ll think about it this evening. If I get something written up, I’ll send it over.”
H’laath eyed me. “I await your response to Mr. Diplomat’s charges.” With that he rounded up his crew and returned to his ship.
I found myself writing my reply in my head as I set Lt. Levy to supervising the cleanup of hangar B, which had endured a flyball game, and cargo bay #2, which had endured interspecies diplomacy. By the time I got back to my cabin, my fingers were itching. I sat down at my desk, snatched my datascanner, and started typing.
To Shar Diplomat, I am writing in response to your challenge to present “just one example of human nature causing anything other than bloodshed.” I decided to take your proposal one step further, and attempt to find a facet of human nature, in this case the innate refusal to accept that “this is just the way things are,” improving human society. Here is my submission to you: “The Thirty-third World Health Assembly, on this the eighth day of May 1980;
Having considered the development and results of the global programme on smallpox eradication initiated by WHO in 1958 and intensified since 1967;
- DECLARES SOLEMNLY THAT THE WORLD AND ALL ITS PEOPLES HAVE WON FREEDOM FROM SMALLPOX, WHICH WAS A MOST DEVASTATING DISEASE SWEEPING IN EPIDEMIC FORM THROUGH MANY COUNTRIES SINCE EARLIEST TIMES, LEAVING DEATH, BLINDNESS, AND DISFIGURMENT IN ITS WAKE AND WHICH ONLY A DECADE AGO WAS RAMPANT IN AFRICA, ASIA AND SOUTH AMERICA;
- EXPRESSES ITS DEEP GRATITUDE TO ALL NATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THE SUCCESS OF THIS NOBLE AND HISTORIC ENDEAVOR;
- CALLS THIS UNPRECEDENTED ACHIEVEMENT IN THE HISTORY OF PUBLIC HEALTH TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL NATIONS, WHICH BY THEIR COLLECTIVE ACTION HAVE FREED MANKIND OF THIS ANCIENT SCOURGE AND, IN SO DOING, HAVE DEMONSTRATED HOW NATIONS WORKING TOGETHER IN A COMMON CAUSE MAY FURTHER HUMAN PROGRESS.”
I felt it necessary to include all three statements, and to call your
attention to the fact that when they were made, the First Cold War was still quite icy, with the potential to turn quite hot. It should be self-evident, Mr. Diplomat, that the impact of humanity is determined by the individuals exercising their humanity. You cannot hold up a person or a party or even a nation and declare “they were evil, so too is their race” any more than you could use such an example to claim us a species of saints. For all your logic and your lauded ability to follow where your data leads you, you seem utterly unable to grasp the principle of self-determination. At risk of giving offense, I shall presume to attempt to further explain it to you. It is true that individuals are shaped by their surroundings. It is true that psychology is based upon physiology, and that there are certain stimuli which are irresistible. It is true that some human beings, by reason of insanity, coercion, or other such exceptional circumstances, are deemed to not be in control of their actions. However, this is—as stated—exceptional, and not true of the vast bulk of humanity. From this fact proceeds human morality. Under our morality, it is more important to be right than to be logical. Herein lies the difference between our two species. We will have to somehow construct a bridge over this divide, somehow explain why it is that that which is logical may not always be right. Our foundational legal documents, upon which all other systems hang, recognize that while humans themselves are sacred, nothing made by them is. Therefore, a human being has value, has rights, has responsibilities above the mortal creations of logic or laws. It is for this reason that “human rights” are not declared to proceed from a government, but from, as it was once quaintly put, “nature and nature’s God.” Therefore, while it may be logical that the entire world shares guilt for one man’s crime, he nevertheless must answer for it. He took an action, and he must be responsible for his actions. This, then, is on display in the war crimes tribunal at The Hague: the sorting out of facts, the assignation of culpability, the rendering of judgment. It is holding human beings responsible for their actions. It therefore transcends, in certain respects, logic. It therefore will not appear wholly logical, because it is not. It therefore will irk the Lappa, who recognize no higher force than logic. We, however, wish to submit to you that this…deficiency of logic will not make us intolerable neighbors. You argued that our inability to apply logic meant that we were not in control of our actions—that we would behave irrationally, and that such irrationality would take the form of crimes, destruction, and violence which beggared your imaginations. As I have stated, the project of human civilization, and the very recognition of the concept of humanity, contradict this conclusion. To be sure, our institutions are not perfect, but this is no different from any other species in the galaxy. Therefore, you need have no fear of us. Human beings are responsible for their actions. If you still find interaction with us to be uncomfortable, we will accommodate you. We would not dream of causing undue distress to another species. If, however, you choose to disregard our human rights, we will not appease you. We have far too much experience with the consequences of appeasement to permit it to be our policy. You, too, may wish to familiarize yourself with those consequences, and the innovations, as you would term them, that were created to overcome them. I do not point to our history as a threat, as it is so often assumed, but as data, as information for you to study. Insanity is often defined by humans as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I imagine that the Lappa would concur with this assessment, and would agree that to view the outcome of an experiment, and then believe that running that same experiment would somehow yield different results, would be insane. Surely a race as enlightened and successful as yours can adapt itself to the accommodation of a species that bears no ill will toward you, even though it is alien to you. Yours very sincerely, Capt. Charlotte Sorensen, USN I sat back. That was probably a little strong. I should definitely edit it down a little before sending it to H’laath, but it was a good enough start.
I wanted the Lappa to see that we, as a species, were not a threat, either to their existence or to their self-perception. Their project would always be research, and while many humans would share that conviction, passion, and devotion, the species as a whole would not. The Lappa would always be able to claim it as their distinction; humanity had a different pursuit. I hoped I could indicate it, communicate it, make it apparent enough to the Lappa so that they could do the mental gymnastics to see us not as competitors, but as participants in a different event, who might demonstrate some similarities in skill but who sought a different goal.
I was suddenly furious.
We’d already fought one war, already wasted hundreds of millions of lives and ruined hundreds of millions more. So fucking much had been destroyed, lost, sacrificed to repel the Z’lask. All because the High Command made a stupid decision.
And now the Lappa, the supposed most intelligent race in the Council, were falling head over heels to do the exact same stupid, stupid thing.
Was there any way we could induce the Lappa to see that? Was there any way that what I had to contribute to that discourse could be a meaningful contribution? I’d done it before, but I’d had help….
Oh, fuck. There was precisely one Z’lask I could think of who might be able to assist with changing the minds of an entire species. I’d just hoped never to have to talk to him again.
What are you, afraid? I was always afraid. I just never let it stop me.
Hee hee hee, guess who will be back! What did y'all think? And who REALLY won the flyball game? Y'all stay safe out there!
1. Never let a Covid crisis go to waste! Use the pandemic to push for a nation-wide vote-by-mail scheme. By now we’re all familiar with the inequities, even idiocies, of the Covid-19 lockdown rules. In many states and cities, it’s forbidden to have normal assembly for social gatherings, businesses, church services, and even hospital visits.
On the other hand, it’s okay to have massive Black Lives Matter protests, Antifa riots, and anything else the left approves of, at least tacitly. Obviously, such unequal treatment is a formula for societal frustration, rage, and, yes, chaos.
And what a friend the Democrats have in crisis and chaos!
In fact, Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris
has said that this sort of chaos is likely to continue—and
should continue—through the election. “Everyone beware because they’re not going to stop,” Harris said about the (
often violent) protests erupting in American cities. “They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day.”
But according to the Democrats, the only certainty in all of this chaos is that Americans—who are safe to take to the streets in mass protests and riots—are not safe to vote in person on November 3. We must vote by mail, they tell us.
Mail-in voting is “essential from a health reason because we want to keep people at home to vote without having them all collect on Election Day,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
said last month. “People should not have to choose between their health and their vote.”
If you’re still scratching your head wondering why it’s safe to riot but not to vote, veteran political consultant
Dick Morris explained the Democrats’ game plan: “If they feel they’re legitimately losing the election, [they] are going to use the excuse of the Covid virus—nobody can come out and vote in person, they claim … and they’re going to deliberately game the system by sending out millions and millions of mail-in ballots for people that don’t exist or have already voted.”
“And the states will not verify the [mail-in ballot] signatures because they are under the control of Democrats,” Morris added.
2. Enlist all the messengers at your disposal (Hollywood, Corporate Media, Big Tech, Pro Sports) to push for vote-by-mail. The Democrats are using every tool in their considerable arsenal to push the vote-by-mail messaging, including
multi-million-dollar super PAC ad campaigns. Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar
has teamed up with failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to mandate a national vote-by-mail system, and a group called
Stop Republicans has launched a digital blitz to push for the idea.
But the Democrats’ favorite tool is, of course, Hollywood and pop culture.
As early as April, about a month into the coronavirus shutdown, the Hollywood wing of the Democrat-Media Complex kicked into high gear to push vote-by-mail.
Actor Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, who were among the first big name figures to contract Covid-19,
teamed up with former First Lady Michelle Obama and former Obama White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett in April for an ostensibly non-partisan virtual voter registration drive that encouraged states to loosen vote-by-mail requirements.
📷
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson joined former First Lady Michelle Obama for a virtual get out the vote event on April 20, 2020, to encourage people to sign up for mail-in voting. (YouTube)
In August, a group of A-list celebrities
hosted a virtual “United to Save the Vote” gala—which they claimed was “fiercely nonpartisan”—to raise money to “protect the 2020 election” by, in part, increasing trust in mail-in voting. The virtual roster included Jennifer Lawrence, Jamie Foxx, Dave Matthews, Ed Helms, Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, Sia, Jake Johnson, Sarah Silverman, Kenan Thompson, Chelsea Handler, Gloria Estefan, Randall Park, Erich Bergen, Nick Kroll, Sophia Bush, Jonathan Scott, Kenny G., George Lopez, etc. You get the picture.
According to the event’s website,
these zealously anti-Trump “fiercely nonpartisan” celebs
gathered virtually to counter the efforts of “politicians who are undermining the security and validity of mail-in voting.”
Meanwhile, the Democrat-Media Complex is engaged in a bit of journalistic jujitsu churning out stories about how the
Republicans are the ones who plan to steal the election. Here’s a
headline from the
Washington Post: “Republicans’ long-term vote heist matters more than Trump’s tantrums.” And here’s
one from
Rolling Stone: “The Plot Against America: The GOP’s Plan to Suppress the Vote and Sabotage the Election.” But it’s hard to top this
headline from the Daily Beast: “This Is How Republicans Steal an Election, and Maybe Kill Some Dems in the Process.”
At the same time, the Democrat-Media Complex is also celebrating the
new wokeness of pro sports, which is busy helping Democrats win in November. On September 7, Politico
asked, “Could LeBron James Defeat Donald Trump?” As has been widely reported, the National Basketball Association has agreed to
set up a “social justice coalition” to help get out the (Democrat) vote.
3. Get millions of questionable mail-in ballots into the system. Here we might pause to note the distinction between the various kinds of voting by mail.
It is true that absentee voting by mail has been with us for many years. Even President Trump has
voted by mail, and our active duty military regularly
votes by mail. In fact, Republicans have been quite successful in the past with absentee voting. In Florida in 2016, for example, more Republicans
voted by mail than Democrats, and Trump carried the state. There is even
legitimate concern that any disparagement of mail-in voting could unintentionally hurt Republicans in November because their voters like voting by absentee ballots. Indeed, there are sincere and legitimate reasons for why absentee voting should be available during the pandemic.
However, there is a big difference between allowing absentee ballots as an option for people who are unable to make it to the polls and mandating that an entire election be done by mail-in voting.
And there is a really big
difference between the long-standing practice of sending absentee ballots to voters who take the initiative of requesting them and the new Democratic proposal to mail out unsolicited ballots (or applications for ballots) to every registered voter regardless of whether those voters are still alive or eligible to vote in that jurisdiction. And, as we shall explain, this new effort to mail out ballots to every registered voter is coupled with the left’s years-long fight to prevent these same voter rolls from being updated to remove dead and ineligible people from the lists.
And to make matters extra complicated and chaotic, every state has a different standard for mail-in voting. Some states have
more safeguards in place than others. For example, some states require that every mail-in ballot include a verifiable signature, additional witness or notary signatures, and even an enclosed copy of the voter’s photo ID. Some states have few, if any, such safeguards. Some states
are loosening or experimenting with the rules for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic.
And then there is the issue of sending all these ballots through the mail. Can the U.S. Postal Service process them all in a timely manner? Every state has a different deadline for when these ballots need to be postmarked. What happens if they don’t arrive in time? Can election officials process them all in a timely manner? Counting mail-in ballots is much more
time-consuming. It can involve matching signatures, checking postmarks, flattening out ballots that were crumpled in the mail, etc. If the recent primaries in
Wisconsin and
New York are anything to go by, mail-in ballots will take weeks to process and that process will be fraught with problems and
potential for fraud.
(To give you a flavor of the postal chaos to come, the chief clerk for Brooklyn’s Kings County Board of Elections
testified in federal court last month that in 2018, the USPS delivered “several hundred absentee ballots from the previous November” — which was “five months after Election Day.” And in Wisconsin this week, three trays of mail, which included absentee ballots, were
found in a ditch.)
📷
Election officials take receipt of a dolly loaded with mail-in ballots at election offices in downtown Pittsburgh, PA, on May 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
There is also the issue of how voters can apply to vote by mail and who is eligible to do so. According to
FiveThirtyEight, nine states and the District of Columbia will simply mail every registered citizen a ballot. In another 14 states, authorities will mail everyone an
application to vote by mail. (Although, as we shall see, some states take a generous view of who, or what, might be eligible to receive such applications if outside interest groups decide to mail them out.) In 16 states,
nothing is automatically mailed to voters, although voters can apply online to vote by mail. In six states, voting by mail is permissible only with a “valid excuse.” And the remaining states are some hybrid of the preceding categories.
All of these different rules provide plenty of opportunity to game the system on questions ranging from the verification of identity, addresses, and signatures to the timeliness of postmarks and the ability of the postal service to deliver ballots in a timely manner. Because there are so many “moving parts” to the vote-by-mail process, mail-in ballots are fraught with the potential for fraud. Yes, we’ve seen voter fraud before, but we ain’t seen nothing yet. The further we get from requiring that voters go to the polls to vote in person, the more we expand the avenues for fraud.
Consider, for example, the fraud potential that comes with mailing ballots to every registered voter. Back in 2012, a Pew Center study
found that
1.8 million dead people were still registered to vote and that 24 million voter registrations were un-confirmable.
Though some states have made progress in updating their voting rolls since the 2012 Pew study, a comprehensive analysis
conducted this year by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) found that 349,773 apparently dead people still remain on the voter rolls across 41 states. And apparently the dead still
vote! The report also discovered a surprising number of people who apparently voted more than once.
The report
found:
During the 2018 General Election, 37,889 likely duplicate registrants are apparently credited for casting two votes from the same address, and 34,000 registrants appear to have voted from non-residential addresses. Additionally, 6,718 registrants were apparently credited for voting after death.
According to the
report, New York, Texas, Michigan, Florida, and California were the top five states with dead voters on the rolls, accounting for 51 percent of all the dead registrants. The crucial swing states of Michigan and Florida had 34,225 and 25,162 dead registrants respectively.
That would seem to be a serious indictment of the system and a warning against mailing unsolicited mail-in ballots or even mail-in ballot applications to everyone on the voter rolls. But Democrats are working hard to bulldoze the path for vote-by mail, or, as Breitbart News often calls it,
cheat-by-mail. Democratic governors in
New York and
Pennsylvania have already moved to ease vote-by-mail, as have local officials in
Harris County, TX, population 4.7 million. Oh, and did we mention that in Nevada’s June primary, more than
223,000 ballots in Clark County (Las Vegas) went to a bum address? That means almost a
fifth of all the ballots mailed out in the county went to a bum address.
📷
Election workers process mail-in ballots during a nearly all-mail primary election in Las Vegas, NV, on June 9, 2020. (AP Photo/John Locher)
But, you might ask, why don’t we just make sure the voter rolls are accurate by removing people who have moved or died? Why don’t we have a standardized signature verification protocol and a requirement for an additional witness signature and photo ID for mail-in ballots to ensure they are legit? Good questions. The answer is the left fights these reforms.
Left-wing groups want to
expand access to voting by
registering as many people as possible, but they also fight to
block meaningful efforts to ensure that only eligible American citizens are voting. When Republicans enact legislation to encourage transparency and accuracy in our voting process by removing dead or ineligible voters from the rolls or mandating some form of identity verification, left-wing activists challenge these initiatives in court to stop any reform.
Eric Eggers, the author of
Fraud: How the Left Plans to Steal the Next Election,
explained to Breitbart News how left-wing interest groups have fought for years to keep the loopholes that could potentially create a “tsunami of voter fraud” in November.
“Organizations that are funded by George Soros both fight to keep those vulnerabilities in place, as in Ohio, by trying to prevent efforts to pass voter-ID laws or to make the voter rolls more secure,” Eggers said. “But then they also — and this is really the insidious part — they fund organizations that go out and round up voters, regardless of legality of their status, and force them through the vulnerabilities in the system.”
“There are 248 counties in this country that have more registered voters than actual citizens of legal voting age,” Eggers said. “It’s a problem because it creates opportunity for organizations like the formerly known ACORN and La Raza — they’re all funded by [billionaire George] Soros — to go and figure out where the vulnerabilities are and force the voters — whether they’re legal or not — through the gaps.”
But according to the establishment media, the instances of mail-in voter fraud are “
infinitesimally small.” And to prove
this, the media loves to
quote the “non-partisan” Brennan Center for Justice. What the media fails to tell you is that the Soros-funded Brennan Center
is leading the charge to
expand mail-in voting. They don’t just have a dog in this fight — they have a whole kennel! Quoting the Brennan Center to deny the reality of mail-in voter fraud is like quoting Big Tobacco to deny that smoking causes cancer.
And yet when Donald Trump or any Republican points out the obvious vulnerabilities in our voting system, the Democrat-Media Complex quotes biased sources to vilify Republicans. Nancy Pelosi actually
called President Trump and Republicans “enemies of the state” for expressing concerns about vote-by-mail’s fraud potential.
It seems fair to say that Democrats are making sure that the system works for
them. Recently, Politico
headlined a long piece, “Inside the Democratic Party’s plan to prevent vote-by-mail disaster,” detailing the efforts of the party, and its well-funded allies, to win the November mail war.
A key part of that plan is legal challenges. For instance, in Georgia, the American Civil Liberties Union
accused the state government of wrongfully purging nearly 200,000 voters from the rolls. In this legal battle, the ACLU is joined by the
Palast Investigative Fund, one of the myriad “non-partisan” foundations that the Democrats always have at their side.
Yet in the meantime, the ACLU has nothing to say when we discover, for example, that during the 2020 Michigan primaries, the number of ballots counted in
72 percent of Detroit’s
absentee ballot precincts didn’t match the number of ballots cast. And the votes counted in 46 percent of all of Detroit’s precincts–both absentee and in-person–didn’t match the number of ballots tracked in the precinct poll books. For perspective on what such abnormalities might portend for the next election, we might observe that Detroit has a population of 670,000. In 2016, Donald Trump won Michigan by a mere 10,704 votes.
Oh, and did we mention that a federal lawsuit filed last year
alleged that the city of Detroit had over 2,500 dead people still registered on its voter rolls, and about 4,788 registered Detroit voters were flagged as having potentially registered to vote twice or even three times. But I’m sure none of those dead people will vote by mail, right?
Oh, and while we’re on Michigan, we should also mention that Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic Secretary of State who was
endorsed by Joe Biden and was a featured
speaker at the Democratic National Convention, misprinted the ballots that were created for Michigan voters serving in the military overseas. Guess which candidate was listed incorrectly? You guessed it: Trump! The bad ballots list the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential candidate as President Trump’s running mate instead of Mike Pence. But don’t worry. The spokesperson for Michigan’s Democratic-Biden-endorsed-DNC-speaking Secretary of State has assured us that clerks “will be instructed to duplicate a vote for Trump” for any military voter who mails in one of these misprinted ballots.
📷
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) speaking during the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 20, 2020. (DNC via AP)
In the face of all this potentially embarrassing data, the Democrats have decided that the best defense is a good offense. For instance, Joe Biden stays on the offensive, regularly
accusing President Trump of seeking to squelch vote-by-mail; but he never allows that vote-by-mail might need to be
reformed. Biden charged on September 7 that Trump “wants to make sure those mail-in ballots don’t get where they’re supposed to get.”
We might wonder: If Biden routinely accuses Trump of cheating, should we be surprised if Democratic activists get the hint and decide that they could, and should, cheat on Biden’s behalf? After all, they might rationalize these efforts as fighting fire with fire.
Cheat-inclined Democrats might draw inspiration from an anonymous Democratic consultant in New Jersey who recently
confessed to the
New York Post that “fraud is more the rule than the exception.” The consultant explained the various ways in which political operatives can harvest mail-in ballots, change them by inserting different ballots into the envelope, use friendly postal workers to disappear ballots in neighborhoods that lean Republican, and so forth. A few hundred bogus ballots here and there can change an election.
“An election that is swayed by 500 votes, 1,000 votes — it can make a difference,” the Democratic operative said. “It could be enough to flip states.”
Indeed, even Democratic pets can make a difference—
and they don’t even have to be alive! Recently in Atlanta, a family got a voter registration application in the mail for their
deceased house cat named Cody.
How did that happen, you ask? Well, outside
third-party groups can rent mailing lists and randomly send everyone on the list an absentee-ballot application or voter registration application that they downloaded from the state’s election website. Have you ever used your pet’s name to subscribe to something because you didn’t want junk mail in your own name? If so, don’t be surprised if Fluffy or Spot gets a voter registration or absentee ballot application in the mail.
Georgia’s election officials
assure us that Cody the cat would not have been able to vote at the polls in the Peach State because the cat doesn’t have a license or state ID. But one wonders if he would be allowed to vote by mail, assuming his registration application cleared. And, of course, not every state
requires a photo ID to vote like Georgia does.
Speaking of Georgia, its Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger,
announced on September 8 that his office had identified 150,000 Georgians who had applied for an absentee ballot and then showed up at the polls to vote in person in the June primary; that is, they wished to vote, carelessly or purposefully, for a second time. This in a primary in which a little less than 950,000 people voted; in other words, the attempted (or at least potentially attempted) double voting accounts for around a sixth of total ballots cast. Of these 150,000, Raffensberger added that perhaps 1,000 had actually succeeded in voting twice.
Were these innocent mistakes? Simple confusion? Or guilty action? Whatever the truth about these would-be double voters and actual double voters, we should applaud Georgia authorities for minimizing what could have been a major electoral debacle; thanks to their good work, it was only a
minor electoral debacle. In any case, the Georgia ACLU has
nothing to say about that.
Voter fraud exists even when you vote in person, but mail-in voting blows the doors wide open in fraud potential. And the Democrats are ready to fight for every ballot—pets and all!
4. Send Democratic lawyers into key districts to fight for every challenged ballot. Use the courts and progressive election officials to keep the count going as long as possible with as little verification as possible. As we have seen, each mailed-in ballot has the potential to foment a legal fight over its validity. In fact, the
Washington Post reported on August 24, that more than 534,000 primary votes in 23 states have been rejected for one reason or another:
Democrats and voting rights groups are now waging court battles to ensure that absentee ballots are not discarded on technicalities, pushing to require that ballots postmarked by Election Day be counted and to make signature-matching laws more voter-friendly.
Meanwhile, in Indiana,
a federal judge ruled that Hoosier election officials cannot reject ballots for dissimilar signatures without notifying the voter and giving him or her—aided, of course, by partisan pals—a chance to “cure” the ballot. In fact, 20 states allow a voter to attempt to cure a faulty ballot so that it can be counted. That might be a good idea, but we can see that each “cure” will take a lawyer, not a doctor.
In fact, with such legal fights in mind, the Biden-Harris campaign has already built a SWAT team of
600 lawyers, expecting many more recruits to come.
And just on September 14 came this
headline, courtesy of the
New York Times: “Biden Creates Legal War Room, Preparing for a Big Fight Over Voting.”
According to the
Times, two Democratic legal veterans–Dana Remus, who has served as Biden’s general counsel in the 2020 campaign, and Bob Bauer, a former Obama administration White House counsel–will co-head this legal effort. Others involved include former Obama attorney general Eric Holder and two former solicitors general in Democratic administrations, Donald B. Verrilli and Walter Dellinger. In all, the
Times tells us that “hundreds of lawyers will be involved, including a team at the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie, led by Marc Elias.”
The name Marc Elias might ring a bell because, as Breitbart News has
reported, he was in the middle of the infamous fake-news Christopher Steele dossier, having retained the firm of Fusion GPS on behalf of the Democratic National Committee. And come to think of it,
Bob Bauer, mentioned above, was also a longtime Perkins Coie lawyer, having been there, alongside Elias, during the 2016 presidential campaign and its Steele-y aftermath.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris herself is keeping up the drumbeat,
warning Democrats of the many bad things
Republicans are thought to be doing.
“There will be many obstacles that people are intentionally placing in front of Americans’ ability to vote,” Harris said. “We have classic voter suppression. We have a president who is trying to convince the American people not to believe in the integrity of our election system and compromise their belief that their vote might actually count.”
By “voter suppression,” she means any effort to make sure that only eligible living non-pet American citizens are voting in November.
But while we’re on this topic, we should note that the Department of Justice
announced this week that it’s investigating reports that nine military mail-in ballots were discarded in Pennsylvania. Seven of the ballots
were cast for President Trump; the contents of the other two are unknown. Yes, it’s only nine ballots, but the campaign season is young, and there are lots of places where marked ballots can be discarded.
And the crickets you hear is the sound of Democrats, normally so up-in-arms about vote suppression, now being oh-so-quiet about vote
destruction.
Democrats are armed and ready for a vote-by-mail
total war. We can expect they will have a ground game in every district. Every disputed ballot will get its own Democratic lawyer. Every critical district and state will see litigation over signature-matches, addresses, postmarks, and anything else that might affect Democratic balloting.
In fact, the Democrats’ legal team has already scored potentially game-changing court victories in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina on how long ballots can be counted after Election Day.
In Wisconsin, a federal judge
ruled Monday that mail-in ballots can be counted up to
six days after Election Day, and a ballot can be
counted even if there is no “definitive” sign of a postmark on it.
In Pennsylvania, the state’s Supreme Court
ruled last week that mail-in ballots can be received up to
three days after Election Day; and, similar to the Wisconsin ruling, these ballots can be counted even if there is no evidence that they were postmarked on time. (The Pennsylvania court handed the Democrats a second victory by keeping the Green Party candidate off the ballot, thereby preventing the Greens from peeling off any progressive voters. We note that the court didn’t grant the GOP a similar favor by kicking the Libertarian Party off the ballot.)
The Pennsylvania Secretary of State also
issued an order last week instructing clerks not to conduct signature matches on the mail-in ballots – which means that Pennsylvania essentially nullified signature verification because the state’s election officials won’t be verifying anything.
In Michigan, a judge
ruled that postmarked mail-in ballots can be accepted up to
14 days after Election Day, and third parties are allowed to deliver these ballots. This fraud-friendly delivery service is commonly known as “ballot harvest.” It’s all the rage in
California and other
third world countries.
📷
A ballot drop box in Detroit, MI, on Sept. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
In North Carolina, a coalition of Democrat-aligned special interest groups
got the state to agree to accept mail-in ballots up to
nine days after Election Day and to allow voters to “cure” any problems with these ballots. North Carolina election officials also agreed to create vote-by-mail ballot “drop-off” stations, which is essentially an invitation for “ballot harvesting.”
You’ll notice that these are all swing states, and three of them – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan – were the Rust Belt blue wall states that put Trump over the top in 2016. He won them by
22,748 (WI);
44,292 (PA), and
10,704 (MI) votes. And the Democrats are stopping at nothing to win them back.
Of course, these court victories were concerned with when the mail-in ballot delivery window will close. Let’s not forget the question of when the in-person polls will close. It’s a safe bet that Democratic lawyers will argue—and even sue, as they have in the past—for extra hours in places where their voters might come straggling in late. After all, many protestors and rioters seem to be night people.
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