Opus 2017-338: Headlines: The Lean Continues

At one time in recent history Fox News was growing like mold in a wet shower.  Their slogan was “Fair and Balanced”.  We don’t have cable and my only exposure was on Sunday morning as my wife watched the broadcast portion.  For a supposedly conservative station to have a discussion group with Juan Williams on it tells me they were trying to give both sides a voice. 

I salute them.

But I am ready to take a knee on Fox News.  It seems that they are infected with the leftward drift that infiltrates almost every successful organization.  It happens in business.  It was radical in education.  Churches are abandoning their purpose.  Fox joins the line. 

I started reading a recent article that promised to give me some insight into what was facing the Supreme Court this year.  I stopped reading when I came across this editorial, historically ignorant, comment in the middle of what was supposed to be news.

“-- Voter redistricting, and just how much state legislatures can use partisan gerrymandering, maneuvers that have benefitted Republicans in recent years.”

For those who has socialists for history teachers, gerrymandering goes back to the days of the Founding Fathers.  It is a play on words based on a politician named Elbridge Gerry and districts that were drawn up to look like salamanders.  It isn’t really significant since the political parties have changed their stands so much over the years but he was a member of the historic Democrat-Republican party which later dropped the “Republican”.  This is offered as a note to remind you that, like the KKK, slavery, Jim Crow and the Black Codes, if you follow the dots on gerrymandering they lead to Democrats.

So gerrymandering has a long history.  If you read the comment in Fox News the way most people read the news you come away with the feeling that this is a Republican disease.  I will admit that the Republicans of Texas are probably working to adjust the boundaries.  That is one reason why I moved here.  It is also one of the reasons I left California.  The gerrymandering Democrats of California make the Republicans of Texas look like the JV team.

My problem is not bringing up the problems of redistricting.  It is a problem that has some simple solutions but the problem is not “Republicans in recent years”.  The problem is courts today, politicians down through history and voters with attention spans shorter than their last winning streak in Las Vegas.

I am in favor of bias-neutral districts.  I voted for it 10 years ago in California and it passed but nothing has been done.  The problem is that the courts and parties want to use district lines to advance their agendas.

So vote for it.  They must cheat to win.  If we have neutral districting it will be easier to vote the suckers out.

homo unius libri