You’ve heard a lot of rhetoric about gun control, health care and gay marriage. Politicians use these issues and a number of others to shackle the very people who pay their salaries and lifelong perks. Truly, these issues are important because they involve America’s soul. And not surprisingly, therefore, Americans are polarized, split irrevocably into bellicose camps. Yet during this hostility, no politician of any stature dares bring up the one issue that rightly should command the nation’s attention: Voting Rights. Millions upon millions of Americans should not vote — or to put it more strongly — should be legally prohibited from casting a ballot at any level of government. Even though millions of Americans are ill-informed, ignorant  or prejudiced by race, you agree they have a perfect right to play dumb and pick candidates. Which they do. Unfortunately, intelligence is not a prerequisite in a free society. But, starting tomorrow, in the interest of fairness (BO’s favorite word), justice, morality, ethics and honor, suffrage should be denied to the following: 1. Students who don’t work and pay taxes. The 26th Amendment should be repealed, excluding members of the military; 2. All Aliens, including humans or creatures from other galaxies (often seen in malls); 3. Millions of normal people on permanent welfare, excluding those who are physically handicapped, unable to work. 4. The Dead, especially those who haven’t kept up with current events. You’ve heard the popular expression used in business — “skin in the game.” Investors invest money; athletes invest sweat equity and taxes; owners and workers invest time, labor and taxes; retirees invest a lifetime of work and taxes; soldiers invest their lives. Even the animal kingdom honors this natural concept. You would be the first to admit that some 12-year-olds are better equipped to vote than many 50-year-olds; you see, the issue doesn’t fall on sound judgment (as evidenced by the recent election). Voting rights can’t be ambiguous, left to politicians for subjective analysis. By law, it must be objective, based on pragmatic requisites. How do you earn the right to vote? By breathing? If individuals are dependents on parents’ tax filings, they shouldn’t have suffrage. Period. But don’t expect one politician to step out on this slippery ice. As far as incumbents and serious contenders are concerned, winning is the only thing; the only skin they care about is their own. And as the takers — those with no skin in the game — outnumber the givers — the suckers who work and pay — guess what sort of leaders the takers choose. Oh, forgot, you don’t have to choose. You already have them.

If you can avoid the thought of death for a millisecond, you must already be dead to the world; that is, deceased — literally. Or you’re in the grasp of a coma. Or in a much less dire circumstance, you’re lying in the arms of Morpheus. But, no, you happen to be conscious. You can’t avoid thinking of The Reaper because the Information Age takes cruel delight in assaulting you with torrents of violence, gloom, doom and carnage. That abuse isn’t surprising. Television networks would shrivel without excessively violent programming. As would video game peddlers who glorify savagery and brutality. Ditto the Hollywood sleaze merchants who mass produce violence on a huge scale to conceal their lack of talent and taste, aiming their sewage at puerile audiences all too willing to squander  time and money on bilge. In the real world, everyday, Death has a field day. You hear of young warriors who make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of a nation while, daily, their absentee commander, his family and his political minions squander that nation’s wealth as they wallow in the lap of personal luxury. The Pale Rider doesn’t discriminate and doesn’t miss a trick. He visits you on Sundays as a starring performer in the exercise of theology, liturgy and littany. He stands by indifferently as you witness the final departure of comrades and the grief of close friends. One of those close friends was not Travis Alexander but his murder keeps Death in the spotlight during daily courtroom drama, as his bespectacled murderess stoically, almost clinically, relates that shooting him the face, stabbing him 27 times and slitting his throat was a desperate act of self defense. Since Death never takes a holiday, you were treated to weeks of fulsome blathering when a South American commie dictator, intimately familiar with the death of others, bit the dust himself, ending 15 years of oppression and coercion. Since Death is the prearranged outcome of Life, you should examine the motives behind your morbid fixation. Beyond conventional concerns — or let’s be honest — beyond the utter dread of your own mortality — you struggle primarily with the notion of Justice among “the quick and the dead.” Apparently, through Grace, a murderess and a scum bag have equal opportunity in Paradise. Apparently, Justice doesn’t flinch when an evil dictator enjoys a full life as he commits genocide; while a young mother, wholesome and loving, perishes in the midst of full bloom. If Life has consequences, what are the consequences of death? Ancient superstition says your eternal punishment will be the thing you fear most — a truly terrifying prospect. Under no circumstances can you risk it — an eternity of suffering the ghastly, insipid noise of rap “music.” Or consider an equally wretched outcome — forced to share eternal living quarters with the odious Barney Frank. As undeserving as your life may have been, you must, for the remainder of your days, reject all things malicious and malignant; or most likely there will be Hell to pay. After all, no amount of delicious Sin can justify the agony of being within earshot of Chris Matthews for all time to come. There you have it. Death is either your ally or foe. Your choice. Meanwhile, you would be smart to adopt Scarlett O’Hara’s method of coping with the quandary: “I won’t think about that now. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

You have to love media — the inveterate, noble watchdogs of society — the tireless, selfless defenders of truth and justice. From coast to coast, continent to continent, in press rooms and broadcast news studios, they finally have brought the full weight of righteous indignation and judgment against the brutish cyclist Lance Armstrong. Some of these stalwart gladiators have heroically criticized their own profession for failing to investigate more relentlessly and exposing the phony years earlier, when the gun was smoking like a 19th century locomotive. Now that this splendid liar has come clean, of course, anything he says remains fishy and insincere, undoubtedly motivated by some arcane scheme. Fear not — he’s not getting away with further manipulation. The psychologist-pundits are also out there in force, dissecting his every word and every nuance of body language, to assure that he will be forever shunned like the rare Amish prostitute. You find it all — laughable. The media fixate on the sins of an athlete who took a marginal activity from footnotes to headlines, and in the process, brought millions of people to the sport and millions of dollars to the fight against Cancer. In a sport already known for cheating, he took deception to an executive level with the expressed goal of (in his own words) “gaining a competitive advantage.” This “win at all cost” attitude is reminiscent of, ah yes, various politicians who lie, cheat and and beg for the public trust — reminiscent of a sleazy President who sullied the Oval Office, lied repeatedly and cheated on his wife and the American people — reminiscent of a pompous President who voraciously hides his past and lies routinely to gain a competitive advantage, not only over his political adversaries, but also over the lowliest slug living in the smallest American hamlet, all the while carelessly speeding this country to the edge of the cliff. Truly laughable. The media berate themselves for allowing Mr. Armstrong off the hook during his “crime spree heyday.” Yet, with respect to cheating and lying on an epic scale by our “celebrated” leaders, that very same media deliberately behave like the monkeys Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru — who respectively see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Media doubtless will argue that there’s a vast difference between an evil, capitalist athlete out for personal glory, fame, money and power compared to “public servants” like Presidents and Congressmen who sacrificially devote themselves to the public good. Evidently,  media believe cheating a few thousand cycling aficionados ranks much higher on the measure of evil than ravaging The Constitution, stealing from taxpayers and cheating generations of yet unborn Americans. The media condemn a man who for over a decade enriched advertisers, suppliers and charities; and applaud men who defraud the people, devalue their currency and diminish their country. Meanwhile, the Tour de France rolls merrily along and America slides into insolvency. Positively laughable. Armstrong’s U. S. Postal teammates and vocal family members now say he was ruthless in intimidating them to cooperate with him against their wills. Apparently, grinding up a mountain is easier than saying “no,” and walking away from a bully. Or maybe if  media dig deeply enough, they will discover Armstrong is secretly the head of an organized crime family and that his teammates were “made.” Bullies in sport and business are unforgivable. In Congress, on the other hand, kingpin Harry Reid is idolized by the media, as his Democrat “soldiers” march in lock step. At the end of a very long day, our vaunted media have honored their Code Of Ethics, assuring that Armstrong would pay a hefty price for cheating and lying — stripped of all achievements and awards, exiled from cycling, sponsor rejections, loss of his own charity, humiliated, condemned and banished. Likewise, thanks to media, the 42nd President also pays a price for cheating and lying — suffering dearly as a Hollywood celebrity, political kingmaker, media darling and spokesman for worthy causes. As for the 44th President’s  lies, deception and incompetence, the media have reached their finest hour yet — endorsing and ordaining his reelection. Funny, nobody’s laughing.