This editorial was originally written prior to the 2016 election. Not a thing has been changed and it remains relevant and appropriate for the up-coming mid-terms.
Among other things, Amazing Stories is a news site.
As such, it reports on things (presumably in a ‘fair and balanced’ manner) and it editorializes, which means it takes positions on issues that are the position of the editorial staff (meaning me).
Aside: I would welcome anyone who wishes to editorialize on subjects related to our community to do so – staff, friends or even detractors.
Because of the import of the coming national election, I feel compelled to make an endorsement on behalf of the Experimenter Publishing Company. And now I shall do so.
Amazing Stories and its parent company The Experimenter Publishing Company, unequivocally endorses voter participation in the upcoming election and fully and unreservedly endorses the use of common sense and logic while exercising the vote.
We think that doing so strongly favors a vote for the Democratic ticket, across the board (with perhaps some exception for very local seats that we may know nothing about: if your local Democratic candidate for city council advocates for eating babies, well, just let that common sense thing kick in).
When exercising common sense and logic, one eschews punditry, rumor-mongering, emotional appeals, dire threats, grandiose promises, quotes out of context.
One also should take a long view: “change” in our Federalist Republic does not happen swiftly and is almost always the result of compromise: no one gets everything they want, but most everyone gets some of what they are looking for.
By way of example: gun rights. Gun ownership is a foundation of the USA’s creation myth. Even among those who would never own a gun themselves, the majority believe they ought to be available, in some fashion or another, to most adult citizens. It may sound good to accuse your opponent of “wanting to take guns away” from the citizenry, but the reality is, in the US, this will never happen. Who can obtain guns may change slightly from time to time, how they go about doing so may become more or less complicated from time to time, but the fundamental right to do so will never be removed.
Likewise, abortion, free speech, women’s right to vote, the emancipation proclamation, the consumption of alcohol, the list goes on.
Common sense and logic applied to voting recognizes that the ensuing change(s) will not be as drastic, monumental or catastrophic as one may hope or fear.
Everyone is actually voting for incremental change. Campaigning makes mountains out of molehills.
This election, advocacy for those incremental changes find the right largely on the side of restricting rights, the left on opening them up. Fewer individual freedoms versus more individual freedoms, restricting those to whom those freedoms apply or expanding them.
A common sense and logical examination of the history of this country demonstrates that the more freedoms have expanded, the better off the majority of us have become.
That trend should continue.
