I know, I know, my opinion on the subject of “term limits” is not mainstream. Sometimes I wobble a little, but each time I study the problem I end up back at my original conclusion.

Term limits are NOT a solution to “better governance of the country”.  It is leaving the 800 pound gorilla of elections  unaddressed.

Elections are about voters and our choices.

Term limits is about restricting voter choice. It is about imposing an arbitrary limit on how many elections a candidate will be allowed to win.

It is promoted as a way to get rid of the entrenched old fossils, those representatives who are making a life career out of slavishly following their party line and not representing their electorate.  And, I concede, that is a good argument for it. But my biggest argument against it is simple – the voters have the opportunity to oust any politician at any election. But they do not. They tend to vote in the same party and candidate.

If “term limits” advocates wish to change the outcome of the status quo they need to work out how to persuade voters to change their habits. This is the ONLY way to succeed.

Several States have enacted term limits – how has that work out for those States? And I am really asking that question out of a desire to know – personally I do not know the answer. But as I have seen no campaigns touting the raging success of “term limits” I tend to be skeptical.

The biggest block to term limits are the two Parties – The Republicans and the Democrats. It costs the parties less if they are re-electing the same candidate, the candidate makes contacts, takes more of the load of fundraising etc. If there are term limits then when the change arrives the most important point of continuity is the Party Organization. They will choose their candidate and they will elect a candidate like the one that just left.

Without a sea-change in the Electorate, without us teaching  an influential minority in EACH party that  evaluating candidates, really looking at what they have done and are doing and exercising the judgement that a new person is needed and the old one has to go, judging the worth of candidates based on what they do for the country is our DUTY as CITIZENS. We are not “voters” we our citizens using voting to exercise our control over our servants, the politicians.

The Headlines are being pumped out by the smugly and cooperative media in the USA – GM is going to switch over to all electrical car and truck production by 2035, Ford is going to follow suit.

We are going to see the end of the internal combustion engine and move forward to the bright, renewable, ever clean future. The wind and the sun will pour their energy into our electrical system and we will gratefully take this bounty and go about our lives singing praises to Nature and all her wonders.

But to what end does this tale of idyll lead us to?

Let us advance into the real world.

Electrical vehicles rely, completely on operating systems – complex programs that balance loads and needs, power consumption and so on.

When you decide you wish to upgrade your Tesla for more features – Tesla tells your operating system that you are now allowed to use the enhanced features.

In the idyllic world of the future there is going to be a cost of upgrading the country’s Electrical supply infrastructure to replace the daily 2.65 trillion Kwh of electricity generated by fossil fuels (63 % of the total) and the 168 billion Kwh currently consumed by gasoline and diesel powered cars. Currentl solar and wind supply 363 billion KWhs a day.

I leave you to do the maths on this. It is going to require a 50% increase I solar and wind production to make up the energy load transferred to the generating systems by the demands of electrical vehicles that have replaced the internal combustion engine vehicles in our idyllic future. It is going to take 700% increase in wind and solar generation to replace the fossil fuels that underpin the grid.

That leaves a lot of room for discussion right there. But I want to drill down on another aspect.

Road infrastructure is financed mainly by the federal gasoline tax.

What will finance that infrastructure if there is no gasoline being used?

Well. Hmm. It is somehow going to have to be tied to the electric vehicles themselves.

But, of course! The software! It already contains all the information needed, it knows how far you have traveled and will happily keep that total available for any tax agency who asks for it.

Without a series of governments bound and determined to respect the Bill of Rights and respect the privacy of the citizenry I foresee the following scenario unfolding in front of us.

The first step will be explaining – just as I have done here – that with the gas tax dwindling rapidly there needs to be a new source of funding for roads and surely, the fairest way to do that is to just a fixed mileage rate? Equality all round! The rate will be meticulously worked out the first time around to demonstrate the absolute fairness of it all and all cars will be retrofitted with new software which automatically reports your mileage, once a week, to the tax authorities.

Now to make it easier and to reduce costs, the government will mandate that you must have a certain amount in the account of course so that payment is automatic.

But what about people who don’t pay? Or let the bills build up? No worries the government will come along – and in the name of fairness for all – software will be installed that will shut you off if you cannot pay. But the good news is that as soon as you do cough up they can turn you back on again promptly (for a small fee of course).

But we’ll all be paying the same rate! Fairness all round! Or will that solid statement stand for more than a couple of years while lobbyists for various interests ensure a way for ‘deserving” people to get a discounted rate? Politicians, city councilpersons. The list will grow – because it always does.

And, of course safety! Software will be inserted which will force your vehicle to adhere to speed limits broadcast to it. The next step will be to install a stop switch in the software that can be activated by the police. End of all car chases of course – there will not be many anyway because cars will no longer be able to exceed the speed limit.

Once it starts, it will not stop. Advance will follow advance. If you find this hard to believe consider this most people carry smart phones with them that they never turn off and which records their exact position many times a day. Now there is nothing overtly nefarious about that – your phone needs to know where you are in relation to telephone masts so you can use your phone. But how you use your phone, what you buy with it, what sites you visit on line, who you call who calls you so on and so on. It tracks it all.

Nothing I have said about electric car software is out of range of current software. In fact I am probably selling it short.

What I do know is that once government finds ways to tax, it does not give them up easily. When people find out how simply things can be enforced simply by turning of switches in software they will agitate to start doing it.

After all who would have thought that people would go trawling through a persons posts/tweets/messages/texts to find things to use to get them banned from jobs, forced out of jobs?

Who would have thought that a country where debate and freedom of speech are a cherished foundation of the country itself find itself in a position where people who cannot win arguments by force of logic and persuasion merely get their friends in power to shut of the place to debate?

If it can be done – sooner or later the temptation will be too great,.

There is a wonderful, but small, concept that has vanished, almost utterly, from American political life.

Self-deprecating humor is its name.

It used to be common for people to make a humorous comment or two about themselves or something that they did in order to show that they did not take themselves too seriously. It was a way of showing that a person could admit they could be wrong, that they could see oddities about themselves and their positions and still communicate.

Now, in the howling world of the Left Fascist Bloc which is seeking control over all speech and thought – this is a revolutionary idea. Admit a fault and the bots, gnats and bloodsuckers of twitter, Facebook Google will pounce on it and try to make it seem like every joke is somehow a weakness to be exploited for political gain. Why do they do that? Because it causes people to watch what they say.

Humor is one of the greatest tools of social interaction. It can make people laugh with you – rather than at you. It can be used to project an atmosphere of broad willingness to change and adapt and with that comes opportunities for agreements.

Without it – it all just becomes balkanized. It becomes the political equivalent of trench warfare. Things move only very slowly with vast effort.

Let’s get back to a world where satire, self deprecation, laughing at ourselves and our own foibles become the norm.

Prince Charles is the “heir to the throne of Great Britain”. That means that he has been standing around for a half century waiting for his Mother to pass on so he can have a real job.

In an article in the Daily Telegraph January 11th 2021 by Victoria Ward he is quoted :

It would seem that lacking his Mother’s status as the Head of the Church of England Charles is putting himself in the running for Chief Druid.

It takes a bold and supremely plankish man to announce that the answer to the pandemic is to blame ourselves and accept the Green devolution.

Amazon announces :

I trust that the irony is not lost upon you, dear reader. A service which produces some pretty violent movies and TV series, has decided that it is now going to be the arbiter of what people who rent server space from them are allowed to do.

Seriously, you cannot make this up – I am seriously pissed off that a bunch of billionaires are taking it upon themselves to determine what people can and cannot talk about.

If you ain’t concerned then you are really need to give yourself a slap around the chops and perk up some – you need to be in this fight.