{"id":5590,"date":"2026-11-02T09:42:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T05:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=5590"},"modified":"2026-11-02T07:42:43","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T03:42:43","slug":"again-weve-missed-the-real-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=5590","title":{"rendered":"Again we’ve missed the real issue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Daylight Savings Time has come to a close, and once again political parties of all stripes across this fruited plain have missed my golden offer<\/a>: undying devotion to the group that either gets rid of it forever, or never lets it end once started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomorrow, for those of you under rocks, is Election Day, so important we close the schools around here to allow a dozen or so people to come in and vote. I couldn’t even name any of the people that appeared on my ballot this year, though I did note that there were five of those yes or no questions on which citizens can play legislator. (I guess that’s what legislators do too… they just get paid to do it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never really read those yes and no questions. They’re always phrased in confusing ways, like if you put two opposing viewpoints into an AI program to make something sound “neutral” but really it just sounded bad from both sides. My general policy is to automatically assume “no” should be the answer on these things. If a law were useful they would just do it, right? If the government has to ask my permission about something, my kneejerk reaction is no way<\/em>. Many of these questions involve spending for public projects, and even if it’s something I’m literally a part of (public schools!) my thought is, I bet they could do this with less money. I’m part of spenders here too, not just the receivers. (I watch the top and the bottom of the fraction.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m glad I’m in a position now to watch these things from sidelines and not worry too much about the outcomes of any of them. One thing’s for sure, my TV’s going to have a lot fewer political ads come Wednesday, thank God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daylight Savings Time has come to a close, and once again political parties of all stripes across this fruited plain have missed my golden offer: undying devotion to the group that either gets rid of it forever, or never lets … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5590"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5594,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5590\/revisions\/5594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}