Jim Thompson
Jim Thompson
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

This column will likely be posted online before the election; if the editor chooses to publish it in the print edition, you have already had your last chance to vote in the current presidential election. Which means, if you stayed home or voted with a shallow understanding of the issues, you may regret the outcome. Not today, not tomorrow, but as events play out.

Either way, we are witnessing the democratic republic founded nearly 250 years ago disintegrate. Not to worry, all democratic republics eventually disintegrate, the remarkable condition here is that it has taken so long.

The only questions left for us are these: What forces will decide our future path and will that path be taken peacefully or with significant reprogramming of the recalcitrant? I don’t think you have to worry much about bloodshed, that is so last century. There are far more civilized and tidy ways to rid ourselves of the unwanted and their thinking today.

In our recent vision of democracy, we let age be the only determinant of who has the right to vote. In the first democracy, ancient Greece, Socrates was loath to allow everyone to vote. He thought only those who had thought about issues deeply and rationally should be allowed to vote.

In our rush to assure we don’t discriminate due to all the things in the modern world that are identified as discriminatory, we have forgotten the thoughts of Socrates. But corporate social media and the mainstream press have not forgotten. They have capitalized on it. In fact, the Left has gone so far as to be totally inclusive, bringing non-citizens, the dead and the duplicates registered in multiple voting precincts into the voting booth.

Unspoken by this manipulative crowd is this: The shallower your understanding of the issues and the less you understand history, the easier you are to persuade to vote as these manipulators desire.

They loathe the educated, the questioner, the prober. Figuratively, they want you to take their pre-marked ballot into the voting booth without question. You are not to think, but rather just carry their selections to the ballot box. The more you resemble the ticket-taker at the ballpark, the more they like it.

For those of us who are critical thinkers, they turn the phrase “critical thinking” on its head and accuse us of not being critical thinkers. It is double-speaking, as is the entire charade they propagate. Want to make your own voting decisions? “Absurd! Here, let me ‘educate’ you!”

Socrates was tried by a jury of 500 Grecian citizens who narrowly condemned him of being a bad influence on the youths of Athens. His punishment was death.

In a way, the president elected in 2016 was a true critical thinker. He questioned everything and did so out loud and outrageously. The elitists and their predecessors who have run the cozy arrangements in Washington, D.C. for the last century were aghast that such an outsider could achieve a position endangering their little game and stopping them from pulling the figurative wool over the eyes of the marginally engaged voter.

He must be stopped. His jury has not been one of 500 Athenians, but one of legions of elites who cannot stand the thought of losing their places of privilege.

It is remarkable that he has withstood the onslaught and, should this old earth last a few more centuries and the study of history is not outlawed, the machinations of these times will be studied and restudied from every side for as long as we have studied the life and times of Socrates thus far.

So, if you read this column before you vote, ask yourself a question. Are you really engaged in what is going on or are you just following voices without doing your own investigations?

Ask yourself a second question. Is it just possible the voices you have been listening to have not told you the whole story, that they are withholding facts damaging to their position?

If you are reading this column after the election, are you happy with the personal investigation you conducted before voting? If given a chance to vote in the future, will you prepare in a different way?

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.