By Nathan Barton

We are now in the latter part of July: the old party conventions are starting, and the last stages of the 2016 General Election in the Fifty States will unfold. The actors are being finalized, the stage is being set.

But does it really matter? Johnson and Weld, Castle and Bradley, Stein and ???, all have chances of winning measured in levels of probability of well under 10,000 to 1. Starting on 20th January 2017, there is a 99.99% certainty that the next Massa will be either Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden (one of the latter two only if there is some sort of coup). And yes, these people are very different from each other. Just as the many candidates for 425 US House seats, and 33 or 34 US Senate seats, are all very different from each other.

But will it really matter? Will the course of the Fifty States, and the various territories, and of the 200+ nations of the world be truly significantly different if it is Clinton rather than Trump that heads the regime? If it is a Republican rather than a Democrat who is Speaker of the House?

Probably not: because it will still be the Federal Government, and only a thousand or fewer of millions of officials will change. The laws will be tweaked, a few more freedoms lost, a few more (or less) dollars stolen now instead of later, a few more points of value taken away from those little green pieces of paper, a few more or less soldiers (and civilians) killed, maimed and wounded in various places around the world. But drastic and significant change is NOT going to be made because of which person’s name you tick a box by in November.

But change WILL come: it will come through the daily actions of everyday people: buying and selling, teaching and learning, speaking and listening, inventing and using those new inventions. Whether their actions (OUR actions!) are wise or foolish, silly or serious, self-serving or altruistic.

So it behooves us to spend a lot more time thinking about what we need to do – and then doing the things – to make our own lives and those of our families and friends and customers and employees and neighbors – but especially OUR lives – better. Working around the system, pushing back against the system, and changing the system a little bit every day, just in our own sphere, for the better.

That DOES matter – a whole lot more than whether it is The Donald or Miz Hillary standing up there on that throne-like platform on a cold January day – or whether Obummer or Uncle Joe decide it is time for a change and try to sweep away all the deadwood.

Live free. Enough is enough.