This will complete my comments on Throw Them All Out—a
well-researched book by a well-credentialed author. Tired of politics? So am I.
But Plato said, "One of the penalties of not participating in politics is
that you will be governed by your inferiors."
Yes, I know it is much easier to curl up with a good novel
or watch a ballgame. But freedom is not free. The right to vote carries
responsibility.
We have a president who
talks a lot about a fair shake, a misnomer for redistribution of wealth. Whose
money is going to be taken? How much? Who gets it and how much? And most
important—Who gets to decide?
The answer is unelected bureaucrats and crooked and
ignorant politicians. Think about
that before you support Marxism hidden under terms like “a fair shake”. This has never worked at any place or time in
history and never will.
To paraphrase Benjamin
Franklin, “Those who would sacrifice liberty for a little security deserve
neither.”
If we really want a “fair
shake” for everyone, how about starting with politicians? Let’s make them live
under the same laws that the rest of us have to live under.
OPM
(other people’s money) is the opiate of the masses.
Congressmen and most bureaucrats believe that OPM is a limitless pit of
treasure. But that treasure has to be continuously replenished, and when you force
people to pour into the waste pit instead of using wealth to create jobs, the wage
earner suffers the most.
Steps
we need to take. (Some facts are from the book, opinions are mine)
Step
1. Term limits. Yes, there are some honest and effective folks
who have been in Congress for many terms. But they are scarce.
The system of seniority
and doling out of favors makes it next to impossible to defeat an entrenched
incumbent. Term limits might attract
more folks to run for office for the right reason—a desire to serve.
Step
2.
We must free ourselves of the notion that people elected to Congress
are intelligent and competent. “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose
you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” Mark Twain.
Many
run for office simply because they can’t make a living in the private sector. "I don't know who started the idea that a president must be
a politician instead of a businessman. A politician can't run any other kind of
business. So there is no reason why he can run the U.S. That's the biggest
single business in the world." –Will
Rogers.
Most politicians never
have to leave the DC bubble–never have
to make a living under the laws they pass. Most never have to work again. And
many are just plain dumb. If you don’t believe me, let me introduce you to Joe Biden,
Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Maxine Waters and Harry Reid, just to name a few.
Would you hire any of these folks if you were running a company that had to
turn a profit to survive?
Yet, they have risen to
the highest pinnacles of power. How? Many are elected the first time because of
family influence or money. A partner in a large law firm once told me they
usually select their weakest
attorney, finance a campaign to get him elected, then send him instructions
on how to vote.
By sending home pork,
these unqualified folks get reelected; each reelection garners seniority and
power (committee assignments and possibly a chairmanship), and results in more
pork. And the vicious cycle goes on.
Then there is Barney
Frank. If you had to name one individual most responsible for the 2008 meltdown,
it would be Frank.
There is plenty of
blame to go around, but consider this: A.
Government forced banks to make bad loans. B.
Banks knew they were bad, so they sold them to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the
government). C. Some were bundled
into marketable securities. D.
People placed bets on whether these securities would go bad or not. E.
Big banks found themselves on the wrong side of those bets and we bailed them
out instead of letting them take their medicine.
Frank had covered up
fraud at Fannie and Freddie and pushed
to fund their mounting losses for years. Why? Because the two organizations
were filling his and Obama’s campaign coffers. And whose name is on the bill
that is supposed to stop (but won’t) this from happening again? Barney Frank.
Step
3 Stop
former politicians and their families from lobbying
(one third of the senate now has a
family member who is a lobbyist).
Step 4 Abolish the tax code and institute the fair tax. I came to this conclusion
after three decades of dealing with the code and observing how taxes affect individuals
and businesses.
Step
5
Divest ourselves of the notion that politicians won’t tell blatant, bold, arrogant, corrupt, harmful lies that endanger our
economy and national security if the lies keep them in office. Most of us know that
politicians lie, but I don’t think we can fathom the extent to which some
politicians will go.
The litany of lies in the
current Libya scandal is appalling. We
have heard lie after unrepentant, unconscionable lie without the slightest
twinge of remorse. It has been fairly easy to obfuscate these lies with the
help of a pandering media, but it is not so easy to cover up bald-faced lies on
simpler subjects.
There were at least
four false statements made in the last debate that were quickly debunked by
fact checkers. That usually stops them from being repeated. One stands out to
me because it is so easily debunked. On the auto bailout argument, Romney said
he said one thing in a NY Times Op-Ed and Obama claimed he said something just
the opposite. One only has to read the piece to see that Romney was correct. Left
and right sources agree on this because no sane person could read the article
and come to any other conclusion.
One might forgive a
mistake during a high pressure debate, but the president continued to repeat the lie on the
campaign trail after being told he was wrong by his own advisors. What kind of person does that in front of
large audiences and cameras?
Most of us have been
less than honest more than once in our lives, but the average person can’t
imagine telling a whopper to millions of people—whoppers that can cause great
harm. Every time I hear Jay Carney tell a lie, I wonder how he looks in the
mirror to shave. And what does his mother think?
It seems they are able
to rationalize, convinced that the ends justify the means. I can’t fathom that
kind of narcissism.
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University
of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some
2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply
cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters
discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public
treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the
result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy,
(which is) always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: |
From
bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is
for good men to do nothing." Attributed to Edmund Burke.
So do something.
