* * *
* * *
In the early 1980s I became familiar with a cartoonist
whom I considered to be one of the cleverest men I had read in a very long
time. I collected as many of his pieces as possible. When I showed a friend his
work, however, she diffidently sniffed, “This is nonsensical;” a common
response from anyone too dense to understand erudite wit.
My judgment was vindicated within a few years when the
first of Gary Larson’s collections was released, and by the 1990s it was almost
heretical not to peruse his daily entry.
Perhaps the quintessential frame in his canon depicts a
traveling salesman at the door of a hapless moron. In the peddler’s hand is a
thick pamphlet which advertises “Double Your IQ or No Money Back!” to which his
mark responds, “Well, I dunno … Okay, sounds good to me.”
Is there a better epitaph for modern America?
(*SILENT PAUSE*)
Watching the election results [recently] tallied in
Mississippi, one [shouldn't] doubt it.
For where else do people complain so much about their
state of affairs yet do so little to alter them?
The hoary phrase goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing
over and over while expecting different results.” If so, then irritability is
having to endure rubes falling for the same slogans again and again. Therefore,
I have devised the following elaborate theorem - which offers at least some
possibility of reprieve:
Never under any circumstances cast a ballot for an
incumbent.
* IF ONLY IT WERE THAT SIMPLE. THAT SAID... TERM LIMITS
ARE INDEED ONE OF MY "ANSWERS" TO THE POLITICAL REALITY AT THE HEART
OF AMERICA'S PROBLEMS.
Oh, we’ve all heard the arguments (usually from someone
desperate to cling to his seat). "Our district will lose seniority. Our
system needs to be guided by experience."
("Our long-suffering plutocrats have served us for
too long to be cast aside by any save death itself.")
(*SNORT*)
While seniority is certainly important on the Hill, as
soon as your party is a minority in the body, those prime appointments to
chairman are lost and said savior of his district becomes another warm body in
an easy chair, gathering time. So this is a dubious argument at best, and vapid
if you are a Republican in the Senate or, to a lesser degree, a Democrat in the
House.
As for experience, it is many of those learned hands that
have rammed the ship of state upon the shoals. They say that for your first two
years in the House (in other words, your entire first term) you do nothing but
listen. Then, if party bosses think you can hold onto your office, they might
listen to what you have to say around year six. There are exceptions, but very
few. On the contrary: almost any problem from the VA to Iraq is the
responsibility of incumbents elected... approximately 1992 or before.
(Neophytes couldn’t possibly do worse than what we have
now.)
Most pathetic of all lamentations from those with
precarious seats is the claim they have been such fine stewards of the public
good that we should overlook a terrible record and re-elect them because they
are decent people.
(*SNORT*)
Many a fool falls for this nonsense, and few realize the
commendation they received when their high school team played the regional championship...
the congratulatory note for winning prize porker at the state fair... and even
birthday cards to centenarians... are more attributable to a good staff than a
good statesman.
(Why is it that because someone is a nice fellow to
little old ladies it should follow that he won’t stab everyone from steel
workers to sub-prime mortgage victims in the back?)
Given the condition of the government today, radical
change needs to occur.
(*NOD*)
Given the populace’s inability to comprehend that
Washington is a swamp which most soils those who remain in it the longest,
there is but one solution. Never vote for an incumbent. Vote for anyone else.
* AGAIN... JUST NOT FEASIBLE. (BUT TERM LIMITS ARE! EVEN
IF IT REQUIRES A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ALLOW THEM!)
[T]he first draft of this essay included the quip,
“Though no mass murderers.”
(*PAUSE*)
But what is American immigration policy if not
slow-motion mass murder? Many of those “children” on the border getting free
room and board (and cots upon which to fornicate with one another) aren’t
exactly Norman Rockwell models; they’re hard-core gang members.
The Obama Administration recently freed from its custody
36,000 illegals who between them had been convicted for 88,000 offenses, many
of them violent, to roam a street near you, where they apparently shall be at
liberty to steal, rape, and murder some more.
Right now, almost as this is being read, somewhere in
Washington there are meetings about how to pass amnesty without publicly
referring to it as such.
(*NOD*)
The main thing, even in spite of the Cantor upset, is "whether
it is wiser to piecemeal it past citizens or shove it down their throats all at
once. Will the average American get fed up before the legislators get it all
through, thus arguing for a single bill, or can it be leveraged with enough
district goodies to keep the people placated long enough to pass multiple
bills?"
What does the typical voter do about these and a hundred
other outrages?
Nothing.
Which is precisely what they will be left with sooner
than they realize, and it’s exactly what they deserve: double the abuse and no
accountability.
There is not a single incumbent worthy of your vote; and
even if there were, those genuinely concerned for the state of the nation are
approximately one in one hundred among the 535 voting members of the House and
Senate. These are ridiculously bad odds no matter what the game, and this one
has very high stakes.
Your representative isn’t the exception, he’s the
problem. As long as you vote for him, so are you.
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