Turn the Bastards Out

As an Irishman would put it, I'm just after finishing a traipse through the online Sunday New York Times, and, as usual, I'm left with the feeling that the jamokes in Washington feel themselves to be a ruling elite, as a kind of royalty rather than as our employees. I vacilate between anger and despair at the way our republic has slipped away from us. Augustus had to defeat his rivals in battle and enter town within living memory of his uncle's dictatorship in order for him to assume the rank of Emperor and to reduce the Senate to a mere rubberstamp for his whims and dicta.

The recent uproar over judicial nominations was, in fact, a discussion of the imperial presidency and the role of the Senate as either representative of the People or lapdog of the executive. We forget that Rome was nominally a republic and that its Senate was not dissolved. In theory, the Senate retained its powers and perogatives, but, due to the politician's instinct for craveness, it relinquished its duties and traded them for the perquisites that come from being a stooge.

The logic behind the arguments put for by Dr. Frith and his neocon lackies was that the Senate serves the President and not the People. The first of the blocked nominations to move forward was a woman who--as judged by the attorneys who argued cases before her in Texas--was blatantly incompetent. The second was a black woman from California who believes that there is a higher law in this land than that of the Constitution--the law of God--and who also apparently believes that she is just the oracle to interpret it.

The compromise that was made was a monument to craveness and an abrogation by the Senate of its Constitutional responsibilities. Of course, there is nothing new in this. The vote that authorized the President to do whatever he damn well pleased in Iraq and the surrounding area was a complete abrogation by the Senate of its Constitutionally mandated authority to declare war, as has been every vote concerning military action since the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

That both houses of Congress are overrun with mice and weasels is beyond argument. If there is anyone in Congress who works with any principles greater than those of a card sharp, then that person has remained well hid. And this is why, at long last, I have decided to put forward my own proposal for political reform.

It has occurred to me that the People (to whom any rights not enumerated in the Constitution are supposed to fall--including the right to privacy) have only one weapon left if we are to regain control of the government that is supposed to serve us and not rule us. We have the vote.

Somebody once asked W.C. Fields who he would be voting for. He replied, "I never vote for anybody. I always vote against." Given the current state of affairs, I have come to the conclusion that this is a wise policy.

So, this is my proposal. In the next election, don't vote for. Vote against. Vote against the incumbent, if at all possible. Let's throw the bastards out. And then the next time, do it again. And keep voting the bastards out until the members of Congress and the President himself come to realize that they do not own us. We own them.