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Sunday, June 12, 2005

Turn the Bastards Out

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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.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it time for that new, "Intelligent Resign" program I keep hearing about?

Herm Limit

Leonard said...

I think it might be termed (and limited) "Operation Pink Slip." Our own Velvet Revolution. You know, I always have to chuckle when the neocons talk about exporting democracy. I mean, how can you export something that you don't have?

Anonymous said...

Commies. Instead of whining and complaining all of the time why don't you support this country! Bush won the election. I don't like him either, but live with it. In 2008 you can vote again. Maybe things will turn out better for you. In the meantime, suck it up and have faith in America...

Leonard said...

Dear Anonymous,

Did you even read what I wrote before you posted your pastiche of cliches? If you did, then you missed the point entirely. But let me see if I can respond to you, even though the kind of coward who posts potshots anonymously is usually too timid to return and read the response and then to argue sensibly.

First of all, I'm not a Communist, but I'd guess a kind of oddball mixture of Libertarian and Socialist. Do you actually know anything about Communism? I mean, what kind of commie do you take me for? A Marxist-Leninist? A Stalinist? A Maoist? If I were a Communist, I'd like to think I was a Trotskyite, but that's just the romantic in me.

Second, I don't have any problem with Mr Bush and the 2004 election. He won fair and square. (Unlike 2000, when he plain stole it.) I'm on record in this blog as saying so months ago. I'm not worried about him in this matter. The Constitution, as amended at the insistence of the Republican Party in the late 1940s, will take care of him.

No, this post was about the other collection of knuckleheads who ply their swindler's trade at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. And I mean both parties. Chuck 'em all out every two years until they get the idea that they are our servants, not our masters.

Third, simply because I dare criticize our rulers you seem to think that I don't "support this country" and have no "faith in America." Nothing could be further from the truth. I don't support or have faith in the clods in Washington, but no one should mistake them for "the country."

What you do not understand is that dissent is an act of love. I love my country. I know every syllable of "The Star Spangled Banner" and I sing it loudly, with pride, and often with tears in my eyes. I've travelled our land by car from end to end several times and always marvel at the beauty of its varied landscapes and the nobility of its people. People who deserve to be regarded as citizens and not merely as demographics or chumps.

The Founding Fathers gave us marvelous mechanisms with which to make a society, but those mechanisms are debased when they can be bought and sold like so many pieces of paste jewelry on QVC. And, just by the way, those founders were all dissenters, and if it hadn't been for their willingness to tell their rulers to go to hell, we'd all be British.

So, in closing, I would ask you to "suck it up" and care enough about your country to yowl when your liberties are threatened and when those elected to lead us treat the Congress of the United States like it was a three-card monte stand. That takes guts.

Ginger said...

To Anonymous -
Please kindly put your teeth back in and continue screwing your first cousin.

Leonard said...

Ginger--

Just for the record, as predicted, the "Anonymous" to whom your comment was directed (not my dear friend Mark) has never returned. A coward and a twerp.

Thanks for your support.