Note: After writing this I perused the writings of the New Mrs. White and realized that I, inadvertently, copied the title from their editorial that ran a few days ago. While our content was markedly different I had forgotten that they used this title. I felt that needed to be pointed out at the beginning of this post. However, I don't think anyone could accuse me of plagiarism based on the markedly different tones of the two pieces. Then again......
Did you watch last night's Presidential State of the Union Address? If you did, you were witness to one of the bigger collections of fools and children in American history. From Obama promising all of us that he's going to use his "executive powers" to move unilaterally if the duly elected Congress doesn't give him his way to The Republicans responding with a gold couch, tea & cookies and a "Hey, we're nice people too!" plea that felt more like the squeals of the last kid picked in a game of kick-ball than it did meaningful opposition to Presidential policy which has, clearly, spun very far off the rails.
It's easy to look at this mess and wonder How in the world did we get here?" to a place where threats are considered OK in the realm of public debate and serious analysis is nothing more than the media looking at their ideological opposites and basically calling them poopy-pants. As a country our politics has devolved into a snarky game of sound-byte laden half insults that aren't, even though they receive thunderous applause from the Courtiers who are desperately seeking attention and acceptance into the ruling class.
The sad part of all this, the part that even I hate to admit, is that WE did this to ourselves. You can't blame the politicians, they're just doing what the polls tell them to do. You can't blame "big money in politics", which wouldn't matter if we paid attention. And you can't blame the media for their horrible reporting, they have profit margins to make after all and won't be bothered running stories that vast majorities will ignore. Nope, this is all on us America, the "citizens" who, as the President stated, "make the state of our union strong".
The fact is WE elected this sorry lot into office, gave them the keys to the Country and then tuned out in a Kardashian-tinged fog while the merry gang of morons on Capitol Hill ran into a playroom and unlocked a Pandora's Box of horrible policy, regulation and restrictions on what was once, one of the freer economies the world has ever seen. The Citizens of New York elected Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who genuinely feels that the IRS should target people for political speech with which he disagrees. The Empire State also elected Congressman Grimm (R-NY) whose idea of a witty riposte is to threaten to "break you (a reporter) in half and throw you off the f*****g balcony" all because the reporter dared not respect the fact that he paid him a great honor by choosing to speak with him first, and the question veered into an on-going campaign finance issue. California gave us the trio of stupid that is Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and human ferret Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) if you're wondering why I'm not selecting any California Republicans it's that they're all so unassuming and gormless as to not matter. Ohio gave us Speaker of the House John "Crybaby" Boehner (R-OH) who has never met a Democratic proposal that he's not comfortable caving to and Kentucky gave us Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who should not be mentioned in the same sentence as "leadership" much less be placed in a position of. To put a bow on all of this: John "Winter Soldier" Kerry is the Secretary of State. Think about that for a minute.
Of course, the easy thing is throw blame at other States whilst giving a pass to your own. We all hate Congress but LOVE OUR Congresspersons it seems. I'm not here to do that because Texas is not off the hook, regardless of how "conservative" we think ourselves to be. Texas has given the world Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) who is less a statesman and more a shock of White hair on top of an empty suit. That said, he does give good commercial. As a matter of fact, if you take a look at the entire population of the Texas Delegation there's one, maybe two, representatives that you look at and say "hey, they're OK". Even then however, the Left looks at those same two and might say "they're the most awful people in the world." And that's where the problem lies, we don't have the ability to honestly take a look at political performance and perform an honest evaluation. No matter how horrible a politician may be, no matter how ethically challenged, no matter how clear it is that they have no clue regarding the ramifications of their vote, there is still a core of partisan hangers-on that stand willing to support them, no matter what.
It's true, the Republicans think that they do a better job than the Democrats of calling out their own, but if they do it's only on the margins. For the most part bad politicians are allowed to hang around no matter the levels of their incompetence IF they reside in a district where there's little chance of them being ousted due to the letter behind their name. The thing is however, you're not allowed to criticize their performance lest you be tagged with an "-ist" for all eternity by their supporters. Stating the obvious fact that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is a barely functional idiot brands one either a misogynist (sometimes thinly veiled) or a racist. Suggesting that Rep. Ted Poe (my representative) is "all hat, no cattle" gets one branded a communist, and suggesting that the President is out of his league is sure to get one ran-up for high treason.
As it stands I'm unsure of the solution to this mess. At minimum, it's going to take the serf class standing up to the political class and their Courtiers (the media) and demanding accountability. At the maximum it's going to mean flushing out the political class both through the election box, and by demanding the faceless, common-sense free, bureaucracy be purged as well. Unless these things are done we're going to be living in an America that's both high-tax, high-regulatory, but minus the scenery and good wine of the Europeans. We're going to be stuck in a sort of dystopian purgatory where over half of the population is dependent on government services, reliant on a third-world style food supply to keep us moving, and working less and less for ourselves, and more and more to keep feeding the machine that is politics at all levels. Even worse, we'll continue to be subjected to the once-per-year dog & pony show that is the State of the Union, and all of the meaningless, vapid "analysis" that follows. Kardashians anyone?
