One of the Gang

If we citizens are truly serious about reforming government at all levels, then we must implement “reverse affirmative action” for all elected officials. Historically, elected public servants have been treated with a high level of respect and decorum. People treat them with respect and deference. When politicians attend a function, they get the best seats and are escorted to the head of the line. Citizens often clamor for the opportunity to have their pictures snapped with elected officials. They cherish the little hand-signed notes that they receive from the purveyors of power.


We often rail at how imperial our career politicians have become, but do we not treat them as our betters? We act as if someone who has a lust for the exercise of power, who has the ego to stand before a constituency and laud his/her own talents, and who has the unmitigated gall to continually ask others for money is a better person than any of us. If you carefully examine the attributes necessary for a successful politician in today’s environment, you will see someone with whom you typically wouldn’t associate. Do you enjoy the company of people who are always asking for money? Do you relish the opportunity to bask in the glow of someone who thirsts for power over you?

If the people are ever to regain the power to govern ourselves, then we must stop investing our politicians with exalted positions over us in our every day encounters. We must remove the curtain and expose the wizard as just another human being who has been chosen to serve. Our attitudes can be instrumental as we elect new people going forward. Today’s officeholders may be too far gone…too far under the spells of deference and privilege. To end the sense of entitlement that elected officials seem to embrace, we must cease our treating them as if they were special.

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Animal House ...and Senate.

Critters are special. I’ve always loved them even when they didn’t love me. When I was a toddler, a cranky old dog bit me under both eyes. Sixty-three years later the scars remain, but I apparently wasn’t traumatized by the incident because I continued to approach unfamiliar dogs while my mother watched with horror. I have always believed that an animal will react in a manner appropriate to the attitude of the human who approaches it. Today’s column is a discussion about animals of a different sort…political animals.


Because most of us are familiar with the stereotypical attributes of various animals, I have created a taxonomy of political types with members of the animal kingdom as identifiers. The five classifications are: Weasels, wolves, vultures, chickens and tigers.

Weasels are easy. They sneak around and try to ingratiate themselves with whomever seems dominate. They’ll drop you like a hot poker if they perceive that someone else offers them a greater reward. Weasels are 100 per cent self-serving opportunists and are unreliable.

Wolves are opportunists also, but are much more aggressive and assertive than weasels. They lust for power and the acclaim that accompanies it. A wolf will use whatever means available to achieve his/her objective. Wolves are especially dangerous when cooperating with other wolves… a pack of wolves is deadly.

Vultures hover above the fray. They enjoy watching the weasels’ attempts to manipulate and relish the spectacle of the wolves destroying their prey. The vultures swoop on the carrion after the wolves have finished their task and consume their fill from the bits and pieces that remain. Vultures are always late to the cause because they circle overhead while waiting for a winner to prevail, then they get on board and enjoy the left-over fruits of victory.

Chickens cannot take stands because metaphorically speaking, they have no spines. Chickens are notoriously cowardly and will not commit to any position that may cause someone to oppose them. Chickens, therefore, prefer the vague and avoid the specific.

Unfortunately there are not enough tigers in Congress for us to design a true definition of them. They are so rare that the Dodo bird is much more common in the halls of the U.S. Capitol than is the tiger. In my imagination the tiger would be a fierce defender of the republic as it was designed. In addition, the tiger would be unstoppably aggressive when he/she detected a threat to freedom. The wolves would be wary. The weasels would remain in hiding. The vultures would never land, and the chickens would become McNuggets if the tigers were on the prowl.

I love tigers. Wish we had some.

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Party 3.0

With the advent of the “Tea Party” movement there is evidence of angst within certain political circles. Recently I have noted conservative bloggers and commentators warning that an effort to form a third party would be disastrous for the Republic. They argue that a movement coalescing into a party as a result of massive discontent with “politics as usual” would inevitably lead to an electoral victory for the progressive statists because the Constitutionalist/ Conservative majority would be divided. Perhaps.


As I approach my sixty-fourth birthday, I can count the scars and see the scorch marks all over my body as a result of my life-long reliance on Republican PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS to do the right thing…respect the limits of the Constitution. To expect ANY professional politician to honor the limits of Constitutional governance is, in my view, misplaced, naïve and stupid. Too often in the past four decades or so, I have witnessed political newcomers rail against the encroachment of big unresponsive government, only to watch them become more comfortable and, in fact, enable the incremental growth of government and its power over us. They transform from hard-charging challengers into defenders of the status quo. Their rhetoric changes from promoting the principle for the reduction of government influence to “I’ve offered amendments to minimize the damage.” They become (literally and figuratively) fat and comfortable as they pursue their lifetime careers from local to state to national arenas while proclaiming their devotion to limited government. They vote to put levies on the ballot so that “the people can get involved,” when in reality they have conspired with their cohorts to increase spending, and they do not have the courage to stop the spending or oppose the levy. The longer they seek office the smaller their reservoir of courage becomes. Their job-preservation instincts overwhelm their notions of servant hood. They plead, they beg, they grovel, and they barter for your votes so that they can “continue the fight for fiscal integrity.” Meanwhile, the budget grows faster than the GDP. Public employee unions become more rigidly embedded in the system. Taxes and fees are necessarily increased to finance the profligacy of our beloved guardians of Constitutional government.

With the socialist/progressive element of American politics, I know what I am getting. They’ll lie and misrepresent their intentions, and distort the outcomes of their ludicrous policies and actions. They’ll promise Nirvana and deliver nothing. They’ll confiscate my property and severely circumscribe my freedom. They’ll demean me, denounce me and, perhaps, destroy me. But I know who they are. I can resist them and fight them for every inch of Liberty’s turf. My “friends,” on the other hand will lull me into subservience with sweet utterances such as “rights, low taxes, common sense, and spending cuts” as they become complicit in the inexorable growth of the big “Nanny” state. It was a Republican who initiated the EPA and OSHA. It was a Republican who enacted wage and price controls. It was a Republican who started the massive federal land grab to set aside millions of acres and remove them from private development. It was a Republican who proposed a massive unfunded expansion of Medicare and increased the federal role in public education. I know who my enemies are, but it’s my friends who have betrayed me…time and time again. Screw it. Screw them. I would rather go down fighting, kicking and screaming…and be right. I will no longer be led and misled by PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS who artfully claim to be my friends. I will be betrayed no more. I am now a Libertarian, and I want my country back!

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Heartbreak Hotel

Ordering room service could be a challenge at the Heartbreak Hotel. This hotel is the metaphorical location for where our nation is today. Founded on the principles of freedom and opportunity, we have regressed into a nation that has become threatened by the government that we have elected. Throughout the centuries and decades since our beginning, we have mistakenly placed our trust in the hands of professional politicians.


As a reformed politico, I can now confess that most politicians remind me of the nerdy little twit in the class who always raises his hand while the “pick me, pick me” pleas ooze from every pore of his pathetic affirmation-seeking body. He or she was the type who would stand in front of an unlit candle while waiting for the light to shine on their precocious little personalities. They want to be liked. They seek to be loved. They lust to be adored. They become the people who appear on our ballots during every election cycle. The office they seek may change, but they are our professional politicians, our perpetual candidates. Term limits? No problem, we’ll just rotate offices among those of us who have been divinely chosen to run…to lead…to run again.

To justify their reasons for seeking political office they must broaden the scope and the reach of government. Bigger government equals a brighter light; big government is the bigger candle that our professional political class covets. Most of us are busy people. We have jobs to do and families to nurture. We go about our daily lives without worrying too much about what is going on in the hallowed halls of the courthouse, the state capitol or in Washington. We continue to vote for the little attention-seeking weasels, time after time, because they’re “nice guys’ or they appear to “really care.” While we have been toiling to fulfill our responsibilities and maybe, attempting to get a little bit ahead, our “public servants” have been erecting an unwieldy, unworkable and un-Constitutional governmental structure. The behemoth is the Heartbreak Hotel.

It is comprised of so many rooms that it is impossible for the average guest to navigate his way around the place. The charges for staying there grow greater everyday, but the quality of service degrades nearly as fast. Meanwhile, the cheerful little spotlight-suckers continue to remind us that they have been instrumental in the construction of this grand edifice. They proudly proclaim that they have sponsored, co-sponsored or supported many of the critical rooms in our hotel of happiness. What they have failed to tell us is that the Heartbreak Hotel was not built on its original foundation. It has been constructed on a slab of deceit.

For those of us who are uneasy while living in the Heartbreak Hotel, we discover that we must leave. For us to continue to reside there would ultimately lead to ruin. We are warned by other guests and the self-serving “staff” that we cannot move outside the hotel and expect to be effective. Maybe they’re right, but dammit…the hotel is unsafe, the hotel is unhealthy, and I refuse to bite my tongue and stay there any longer. So, goodbye Heartbreak Hotel, I’m hauling outta’ here, but I’ll be back with a new set of builders.

Please comment or email: cnpearl@woh.rr.com