Politicians: Wake The Hell Up
From Yahoo News:
On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.
“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”
Really?
Well Tim, guess what: you work for your constituents, not the other way around.
It would appear to this commentator that the Reps and Senators who feel "besieged" by their constituents in town hall meetings might have paid better attention in September and October when they were told by 300:1 margins not to pass the EESA/TARP bill.
Or when they were told repeatedly to NOT try to advance amnesty for illegal aliens and refuse to enforce our immigration laws.
Or when they were told repeatedly to quit bailing out the irresponsible, looking the other way while the populace is looted systematically by those in the banking and other "coddled" industries.
There are a whole host of issues like this, and Congress seems to think (because it has gotten away with it for years) that ignoring the voters is not only acceptable, but is indeed a good idea.
Let me remind Mr. Bishop, along with the other Congressfolk, that the entirety of our government serves at our pleasure, not the other way around. Specifically, let me cite The Declaration of Independence:
....That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness....
Loud voices of dissent and sign-waving constituents are an unmistakable sign that our government has pressed the line of tolerance, and may, if it does not reverse course, exceed it.
And before someone claims that I am some sort of "right-wing nut" or similar, let me point out that the above text is not mine - they are the words of the founders of our nation, who believed that absent consentgovernment does not exist - that's tyranny, not government.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
How close to the line has our government come?
I have no idea, but this much I do know: I do not want to discover that the line has been crossed.
Again:
Stop the looting and start prosecuting. The bankers, lenders and others in the "bizness side" have been literally robbing the people for over two decades. This includes both so-called "captains of the banking industry" and government officials who have looked the other way and in some cases (e.g. OTS) actively conspired to conceal the truth. Taxpayers have lost hundreds of billions as a consequence yet nobody has gone to prison for it nor are there even outstanding indictments. There is no reason on God's Green Earth why Goldman Sachs should be allowed to keep the roughly $13 billion in AIG pass-through money, nor why they should, having elected to become a bank holding company, be able to keep using their "VaR" risk model (instead of the more-stringent BANK risk limits.) There are dozens of examples; Goldman is hardly alone in this regard.
Quit voting FOR bills you did not read - end to end! There's no excuse for this. The Stimulus Bill, EESA/TARP and more - this is absolutely common behavior and it's outrageous. Sorry, there is no emergency that demands passing a 1,000 page bill until every member has read it from one end to the other, personally. If you need to pass something fast then it needs to be simple enough that it can be read in the hour you get before the vote! I don't care what the emergency is - if you haven't read the bill cover-to-cover the only acceptable vote is NO.
Quit spending more than you make. We are here because we have turned into a nation of Madoffs, and nowhere is it more evident than in Washington DC. We cannot have a sustainable economic recovery until the debt-to-GDP ratio is restored to a rational and sustainable ratio. This means much less spending; promising that which cannot be paid for is how we got into this mess.
Represent your constituents and TELL THE TRUTH. We're tired of being lied to, and government has done a LOT of lying. The idea that "the economy is improving" is just one example; go ask your unemployedconstituents what they think of this claim. Fact: The economy stinks and it stinks because Washington DC conspired to blow a bubble after the 2000 tech implosion. You're culpable; take responsibility and do the right thing instead of trying to blow air into a popped balloon!
Our government has become an unacceptable and unaccountable den of liars and thieves, and the people are getting damn tired of it. The evidence of extreme dissatisfaction, which may rise beyond the soapbox and ballot box if this trend is not reversed and soon, is clear. Nobody with a shred of intelligence wants to see the inevitable outcome of a government that refuses to follow the law itself, refuses to prosecute criminal wrongdoing by favored parties, and refuses to listen to the electorate on the issues of the day, instead mollycoddling those who have committed massive fraud upon the public and giving them hundreds of billions of dollars in hand-outs funded by the very people they ripped off in the first place!
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