Resurrecting the Voice of the American People

The Primary and General elections of 2008 have come and gone. And the Voice of Reason lies in state. It went down with a solemn and overwhelming vote for a promised cleanup of this country. What has become of this nation between then and now can only be described as utter confusion. This, in part is caused by the People--not the President.  Sadly, voter turnout continues to display a shameful lack of either patriotism or civic duty. Where other countries--such as those where we are willing to lose our lives to defend their sacred right to vote--have citizens willing to risk all to state their opinion about who their leaders should be, we, for the most part, couldn't care less. In fact, we leave the decision to the very few to decide for us our leadership, yielding our responsibility and our interest to others. What if those who vote on our behalf have values that are opposite to ours? Apparently it doesn't matter. What if those who vote in our stead know little or nothing about how our government works?  Oh well.  What if they are connected to all the things we claim are the problems in our system?  What if they need a translator to read the ballot? Too bad.

It is frighteningly too bad.  In Houston, the fourth largest city in the nation, less than 13% turned out to vote in the November 2011 election.  It was a "sleeper" by anyone's definition.  But sleeper or not, the act of speaking one's mind should never be considered optional. To Houston’s mayor, an incumbent who just won her second term, the sleeper was to her benefit.  After spending millions on her campaign and despite having relative unknowns for competition, she narrowly squeaked out a win.  What would have happened if the other 87% had turned up at the polls? Or, even 50%?  Surveys from before the Primary race showed Parker’s popularity dropping like an anvil—just above 30%, a statistical sign that she would lose the election.  Instead, the low voter turnout may have favored her.  This example is not the exception.  Across the nation, elections have dwindled to virtually nothing.

 In 2008, an election in Utah was won by 8% of the registered primary election voters, which retired one of the most statistically conservative Congressmen in the nation--Chris Cannon.  Excepting James Hansen, Cannon's record included the highest number of passed legislation in the history of the state of Utah. But 87% of the state's eligible voters said "so what?" by not showing up to voice their opinion.  So a minute cross section of society decided for the bulk of that district's citizens who was going to be their Congressman.  While the winner of that race, Jason Chaffetz often boasts winning by more than 60%, it was 60% of the 8% that showed!  Bluntly put, it was The Chaffetz People who decided for the rest of their district who would win because the rest blew off the importance of that election. As Congressman Cannon said it, "Chaffetz people came out and mine didn’t, the people have spoken."  But that is, as they say, history--a history that continues to repeat itself as Americans have yet to recover from their apathy. The operative word is "yet".

While the numbers voting in primaries across the nation in 2008 were still extremely low--a pattern over many previous elections--an undercurrent was building. The Obama administration, liberals and the liberal media (meaning, THE media) act as if that undercurrent is a deadly rip-tide caused by the Tea Party movement. News of their contempt for the Tea Party people is also history.  But a careful look around, across all political sectors, shows much more than a single movement emerging. Indeed, within the Tea Party movement itself, there is a diverse cross section of political perspectives that have come together with one force and one objective--reduce the size of the Federal Government.  Translation: cut the spending, cut the control of states, cut taxes, cut the crap. But outside the movement, splinter movements, and other conservative movements have emerged. It is a focus that has proven to scare the bejeebers out of liberals.  The obvious answer is to label (or libel) the Tea Party movement as a specific kind of people--"Bigots" to divide and conquer, "white" to split the vote, "paranoid" to divert attention from constitutionally destructive maneuvers, "extremists" to prove they are not normal, and "Republican, or former-Republicans" to put a party label on them. Nice try.

If anything, those attempts have only spawned the growth of American activism.  Thus, a new strategy must be implemented to calm the grassroots rip-tide.  That new strategy happens to be the oldest: Fight fire with fire.  Now comes, Occupy Wall Street--the antithesis of anything Tea Party in a movement. Well, sort of.  The movement has yet to be defined. In fact, watching a clip from Steven Colbert, who interviewed, with his classic sarcasm intact, two Wall Street Occupiers(OWS), should put to rest any questions about the legitimacy of this so-called (counter) movement's ability to define itself, produce any viable solutions, or prove it is anything different than the same 'ol, same 'ol in political griping and having a cause without actually having one. To be fair, OWS and past "anti-" protests are not the same.  The Tea Party is actually an "anti-" protest. But even the radical protesters of the 60's--despite communes, and communism, "free love", and free drugs, as horrific as those "changes" were--would not have defecated in public for attention, or stepped in front of moving vehicles so they can claim to be victims, or create riots then innocently look around as if they had done nothing to start the conflagrations. Even the rioters of the 60's, and 70's had the strength of character to claim their role in them. –And despite their liberal and outlandish living--had a sense of dignity. So, while Soros, who funded Adbusters, whose president, Kalle Lasn (a Canadian), started Occupy Wall Street as a social experiment, expected this latest strategy to take down the insurgence of activism from regular Americans a notch or two, it will fail as well. The differences are far too glaring for the public to not easily promote conservative activism over the OWS mess.  Another nice try.

Exercising our voice is the most important check in the Constitution and the most challenging to maintain. The fact is that there are people from all walks of life emerging from the ground sick and tired of an acid reflux government.  The people may not see the ulcers forming, but they sure feel it in the gut!  Unfortunately, there are still far too many Americans willing to blindly go their way without a single care about what is actually happening to their society. It is a frightening paradigm.  Milk of Magnesia has been, at least up until now, readily available and pretty cheap.  

This kind of American is like the cat, who believes that because its head is hidden--and it can see nothing--that its backside is safe when it remains openly and fully exposed. For this American, slowly but surely becoming extinct, their rude awaking is still at hand.  Benjamin Franklin warned that apathy will destroy this Republic as our country's system will not survive if we are careless and cowardly.  That has turned out to be prophetic with our current President.

Interestingly, rip-tides are caused from two opposing forces crossing over and under each other.  One creates a strong push forward from the top while a vacuum-like suction from below pulls everything out to sea.  Thus, riptides are the cleanup crews of beaches and shorelines.  "Rip-tide" may be an apt and flattering description of the Tea Party and subsequent activism of the general population--cleaning up the system. It is no wonder apathy is the worst fear of Founding Fathers such a Franklin.  Without it there is no rip-tide to clean up collusion, corruption, cronyism and so forth. It is also no wonder those involved in the latter fear the upswing in American activism. Instead of fearing the rip-tide, let us help it along with more water to increase the tide for the coming election.

Our survival as the Republic we were designed to be depends on our activism at the polls and in our daily opportunities to speak up and out.

Federal Shut Down not a Solution to Budget Discord

If the House of Representatives does not come up with an interim budget bill, the Federal Government will technically shut down after this coming Friday. Of course, the chances of that happening are not particularly high. But suppose it did?

Proponents of shutting down the federal government rally behind the idea that the federal government is so ridiculously large and the debt toll so debilitating that doing so is justified. But those who advocate this strategy lack imagination to what that could mean. The Federal Government is actually mandated to perform certain tasks as defined in the Constitution. Which means that as much as 'de-funding' is a mechanism for stopping unconstitutional acts from moving forward, negligently letting the Federal Government shut down--including departments mandated by the Constitution are, in theory, unconstitutional.

We know most liberals don't want the Federal Government to shut down. But this situation brings forth a compelling argument by conservatives opposed to letting the Federal Government shut down as well. For one, whether conservative or liberal it is unconstitutional for the Federal Government to ignore its responsibilities to the states for the post office, postal roads; patents, trademarks, and copyrights; protection from invasion or attack, maintaining the various branches of the military--which also includes, by the way, those in harm's way overseas in the newly created war against Libya. A shut down would also include stopping proceedings on bankruptcies, regulating money (that would be our economy), inferior courts (Federal courts in every state), and stopping all funds to states' departments that are not funded from previous interim budget bills. Putting aside whether those are duties expounded upon in the Constitution or not, stopping then would result in stopping state budgets as well. Not passing an interim bill would also include, of course, closing of the capitol.

While it is easy to sympathize with those who are disgusted with the bloated federal government--its size, its cost, and its usurped power--balanced only by its generalized stupor of reason, it is neither effective nor productive to resolving those problems by a shut down of the Federal Government. A shut down is not a solution to the problem of overspending or unconstitutional behaviors. This strategy is like instituting a binge/purge program to loose weight. The problem remains.

Consider these scenarios with a shut-down: First and foremost would not be my postponed letter from Aunt Betsy, but enemies that, knowing exactly what we do--have the advantage knowing that a possible shut down may be eminent--could take advantage of such a weakness. Attacks would not be followed by defense, unless the federal government didn't have to call foreword any reserves, nor promise income not already dispensed through the previous temporary budget to other military personnel.

In addition, states would pay dearly. Never mind the point that many state budgets consist of Federal mandates forcing the States into unconstitutional functions. The point now, is that they are funded in this manner, and there are citizens of various states, that will suffer instead of those culpable. State roads and highway construction and maintenance would suffer. Schools would suffer immensely, since much of their funding comes through money appropriated based upon NCLB compliance. In part or in whole, everyday functions that go thanklessly unnoticed, or cantankerously cursed--but still a thoughtless given, will stop.

A federal shutdown is also expensive. It will lead to the exact opposite result that the shutdown--like a massive demonstration--was expecting to produce. Regardless of whether we want less government interference--and that is the goal, if we look at the directives in the Constitution, the solution cannot be an all or nothing approach to a Federal Government. That would be to step back in time to the pre-convention era, during the Confederacy, when the thirteen states were suffering from lack of funding on the federal level. No services to the umbrella of states were able to be performed. And the states were in jeopardy of attack for lack of protection. Government confusion resulted. That battle has already been fought. That war already won. The solution already created.

Neither the problem, nor its solution, is an all or nothing conundrum. Rather, it is simply a matter of the will to govern according to the intent of the Constitution, void of irresponsible frittering away of American resources. A shut down is the American constituent's lazy-man solution to the problem, for it requires nothing of them, just as it requires nothing of their representatives. The real solution is for Americans to step up, speak up, and inform their representatives that they must responsibly fund the Federal Government or someone else will be appropriating money instead. We cannot afford any other options.