Posted on 06/26/2015 12:53:56 PM PDT by Jacquerie
How often at your workplace have you held your tongue out of fear of saying something that could get you fired? Are you willing to put your principles ahead of your income or pension or do you regularly “suck it up,” and save your muttering until you get home?
Everyone looks out for their interests. Read that again. You and I and everyone else naturally try to do that which best serves ourselves and families. It is called human nature and it has served mankind well since the Creation.
Our politicians are no different. They can’t be different, for as fellow human beings they are as imperfect as the rest of mankind.
Rare are the men/women who willingly risk all for free government principles. One exception is Michele Bachmann. I suspect she and her husband are still up to their eyeballs in debt because she wouldn’t cave to Speaker Boehner. Michele and Mr. Bachmann are the rare and notable exceptions.
Freeper posts overflow with diatribes against rinos, meaning those who campaign on conservative principles and soon go to the dark side and either do nothing to stop the accelerating tyranny or actually promote it.
First, we must understand that most of the chosen 435 of the House of Reps had to claw, grasp, climb their way up from humble beginnings. Does that sound familiar? Didn’t you have to do the same to achieve your level of success? They had to eat many a cr@p sandwich as they endured endless boring time on local school boards and county commissions and dealt with petty complaints from unreasonable constituents.
They are now in the House of Reps and they “made it.” In this heady environment most congressmen think they should be senators and most senators believe they should be president.
What happens to these otherwise good and upstanding people? Like anyone else, they respond in varying degrees to their (corrupt) surroundings. Go along to get along with party leadership and lots of extra power, money . . . are nearly guaranteed. They know their every public move and word is recorded and can be posted to the internet at any time. MSNBC, Politico, Salon, etc, are poised to exploit any unguarded moments. In this environment it makes perfect sense to shut up and avoid all controversy in and out of congress.
Despite the rhetoric at FreeRepublic, freepers themselves would respond in the same manner, and conduct themselves so as to continue their ascent in so-called public service. It is human nature. What you and I do in our workplaces is little different from the behavior of our politicians. It cannot be any other way!
We can admonish pubbies to stand up for the constitution all day and night. We can beat up rinos and blame them for the accelerating tyranny. It feels good. I occasionally take part in the sport myself. However, if we are to peacefully restore our previously FreeRepublic, we must come to grips as our Framers did with the fact that men respond to passion and self-interest far more often than reason. No matter where, in or out of government, personal aggrandizement trumps the greater good almost every time.
Since passions rule, how can they be turned toward the greater good? How can they be directed toward one of the declared purposes of our government, the general welfare?
Me too. It’s political reality and we must operate in reality.
Since you read my post what is the answer?
I was going to say of all the Freepers to write this, you'd be the last that I'd expect to do it, but I held my pen.
I know the Framers expected the politicians who fill federal offices to be imperfect men. They chose to divise divided power to counter it, not to excuse it as "everybody does it."
Madison (densely) writes in Federalist #46:
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole.But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other. The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part. The attempt was unjust and unwise; but it was not in speculation absolutely chimerical. But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter.
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
They called on the people to rise to the job, and warned us on what to look out for. I don't think they meant for us to excuse it as "oh, well... there goes one of us." Madison did not expect a people to stand idly by while a never-ending series of politicians repeatedly abused the largesse of the people until it was too late to act.
Flawed or not, he expected the people to swiftly replace such people.
-PJ
I know you didn’t. I did.
I see no reason why today’s politicians can’t approach their tasks with the same humility and dedication to principle as the Framers did.
-PJ
I was hoping by this point in the posts that someone would figure out that our corrupt governing institutions corrupt the good people that are sent to them.
We can elect conservatives into eternity and our national course will not change.
What must be addressed is how to return our governing institutions to their designed constitutional purposes?
No republic can survive without an element of societal virtue.
What is also true is that in the short 1776-1787 period, wise men came to the conclusion that virtue alone was insufficient to secure freedom. It is why the design of the constitution was so very complex. It didn’t fit any historic descriptive term known to political science. No other system in history so cut up the natural division of legislative, executive and judicial powers.
Since you brought up Madison, recall his “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Bingo. That is the system they designed. It turned men’s passion toward the common good.
You are comparing FReepers to DC politicians, and despite all your other points, you have not walked this back. Unless you do so, then to hell with your other arguments.
<>I see no reason why today’s politicians can’t approach their tasks with the same humility and dedication to principle as the Framers did.<>
Why should they? Few men naturally treasure honor over money and power. I suspect that most rinos entered politics with admirable and virtuous goals. I say they were corrupted over time spent in corrupted institutions. The solution is to de-corrupt our institutions.
Flame away jerkoff.
We send fellow citizens to congress. Deal with it.
You have to ask?
Look, I get what you're saying. But the problem with this country in a nutshell is that people have completely forgotten its founding principles. I have neither the time nor the patience for politicians who refuse to get it.
De-corrupting institutions is one thing. But that's the political equivalent of 'blaming society' for our problems. It starts with the individual.
We need to re-instill a sense of service and honor in those we elect. That's a tremendous job and it may not even be possible. That is how far we've strayed.
And there we are. You defend RINO’s. You insult all FReepers. You fail to make your point.
And now you result to name calling.
I’m still IBTZ.
Until the states are returned to the senate, the national government will continue to corrupt the people.
License and degradation of society is forced from the top. The people didn't demand the New Deal, nor the Great Society, nor Roe v. Wade, nor Obamacare, nor fag marriage . . . these were all imposed with the consent of a senate absolutely disconnected from an element of society as important as the people.
Starting with the third, take Obama's recent outburst to a heckler that "you're in my house." Take the marble surroundings, royal security, the private catering, drivers, reserved parking, first class flights if they didn't score a private jet. we need to dial back the trappings of the office. It quickly goes to their heads, then they get accustomed to it, then they come to expect it, then they feel privileged.
Second, power is an aphrodisiac, said Henry Kissinger. We have to rein in the boundaries of federal office. This requires getting the states to resume their proper Constitutional role in the governing of the country. Diminish federal office.
Finally, get as much money out of politics as possible. I wrote previously that repealing the 17th amendment is the elegant campaign finance reform, because it eliminates 33 of the most expensive elections that occur every two years. This frees Senators from the burden of fundraising, which also removes one avenue for elevating them on pedestals. It also reconnects the states with the Senate. It also trickles down into party bloc power, because Senate campaign fundraising is the foundation of federal party power.
So, start with the Senate with these three steps, and then reassess the situation.
-PJ
Had this decision been made 45 years after the 14th Amendment (1913) rather than today, do you think the Senate would not be in consultation with the House to kick the asses of those five justices off the Supreme Court?
Today, the Senate stands in awe of what MSNBC, Politico, WaPo, NYT and especially Obama. . . etc. say of it.
-PJ
Agree with all. Repeal the 17A and begin the cleansing.
Okay.
If they can’t stand the heat they should not be in the kitchen in the first place. It’s not merely a ‘job’ it is the future of a free people and until recently a defender of what was good in the world. With great power comes great responsibility.
They campaigned on promises to oppose liberal policies. They’ve proven they are liberals.
Fire their useless butts.
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