Part3 - Food for thought

Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

So far, I’ve only touched on perhaps three issues: Iraq and terrorism (which are related), and illegal immigration. Not much has been done about either due to infighting of a partisan nature between our ideologically different representatives in Congress. But whom do they represent?

This brings up a much larger issue, one that is rarely if ever discussed. Take another look at the above-mentioned quote. Supposedly these people in Congress represent us as citizens, but how can they represent us properly when half of us remain silent and don’t participate in the process? The larger issue is that Congress represents itself in that they are interested only in the perpetuation of power and we, as citizens, are to blame for allowing the career politician to exist. Something (?) has to be done!!!

Walt Kelly said through his comic strip character Pogo, “ We has met the enemy and he is us”. We are our own worst enemies BECAUSE we allow the status quo to continue to exist. It is painfully evident that wholesale changes are needed, particularly in 535 so-called representatives in Congress in whom WE have vested the POWER to RULE us. We, therefore, as citizens, are vested with the power to change things. Perhaps it is time that the career politician faces his or her political extinction.

Crazy as it sounds, it would be well to start a grassroots movement that would generate some true representation. Vote them ALL out and eliminate the political machine into which so much money, effort, and time is wasted on incumbent power perpetuation. How many times in our history have you heard the campaign promises, only to discover in subsequent years that you have been lied to?

We need a constitutional amendment creating a DRAFT!!! Not a military draft, but a draft to create a pool of public SERVANTS (there is some irony here, because servants do not rule, they serve) that would be truly representational. Much like jury duty, our citizenry could be tapped to serve as either representative or senator, NEVER to serve in that position again. Power, then, would be removed as an enticement for the corruption that so permeates our current system.

…Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.

Before I am attacked before using this Biblical quote, it has nothing to do with my personal faith or religiosity, it is simply good advice, and prophetic in its nature particularly when viewed in the context of the political and partisan bickering in Congress. Maybe the draft of which I wrote could bring a consensus instead of division?

Whatever happened to “United we stand”?

The implication is that we are about to “fall”, and we will if we don’t unite and face the larger issues before us. The larger issues can be simplistically approached as a war between good and evil, and broken down further when looking at evil to the enemy within and the enemy without.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.

George Santayana