I haven't posted on this site for some time due to some of the official posts by the mangers of the originating organization; however, I have recently been asked to share one or two of my blogs here once again so here goes nothing.
My blog is located here: https://wordpress.com/my-blogs/45304343/posts/ ; If anyone would like to see others posted here just let me know in the comments.
Elected Official vs Citizen
There is a power struggle in this country and I believe the Conservatives are fighting the wrong battles. Let us look at the primary concern of the Conservative citizen. It can be stated in a simple phrase – Constitutional Freedom. Then there is the primary concern of the elected official. To be re-elected. To remain in power. We conservatives too often forget that in our strategies. One prevailing definition of the liberal philosophy can be concisely stated as “Moochers electing looters to steal from producers”. Now let’s think about the mind set of of the citizen liberals and how it came about. Those of you over forty or so can probably remember a time when the primary concern of everybody was providing for the family. Even beyond the family. We didn’t go around looking for people to help us, we went around looking for people to help. Being forced to take ‘charity’ was something to shame a family. Helping each other out in times of need was not charity. It was part of the ‘you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours’ philosophy.
I know this began to change when Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1938, but it hadn’t taken a firm hold on the most of the people for a couple of generations. By then we had the Roosevelts with the “New Deal” and so on. But the real rapid change came with the federal government intrusion into the local classroom. The beginning of the indoctrination of children into the idea that the government should provide more for the people. And we have the beginning of the welfare state, but more importantly, the start of the welfare mind set in the lazier of our citizens. This soon began to take over the mind set of many more than just the inherently lazy. The people that saw the government largess going to the undeserving decided they wanted in on the deal.
OK How does all of this tie into the elected official? Those stalwarts saw an opportunity to establish personal fortunes and more importantly grab huge amounts of power. They could assure themselves minimum work, high paying jobs for longer periods by taking from all the people and then giving it back to some of them. Obviously taxes and spending had to go up, but so what? We had the strongest, richest economy in the world! Never mind how we got there, surely it could withstand the federal onslaught of a few extra taxes and just a little more inflation. How about a minimum wage? That would help for a while. At least until the cost of goods rose so the country’s employers could recoup the extra burden placed upon them. Didn’t take all that long for that to happen so every few years the liberals ‘boost the economy with a new minimum wage law. Of course the people would only see that they were taking home more income thanks to those marvelous people they had elected. Why, of course they deserved to vote themselves a pay increase!
Now they (those elected officials) knew they were on to something. Shucks, they couldn’t even begin to understand the growing concern of those stupid Republicans who insisted they were not doing the right thing. Why care about the right thing when the elections were what really mattered. Get more power every time you got reelected! Committee chairmanships! Select committees that got the media’s attention thus got them free advertising. Circulation went up and the media moguls saw the bottom line go up when they supported this stupidity. Who cares about the Constitution when money and power are at stake?
And so the great divide began. We had a division of power in the the very houses of government that were supposed to be unified in obeying the Law of the land, The Constitution of the United States. Now we didn’t just have the two party system we had a four or fice or six party system. There were the normal Democrats and Republicans with the conservatives in both and the liberals in both and now the Ultras on both sides that try to take everything to the extreme.
I began this blog with the suggestion that the conservatives were fighting the wrong battles. Now I that have attempted to explain how we got here let’s see if I can find a way back to fundamental freedom and self reliance that made us the richest most powerful country on this woebegone planet. That is, I admit, a tough job. First we have to understand how our freedoms are being usurped.
With the obvious exception of the pathological narcissist tyrant and his self admitted fascist agenda that sits in the Oval Office, the legislature and the Supreme Court have scrupulously avoided violating the Constitution. Don’t get me wrong there has been some creative interpretation of that sacred document, but no violation. Congress, for the most part, seems content to ignore the violent and constant violation of that tyrant I mentioned, but they have not done anything to violate the constitution. They have tried. I will mention the gun control attempts for example, but that didn’t get very far on the national level. So the Constitution seems to hold up, again for the most part. We do need to plug some holes. The welfare clause needs to be tightened up. Just adding a phrase similar to ‘if the states can do it the feds can’t’ would be sufficient. That would end obamacare, etc. Of course we need to educate the people. Now I mean educate, not rant! We have some very good minds in our midst that could suggest how we circumvent the lame stream media with success. Put ‘em to use.
We already have a single payor insurance system that the government has been running for years. Ask any vet how he/she likes it. But be prepared for a long listening period. What in the hell would allow anyone that is familiar with that snafu to believe the government could run our entire health care system. BUT … the average citizen is not aware of that boondoggle. So educate them. Don’t rant. Raise he minimum wage? Educate about the inflationary costs of that stupidity. It would help the government collect more taxes from the poor.
There are many areas in which the conservative groups are stubbing their own toes. Don’t believe me? Look at the election results and a host of other indicators. I certainly don’t have all of the answers, but I can read critically and make a real try to understand my fellow man.
I try to keep these blogs around 1000 words because I know the attention span is limited for many in this day and I have now gone over that, so let me write a finis to this one. If I get any feed back indicating the desire for more on this subject I will continue with another post.
