I didn’t vote for Obama. I didn’t vote for McCain either. Still, I will admit to a certain giddiness at seeing history being made as America voted it’s first black (well almost black) president. I hoped, in my heart of hearts, that Barack was sincere about “change,” though, frankly, I’ve heard the rhetoric before.
I hoped he was sincere but he wasn’t. He isn’t.
Now, after some time has passed I realize that he’s basically “business as usual” and, yes, he is a socialist. I don’t consider that to be just my opinion and it isn’t meant as some sort of slur. I mean it as a literal fact. I’ve read socialist authors from Marx & Mao on down and apparently so has Obama.
In the 60’s I actually thought most of that tripe was cool. Apparently Barack still does.
He was supposed to be articulate and urbane. He’s neither.
Without his prompter he hums and haws and stammers in a most infuriating way, generally forcing me to turn off whatever it is he’s trying so hard to say. I read about it later with all the “uhs” and “ums” and interminable pauses excised.
He has surrounded himself with holdovers from the Chicago political machine, known worldwide as being bullying, self-serving ideologues born and bred knee-deep in corruption.
Now were embroiled in an argument about something that doesn’t even exist, a so-called national health plan. The president, however, doesn’t have a plan. He’s letting congress come up with one. Yikes.
Let’s make this easy: My representatives have an excellent health plan for themselves and their families. I want that, too.
Like the so-called stimulus bill which ran into hundreds and hundreds of pages which, as we all know, less than a handful of our elected representatives bothered to read, the health bill seems to be written in sand. A work in progress, depending on which way the wind blows.
(Tell me please how it is that anyone elected to serve their constituents, be they Republican or Democrat, how is it that they can vote with good conscience on any piece of legislation, either yea or nay, without reading it? Doesn’t that sound like the punch line to an old joke?)
Now, back in high school, I wrote book reports on books I’d never read. I was so good at it I finally achieved the ultimate by writing a report on a book that had never been written. I made up the title, the author, and the plotline. Yes, I got away with it. And I was rewarded with a very high grade.
Congress gets away with passing what, for all they know, is fictitious writing. Instead of getting a good grade, they then simply vote themselves a self-congratulatory raise.
It is time for a reality check and for us to all admit what we know is the truth: No bill should be 1000 pages long.
No bill should be 800 pages long, or 600 pages long. No bill should be even 50 pages long.
Ten pages. Tops. The Law of Moses, which daily affects the lives of millions of Christians, Muslims, & Jews was written in ten lines. It has served us well for several thousand years.
Perhaps we’ve passed enough bills into law already. After all, there is an industry of lawyers and legal assistants in the nations capital who do nothing more than research to find out if new bills under consideration conflict with prior legislation or already exist in a previously passed law.
When you have so many laws that it takes a highly-paid team to make sure we’re not collectively stepping on our own legal toes, perhaps it is indeed time for a change. Maybe for the next two or three terms the house and the senate should start cleaning out our nation’s legal closet and start having late night sessions repealing laws.
Let’s get things back to basics.
Starting with term limits.
And if our representatives will not limit terms themselves, we the people should make very, very sure to do it for them.