"Jim -- Did you catch that show last night?
Pam -- No, I don't watch TV. I have a life.
Jim -- Really? What's that like?
Pam -- It's nice. You should get one.
Jim -- But then who will watch my television?
"
- the NBC sitcom "The Office"
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I'm arriving at a place I never thought I'd get to, politically. Regarding our Congress, I'm now in full blown "throw the bums out" mode.
All of them. Every single one of them - Republicans, Democrats. We need to deprive all of the current incumbents of their jobs (or, I guess, to face the sad realities of our system, the best we can do is 100% of our representatives and 33% of our senators in the next election). I realize this includes the few that are doing a good job. That's how unhinged I've become. I realize that if I stick to this, I'll have to vote Democratic in 2010, since most likely my Republican congressman will be running for re-election. I don't know if I can do that (vote Democratic) - since I will most likely disagree on nearly every point of social and fiscal policy with any Democratic congressional candidate offered.
But I also picture the look on Congressional faces on that unlikely day when a majority of them lose their bids for reelection. Would this, perhaps, focus the new ones and any incumbents that remain on jettisoning the nonsense they are subjecting us to and, instead, getting back to the business of running the country with economy and wisdom?
I think it's time. All of them must go [cue Jack Shephard voice: Every. Single. One. Of. Them.]
Below are two current reasons, of the hundreds that I could choose from, why I feel this way, in no particular order:
First: now that Congress has fixed our economy, they have time to examine the NCAA BCS system. Am I the only one who thinks this proves they aren't serious?
And, secondly, there is their ongoing assault on the rule of law, which also illustrates their fundamental lack of economic understanding. In particular, they don't get the fact that markets get very volatile when Congress is charging around like a bull bear in a china shop retroactively punishing people who have done nothing illegal. Markets like the rules of the game to stay relatively stable, and they get very jittery when the rules start changing, especially when the change is politically driven and at the whim of our jellyfish-spined, bullying political class. Good luck.
Yet the AIG bonus episode, the administration's one true disgrace so far, will not soon be forgotten.I realize that this post is more a rant than a well-thought-out argument. I also realize that (pardon the P.J. O'Rourkian french here) ". . . every Government is a parliament of whores. The problem is, in a democracy, the whores are us."
Tim Geithner is rightly on the hot seat for saying he didn't know about the bonuses until just weeks ago -- because he should have quelled this furor before it ever got started. Instead he played dumb and climbed aboard the outrage bandwagon -- and let Mr. Obama do the same.
There is not a shred of justice in the hysteria that followed. As AIG chief Ed Liddy explained on the Hill last week, the people receiving retention bonuses were not the same people who launched AIG's unhedged housing bets that brought the company down. Those people were gone. Their pay is already being clawed back.
Those who remained had been asked a year ago to stay and work themselves out of a job. In accepting the terms offered to them, they committed no offense (say, failing to pay taxes). Their only crime was possessing marketable knowledge -- all the more marketable because of the opportunity for hedge funds and other counterparties to profit from AIG's distress. Had the company submitted to Chapter 11 rather than a government takeover, a bankruptcy judge might well have authorized identical incentives to minimize losses and maximize recovery for legitimate stakeholders.
. . .
But the biggest lesson here is the old one that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance -- beginning with insistence on the rule of law. Americans clearly cannot trust their elected officials to defend their rights and interests, or care whether justice is served, when the slightest political risk might attach to doing so.
Which brings us back to Mr. Cuomo, whose office has been implicitly threatening to publish names of AIG employees who don't relinquish pay they were contractually entitled to.
Mr. Cuomo is a thug, but at least he reminds us: It can happen here.
Realizing all that. I still say.
Throw the bums out. All of them.
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Comments on "All Of Them":
2. Andrew
- 03/25/2009 11:06 pm CDT
The government has zero competency when it comes to money. Plain and simple.
Where in the Constitution does it say that two parties get to own the electoral process, and that they get to deny anyone else a place on the ballot?
The two-party system occurred naturally. If we want other parties in office, we have to elect them. When third-parties don't get on the ballot, it's because they don't have enough popular support. It requires money and signatures. Unfortunately the problem isn't the government here. "The whores are us."
3. Shrode
- 03/25/2009 11:54 pm CDT
"The whores are us."
Exhibit A - Social Security. How many of us would vote for a politician who said he would abolish it? We've become dependent folks. All of us. And we're fixing to get more dependent.
(Notice how I resisted the temptation to write "Social(ism) (In)Security". That would be immature, so I didn't do that. (For those of you who get it, go look up the word, "apophasis".) 
4. Justin V
- 03/26/2009 3:20 am CDT
One of the issues with Third Parties is that they seem to delve into either Personality Cults or Single-Issue politics. All of the hubub around the Reform Party seems to pretty much die as soon as Ross Perot's fame began to fade, and here in Minnesota, the Independence Party is all but a joke post-Ventura (not that it wasn't during his reign, either). Meanwhile people today are begging Ron Paul to start his own political party, and if he does we can expect pretty much the same results.
The other aspect is that 3rd parties are usually given to single issues -- like or hate the Democrats or Republicans, their beliefs on Free Trade, finances, and defense are likely far more nuanced than the Green Party or Constitution Party.
As for the "throw the bums out" attitude, I'm not entirely against it -- although there are just enough decent ones in there that I'd be willing to hear a long, detailed explanation as to why they deserve to stay.
5. Bill
- 03/26/2009 7:08 am CDT
As for the "throw the bums out" attitude, I'm not entirely against it -- although there are just enough decent ones in there that I'd be willing to hear a long, detailed explanation as to why they deserve to stay.
I've realized that we many of us think our OWN congressperson is decent. That's why I'm calling for an across the board outage. I think my congressman is pretty good. But he's going too. Because if we don't send congress a very, very large message they are going to continue on the way they are going.
6. mir
- 03/26/2009 9:58 am CDT
"One of the issues with Third Parties is that they seem to delve into either Personality Cults or Single-Issue politics." Yes, that never happens with the Republicans and Democrats . . . The best way to send congress a "very, very large message" is not to vote for the other guy (with whom you probably disagree more!) because this only reproduces the current duopolistic system, but rather to actively support a party and candidate which better represents your own positions and interests, whether Conservative, Libertarian, Green or Socialist.
7. Brandon
- 03/26/2009 11:43 am CDT
but rather to actively support a party and candidate which better represents your own positions and interests, whether Conservative, Libertarian, Green or Socialist.
That often doesn't matter, which is one thing I despise about our two party system. In my state, in the last election, no 3rd party or independents were even allowed on the ballot. Just elephants and donkeys. All the way down.
8. Shrode
- 03/26/2009 11:52 am CDT
mir, I think you might be right...
Bill wrote:
Because if we don't send congress a very, very large message they are going to continue on the way they are going.
Bill, I was just thinking about this. And even if we could really succeed in what you are proposing, I don't think they would get "the message". They would interpret it through their own lense. They could think it meant, "You didn't do enough." So the next congress comes in and passes even bigger porkulous bills.
So would a message be sent? Yes. But the pundits would be debating what the message meant.
"The american people are mad. They don't like it when they are financially struggling." That much would be clear, but beyond that it would be murky.
Now if we just got rid of Democrats ONLY, that would be a clearer message to interpret I think. :)
10. mir
- 03/26/2009 12:07 pm CDT
Brandon: "In my state, in the last election, no 3rd party or independents were even allowed on the ballot."
By manipulating ballot access laws to their own advantage the duopoly parties maintain their hold on power. But that is precisely why it is important to support third parties and independents. (We should also not underestimate the power represented by the threat of a spoiler in focusing the attention of Republicrat/Demoblican candidates.)
11. Bill
- 03/26/2009 12:21 pm CDT
Shrode,
While I certainly don't ascribe to the "Democrats and Republicans are both the same" thinking, I don't think just trying to get Republicans in office is the answer, anymore. The problem is systemic - the party in power ALWAYS overspends, always grabs too much power, etc.
The only thing I see good about getting more Republicans in power in 2010 is that divided government tends to work better (last time we had a balanced budget we had it because Republicans in congress were a good buffer for a Democratic president. Government did less due to gridlock and, thus, things got better).
But I am liking the third party idea more and more. Unfortunately . . . what Brandon said.
13. Shrode
- 03/26/2009 12:52 pm CDT
Given this conversation, man is today's quote at the top of this page appropriate!
"Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, The sea, and all that is in them; who keeps truth forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The LORD gives freedom to the prisoners."
- Psalm 146:3-7
14. Brian in Spring
- 03/26/2009 4:41 pm CDT
Yes, I would vote to eliminate Social Security for me in conjunction with a VASTLY simplified (and reduced) income tax.
My problem would be with the 10's of millions of folks currently on SS. I would be less inclined to kick them off the dole because it is after the fact.
The problem with the system is that it doesn't "bank" money. I am paying for my wife's grandparents' monthly SS payment. If I vote to remove my benefits, then that would actually give my kids a break. But when the boomers start to retire in the next few years the whole system fails anyhoo.
Imagine that some 60+ years ago, some congressman was arguing for how this "new plan" would resolve all of our problems with retirees falling into poverty!
15. Justin V
- 03/26/2009 6:13 pm CDT
Yes, that never happens with the Republicans and Democrats
I never suggested otherwise. However, as pop-environmentalist as the Democrats are, they are still more robust ideologically than the Green Party.
Vote for who you wish, however it seems to me that a lot of third-party movements shoot themselves in the foot pretty easily.
I've realized that we many of us think our OWN congressperson is decent.
Since it seems that Al Franken is all but certain to be my new Senator, I'll have to politely disagree with you here :) :)
Leave a Comment:
Works for me. While we're at it ...
To tell the truth, I'd like for us to take away the power granted to the two major political parties.
Where in the Constitution does it say that two parties get to own the electoral process, and that they get to deny anyone else a place on the ballot?