Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Priority # 6

Priority # Six

Anyone interested in my political commentary realizes that I hold most politicians in a rather low regard. The Greeks believed, and they thought up the whole idea of a democratic republic, that anyone was capable of serving in public office. As a matter of fact they had contempt for those who disdained to do so. (Read Edith Hamilton….The Greek Way and other books she wrote on the Greek civilization. In the 1930’s and until her death she became a cultural icon) Anyway the term the Greeks used for those who would not fulfill their civic responsible was “Idios…which is the root word for our term “Idiot.”

Anyone can indeed serve in most public offices and perhaps the easiest of these is as a Senator or Representative in our national government. Now ideally, once elected to a National Position, one of these elected officials should have as a first priority, “Serving the Public Good.” Instead the priority becomes 1. Getting reelected. 2. Looking out for themselves, 3.., voting the party ticket, 4. Cultivating lucrative and long term private interests, 5. Porking the special interests and their constituents, particular those who contributed heavily to their elections and might again do so in the future and finally, running in distant last place, is looking out for the overall interests of this country

Now the first five in the priority of queue we would be better off if they got no attention at all…only the sixth is important to the voters and citizens and that one, if it gets any attention, it is in a category by itself. Let me define good in political terms…A good, is an action that enhances the condition of the State over doing nothing at all… A Bad, is an action that leaves the State worse off than doing nothing at all. What our elected leaders are doing at the national level is a whole lot of bad and very little good. We are actually worse off for what they do than better.

Many assume that these politicians spend the day writing legislation….that is utterly false….they don’t write legislation, the special interests do… Our politicians don’t, that’s for darn sure. As a matter of fact, as many were shocked to learn over the Health Care fiasco, they don’t even read the legislation they vote on. They don’t see the need to read the bills they enact, because they intend to vote a straight party ticket. Thus, the ability to write and exercise judgment are not prerequisites for being a politician at the national level. The reason they run for Representative and Senator is because it is a prestigious job that pays well and offers a host of direct benefits and an opportunity for many indirect ones that often have a distinct odor.

The only safeguard the voter has is to insure those who run only serve a single term…Hopefully in the first term these legislators will retain a vestige of understanding for the ideals that made America great, still have a shred of idealism and possibly throw a few crumbs in the direction of priority number 6. However there is even in the case of a first termer no assurance this will happen. This is because most come from State Legislatures or political appointments where they long ago cast aside any of the ideals that surround public service. Because of this I must caution voters that simply voting against the incumbent does not always work…let me give you a great example.

One of our most powerful senators started political life as an ordinary citizen in terms of wealth. He was a lawyer, as most are, but there is little evidence to show he ever practiced much…his focus from the beginning was politics. Now politics is like being exposed to radiation…it is being constantly bombarded by opportunities for doing the wrong thing which taken by themselves don’t always appear so bad but taken collective chip away at a politician's sense of right and wrong, good and bad until they can no longer tell the difference. Thus the longer one serves in politics the thinner the defense mechanisms get for safeguarding our basic human decency. Anyway this guy got appointed to the State's Gaming Commission….Now if there was ever any hope for this man, it vanished after serving several years in that job, however after doing it for a while he claims he “Invested Well” made the right connections, got rich and ran for the Senate. I use this example to show that it’s not enough to simply vote against the incumbent….This is not a hard and fast rule….Sometimes the voter must choose the lesser of two evils. If the hopeful served in the past in a state legislature or political appoinment and the incumbent seems to have done a decent job in the first term, one might make an exception and vote for him/her for a second term…. Lawyers are also generally poor choices but the voters might have to live with that one because most politicians are lawyers who couldn’t make it in private practice.

The ideal Hopeful is someone untainted by the political process who actually believes they can make a difference in Washington and will try for a while to do so. Someone like a teacher, or a business man, or a plumber or a day laborer. When I was younger my father-in-law told me. If a politician isn’t crooked when he/she goes into office they always are by the time they come out…..and for most, when they die, they're so crooked their bones have to be screwed into the ground. I thought he was just trying to be clever…

I don’t want to discourage anyone, but deciding who to vote for is not easy and what it often comes down to is voting for the lesser of two rotten choices. Good luck.