Weiners and Losers

Don Boudreaux of CafeHayek.com makes the point that Congressman Weiner has admitted that he won’t leave Congress because he’s concerned about how he’ll make a living off the public dole.  (See his blog here.)

There are barely, I’d say, 5 members of Congress – both houses – who could make a living outside of the bubble of Washington, DC, where the only skill that matters (left or right) is being able to gain access.  These men and women are feeble-minded, arrogant, generally rude and otherwise not fit for polite society as generally known to most Americans.

It’s time to stop being surprised by their silliness and peccadilloes.  You see, they take themselves so seriously that they can’t imagine a life without people kissing their ring every time they walk in the room.  I live in DC and see it first-hand – when the cameras turn off, the smirks and superior posture and tone are revealed, and it’s truly ugly.  Their staffers bring them bottles of water, whisper in their ear to remember to mention so-and-so, phone ahead for their driver, and generally treat them like royalty.  And, their enablers in the press have the same superior attitude, also, by the way.  To all of them, it’s all a big Hollywood/Broadway production, and the voters are just a passive audience – that pays the bills!

In the end, the cocoon they have created for themselves makes them believe they are bullet-proof, all-powerful and invulnerable.  Weiner just happened to get caught by a TYPO.  The rest of them are just as guilty – not of sexual misconduct (who really cares) but of an arrogant disregard for any standards beyond this ONE: what’s a legal (ethics do not exist) way to raise enough money to retain the powers of office.  Nothing – repeat, nothing – else matters to the whole lot of them.

They’re a bunch of weiners and we’re the losers.

We need a House (and Senate) cleaning and a new brand of politicians – and SOON.

Freedom – Can you bottle it?

In every battle over government spending, the left shouts “any new budget deal will benefit only the rich and powerful” and I say “Of course.” That is a fact of power politics. In a struggle of any kind, who wins – the weakest or the most powerful?

That is the essence of the argument for a small government with limited-powers – the more powerful the ruling entity is the more power the powerful have. DUH. Sounds simplistic and redundant – it’s neither. It’s the reason our founders drafted a Constitution that imposed strict limits on what their government could do. We are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic. There are some things a government must not do – distribute fairness is one of them, and that’s true even if it had not been written down in 1789.

Do you want more civility, do you want better politics, more peace and prosperity, the powerful to be less so in government affairs? There is one and only one way to do that:  Lower the stakes – put government back in its cage and let free men and women live productive lives, interacting voluntarily without the government looking over their shoulders.

There is no such thing as a government budget or plan that “reflects the true values and views of the American people” as I hear those same commentators and politicians (Dems and Reps alike) suggest. American values and views are by definition not able to be encapsulated in a government program. They are too diverse and disparate to be written in a statute or law. Those views and values belong to individuals and cannot be distilled into some collective, group-think formula.

You can’t bottle the American Dream and give it away as a government program. You can only live it as a free man or woman, unaided by government.