A Cry in the Wilderness - Stand up and take a stand!
I am so sick of the 'us' vs. 'them' mentality and I say, by being complacent, we are complicit. By not keeping informed, by not doing our research, by voting in the same people expecting different results, by tolerating the lying thievery, duplicity and low ethical standards of our elected officials (and actually rewarding them), we are contributing to the fact that our government officials no longer have our best interests as their priority.
This is a comment posted on The Lookout by ‘Bobby’ on Friday, April 15, 2011 (originally written by Charly Reese, a retired syndicated columnist many years ago) and I believe it needs to be heard again:
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and
then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are
against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation
and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on
appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does. One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme
Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are
directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the
domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that
problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its
Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally
chartered, but private, central bank. I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.
They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator,
a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't
care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The
politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the
lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine
how he votes. Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that
what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con
regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive
amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker,
who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The
President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to
accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole
responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and
approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?
John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow
House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If
the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree
to. It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot
replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of
incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic
problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you
fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the
federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they
want to exist. If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they
want them in Iraq and Afghanistan .... If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement
plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way. There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they
hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and
advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to
regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let
them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical
forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them
from doing what they take an oath to do.
Stand up and take a stand!
