There are a good many people that just can't handle the holidays. For some people, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years are not times of joy and camaraderie, but instead are days filled with depression and despair.
For me, this Memorial Day was one such holiday. I never served in the military, and I never will, nor would, but the idea depresses me that so many men and now, some women, have died for what amounts to a fucking fever dream. Sure, most of them wouldn't see it that way, they would doubtless feel they died for their country, or for freedom. Or maybe simply for home, and family.
In essence, those are honorable positions that deserve respect. Unfortunately, whether they want to see it or not, they also died to propitiate the power of what amounts to an occupying government, one that has grown ever more intrusive since the days of the New Deal.
Without a doubt, we have had presidents that have gone too far, for whatever reason, beyond their constitutional limitations. Adams, Jackson, Lincoln, McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, and Wilson. FDR was just another in a long line of temporary usurpers, and wasn't even necessarily the worse. Like all the ones before, he had justification for his actions. What made him different was not so much the precedent he established, but the groundwork that made it so permanent. It was kept in reasonable bounds through his and Truman's presidency, as well as his immediate successors-Eisenhower, Kennedy, and even Johnson. It was during the debacle that was the Nixon-Ford era that Roosevelt's governmental infrastructure formed the foundation for the expansion of the unitary executive, but even then, this was a reaction to the increasing expansion and intrusion of Congress into the lives of the American people. It was during this era that American government mutated into the cancer it now is, and as it continues to grow.
People by and large decided, during this era and the succeeding Carter Administration, that they wanted more and bigger and "better" government, and they wanted it to manifest in ever increasing areas of the lives of the American people. They backed off briefly after the Carter fiasco, which led to the election of Reagan. It proved it be an all-too brief resurgence of the ideals of a federal government which is effective in the context of its constitutional limitations yet doesn't go beyond those prescribed boundaries. Once the mess of the previous years was cleaned up to some extent, it didn't take very long for "the people" to decide they wanted to go back to the old way of doing business.
We adopted a mindset that seems to think that government can do all the things we want it to do, and at the same time, if we stay involved and express our views and make known our wishes, and by all means demand accountability, government will work efficiently, and with honesty and integrity. After all, if they don't, all we have to do is vote the rascals out, right?
The only problem with that is, there is an ideological divide between the two parties that preclude such simple solutions. The state of identity politics being what it is, the predilection for class warfare, the constant race-baiting and hustling, the gender identification, and all of the other isms involved help to insure that a sizable proportion of the American people stay solidly on one side of the ideological divide or the other.
It is only when things get so bad that we are on the verge of collapse that a large enough percentage of Americans decide its time to make a significant change. Unfortunately, it will not be in the long run but in the very short term, that people will decide to go back to the way it was. Only this time, we're going to get a different result.
It makes about as much sense as if the Constitutional Convention of 1889, instead of ratifying the Constitution, decided to petition for readmission to the British Commonwealth, on the grounds that George III must have surely learned his lesson and would be a kinder, gentler monarch from that point forward.
Sometimes I think we'd be better off if we just called the whole thing off. Let the states dissolve the union and form whatever alliances they want with each other, or not. The Northeastern states could form their own nation, let the Southern states have theirs, the Mid-West theirs, and the Pacific Northwest theirs. California should be the first to go. In fact, we shouldn't wait for them to secede, we should actually kick them out of the Union now, before they actually drag us down to the gutter. They are to all intents and purposes their own country anyway at this point in the game, and as I said in an earlier post, they are two trillion dollars in debt. California as a state is too big to fail, and I strongly suspect that the next big bailout package debated in Congress is going to be the one to bail out California. It will be at that precise moment that our national dialogue is going to descend into wanton threats and violence. We might even see a return to the old days, when members of Congress beat each other half to death on the floor of the Senate and House.
California can reverse this trend if they would, if its Legislature would adopt sane fiscal policies. The people of California can insist they do this, or vote them out of office if they do not. But guess what? That's not going to happen, due to that ideological divide I was referring to. California will not any way soon elect a Republican Legislature. They might elect a Republican Senator, or Governor, provided such a person is suitably and consistently "moderate" and amenable to reaching across the aisle, but what is that worth in an emergency situation such as is faced by California?
Here's how compromise works, between the Democratic and Republican Parties. It's actually pretty standard, not at all unusual. It happens all the time. Democrats get the programs they want passed, with limitations, and the Republicans, in return for supporting them, get tax breaks for their wealthy friends and more pork barrel spending projects for their states or districts. That's the extent of your compromise. I call it reaching across the aisle to get things done *to* the American people.
It's all about power and influence, and establishing a framework for increased power, through taxation, and through bribery, through the same usual backroom deals, and by playing a game of intimidation on the one hand, and pretensions of benevolence on the other. What you see every day is precisely the reason why the founders did not want the federal government to be given too much power and influence. They knew all too well what happened when human beings are entrusted with too much power over the lives of their fellow man. Even the best of them can fall into the old predictable human habits of greed, exploitation, manipulation, on down the line to in some cases the worse offenses imaginable.
Why would anyone willingly fight a war for the propitiation of something like that?
Sunday Night, 60 Minutes aired a re-run of an old interview with John Gotti Jr., son of the late John Gotti, the old New York Mafia boss. I was struck as to how engaging Gotti was. This guy is really able to sell people a bill of goods. Here he is, a thug, a liar, probably at least indirectly a multiple murderer, engaged in all kinds of criminal activities ranging from loansharking to gambling, and who knows what all else-yet I found myself actually liking the guy, even to an extent feeling some degree of sympathy for him. To an extent, I would be fine with this guy being my neighbor. There would surely be beneficial aspects to being his friend, or at least a cordial acquaintance. After all, this is a guy who, at least at one point in his life, with a word could wield the power of life or death over other people. Who wouldn't want to be on his good side? Just don't piss him off. Don't cross him. If you live on the same street and he has kids with bicycles or mopeds, drive very, very, very carefully. But you should do that anyway, right? See, just living next door to a Gotti has made you a more responsible person.
The next night, last night on Memorial Day, Oprah Winfrey had a special program, this one on NBC I think, about another criminal conspirator and power hungry megalomaniac with an engaging personality and way with words-Edward Kennedy. I was struck by the compare and contrast. Granted, Kennedy is the object of adulation and near idolatrous hero-worship by a very significant percentage of the population. But he is also despised and reviled by as many people. And then there is the crowd who probably look at him as a mixed bag.
I don't begrudge Oprah Winfrey the right to produce programs about whomever or whatever she pleases, but I am amazed at how brazenly NBC solidified their position along the ideological divide with this programming decision. I mean, it would be one thing to air this program on an ordinary night.
But Memorial Day? Come on. This is supposed to be a day for the remembrance of American heroes, of military, or of firefighters, police, etc., who have given their lives in the line of duty. Granted, many people use it as a day to remember family, but basically, it is a day to honor mainly military heroes who have given their lives.
Instead of that, NBC chooses to air a program that sought to lionize, eulogize, and mythologize a man who was in many ways many different things, but most of them not good. He was not a military hero at all, although he did serve in the Navy. I don't think he ever was put in harms way in any event. While he undoubtedly had many good qualities on a personal level, the last thing you could legitimately call him is courageous. This was a man who was so horrified of assassination, he would fall to the ground at the sound of a car backfiring. in a state of abject terror. It was this craven fear that "inspired" him to craft the 1969 Gun Control Act, a clear intrusion and violation of the Second Amendment, and he was always a vociferous supporter if not outright instigator of other successive gun control laws.
So there you have it. Kennedy, who at least was honest enough in his recent autobiography to admit flat out that his philosophy of gun control was an outgrowth of his own craven cowardice, set about to use the federal government as a tool to disarm the American people-or at least those portions of the population of Americans Kennedy didn't think should be allowed to own firearms. That would probably amount to any American who was not a law-enforcement officer or government official or professional bodyguard-such as employed by himself. It would especially apply to handguns a person could easily carry on his person, regardless of the fact most people that purchased them merely did so to protect their home and families, and the vast majority of them had no intention of carrying them around with them everywhere they went. Most gun control laws now also apply to so-called "assault rifles"-a term which is basically defined as any rifle you don't have to take the time to reload after you fire it one time.
Of course, it goes without saying Kennedy was also a killer. Maybe not an intentional murderer, but a wanton killer all the same. He claims he never went a day without thinking about the tragedy of Chappaquiddick, that it haunted him every day of his life. Bring up Chappaquiddick to a Kennedy apologist, however, and you quickly start to hope they are sincere in their devotion to Teddy's gun control philosophy, because you have obviously opened your mouth in such a way as to put your own life in danger in many cases. To be blunt-at the very least, they don't care about what happened at Chappaquiddick, and they resent anybody bringing it up. And naturally, if you bring it up enough, you are eventually going to run into somebody, especially on the net, that's going to assault you with a rundown of a long, long list of Republican misdeeds, as though all of this excuses Kennedy. Or, even more laughably, as if Kennedy by contrast is the only Democratic politician who has ever done anything questionable.
But more importantly, there is Kennedy's treason. In the 1980's, Edward Kennedy, literally and technically conspired with the Soviet Union to derail Reagan's military spending priorities. The Soviets saw Reagan as a real danger to their status quo, even in the earliest of days, and they saw Kennedy, obviously, as a friend and potential benefactor. Kennedy was their advocate in the United States Senate, and he led the opposition on their behalf to Reagan's military spending policies, policies that were designed to improve America's defensive capabilities, which had been sorely eroded under the disastrous presidency of Jimmy Carter.
America was at its lowest ebb in terms of international respect in those days. We had suffered the humiliating debacle of the Iran hostage crisis, following on the heels of the disastrous withdrawal from Vietnam which resulted in the unconscionable massacre of millions of South Vietnamese and Cambodians. The disastrous consequences of our mistakes and misjudgments throughout the nineteen sixties and seventies were that we were, to all intents and purposes, the laughing stock of the world.
Reagan, despite his faults, tried to reverse this trend. Kennedy did not want him to reverse it, he wanted it continued, and it bears repeating, he colluded with America's sworn enemy in order to do so, as a matter of reassurance. I think that is called giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and the only thing that keeps it from being technically a case of treason is that technically, America and the Soviet Union was, again technically, not in a state of war. But that's almost a distinction without any kind of difference, owing to the nature of our relationships at the time. After all, it was called the Cold War for a reason.
I could go on and on, but it would be redundant after so long to give the many case examples of Edward Kennedy further seeking to expand the size, grasp, and scope of the federal government over the lives of American citizens, in exchange for the sops of a few expanded entitlements, and increased privileges and protections-it would really be a misnomer to call them rights-for minorities, and for public service and labor unions, for construction companies in Massachusetts on the federal dole, and now I guess you can add health insurance. Not the concept of health insurance, but the industry. You know, the kind that you are going to be forced to purchase by federal law, and which can pretty much charge you any kind of premium it damn well pleases, particularly if you drink or smoke or are somewhat overweight.
Sure, you will still be free to drink, smoke, and consume fast foods, or so-called junk food. Sure, you don't have to perform calisthenics or any other kind of exercise on a daily basis. That wouldn't be fair. That wouldn't be democratic.
Well, unfortunately, it would also not be fair or democratic to expect a health insurance company to have to sell you health insurance at the same price that it might be obliged to sell to a person who lives a healthier lifestyle. So, if you drink or smoke or you can be demonstrated otherwise to live in an unhealthy manner, you can expect a significant increase in premiums on those health insurance policies which, I must here stress once more, you will be obliged to purchase by federal law. If you do not, you run the the risk of paying a fine, or potentially going to jail.
But hey-that's only fair, right? And, since the people voted for Barak Obama, and for a Democratic Congress-it's, well, democratic, right? Its just our government being responsive to our needs. Surely they will respond to our complaints if we have them and make it an even better bill if necessary. They are our elected leaders, right? Health Care has been a big gaping wound in our national life, a big hole, if you will, and big daddy Barak, he promised he was going to plug that hole, and he did just that. He fucked us good, we just haven't got the kiss yet.
But he will be the first to tell you that the major source of influence for this bill was Ted Kennedy, who labored tirelessly for it for years. It was probably his major project. He wanted the medical system to be fair, to all. So what better way to do that than to create a massive government entitlement? Mission accomplished. Next stop-Immigration Reform. After that, who knows? Cap and Trade, probably.
But I repeat-California is in big damn trouble, and is on the verge of bankruptcy. If the Democrats maintain control of the California state legislature over the course of the next two to four years, it could be the very thing that provides the tipping point that will send not just California, but the whole country sliding into the abyss, and maybe even into civil war.
Of course, like I said, Californians can reverse the current trend by demanding their Democratic Legislature pursue sane, rational economic policies. It should be obvious by now that increased borrowing, taxation, and spending is just digging a deeper hole, but the obvious escapes people, it seems. In other words, its highly unlikely, and its equally if not more unlikely that Californians will elect a Republican Legislature. It would just be too painful in the short term, at this stage.
That leaves only one viable option which is even more unlikely. If enough states would elect legislatures that would declare an end to fealty to every dictate of the federal government, the whole damn thing would collapse like the house of cards that it is, at which point we can rebuild from the ashes. Because at some point, ashes is all we are going to be left with at any rate.
What did our heroes die for? At this stage of the game, its starting to look like whatever it was, it was all in vain.
