From: the PORTSMOUTh PATCH
Shea-Porter: No Congressional Spa Until Shutdown Ends
She has cosponsored a bill that would remove the gym and spa from the list of "essential" House services. For full story click here: http://portsmouth-nh.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/sheaporter-no-congressional-spa-until-shutdown-ends-portsmouth-nh
Namazu, Former Japanese demigod, now analyst for AAB
Well, maybe some body in Congress actually reads my missives or Ms Shea-Porter had one of those epiphanies where in a moment of clarity she saw herself and colleagues through the eyes of her constituency. Unfortunately, the fact that including the congressional spa as a non essential government service will require debate is just another sign of the fact that the government has become totally ineffective, and should be removed, all of it, immediately. But the constitution does not provide the American people with a peaceful manner of doing this periodically necessary governing chore. Most American's consider the constitutional right to keep and bear arms as the guarantee in steel against tyrannical government. They are reluctant to use this cure against a government that is merely stupid and inept despite the horrific real damage it is doing and about to do to the American nation. Most people understand that the revolutionary cure wouldn't work in time to avert the damage that is impending. I repeat, using this latest story from the Portsmouth Patch as an example. The stupidity has been allowed to go on too long.
There seems to be no choice but to endure the collapse that is in the works, but work should start now among the American people (no one is going to do this for you) to amend the constitution in such a way as to give the American people a fast response mechanism to incompetent government. A constitutional way must be found for the rapid detection and elimination of lunacy, disorganization, dogmatism, out of control partisan bickering. The solution used by other English speaking democracies is a declaration of "no confidence" in a government that puts an immediate end to the fixed terms of the legislative and executive branches of the moment and requires everyone to stand for election. Even if the majority of incumbents are returned they would be returning with an attitude adjustment. They will be looking for reason and compromise, with a reminder that the people are looking over their shoulder and have the power to peacefully end their political careers very swiftly if they prove ineffective.
Really my American biped friends you must consider the "no confidence" option because your only other option will have to be violent revolution at the next sign of governmental; incompetence. Would you rather have a no confidence vote option or have to resort to hanging the elected officials from every lamp post along Pennsylvania Avenue? At the moment this may seem far fetched, but if the Congress and White House go over the default cliff, the pain will be so severe, manifestly unnecessary,and ill received that millions of people will move from the "miffed with the government mode" to the "kill the bastards" mode. If that happens will the American armed forces protect the status quo, no longer representational government, and fire on the American people? Or, will they like the soviet Army, turn their tank turrets on the powers that be and join the American people. History tells us that their reaction will probably not be uniform and that means that a lot more than assault rifles will be involved and the resulting blood bath will be a lot worse than the last U.S. civil war. And what kind of government would emerge when the blood bath ended? Evolution is better than revolution. This crisis has multiple direct causes that come from both parties and their sponsor special interests in Congress. But it has festered to the point of imminent collapse of the nation due to a constitutional flaw. Pray that the idiots in Washington stumble into some "solution" that at least temporarily averts disaster. But you the people need to address the fundamental constitutional flaw now. Start working on a constitutional amendment that allows for a "no confidence" general recall of an entire government and provides for an interim government while general elections proceed. And push you present idiots who want to remain in office on all of the non constitutional reforms such as term limits, balanced budgets, etc..
Washington's current crop of politicians have demonstrated to you the people how fast a representational democracy build on a constitution designed for a republic can go dreadfully wrong. The evolution from republic, where the electors were qualified by having a stake in the society such as property, or the ability to pay a poll tax, and later such tests as literacy, gave way to a representational democracy over the space of 200 years with various constitutional amendments. Once that transition was complete the special interests took over the elections. Politicians need money to stay in office and they don't get it from the now expanded electorate. So office holding has degenerated into pandering to that large percentage of the electorate looking for a free hand out from the government, while doing the will of the special interests who funded your office holder's election campaign. In the rest of the English speaking world where representational democracy evolved more slowly the same problem of the expansion of the electorate, "dumbing down" the electorate, and the electoral process has on more than one occasion led to crisis in government. This in turn has led to the declaration of no confidence and the electorate gets an opportunity to try again to field a representative government that is effective.
Lincoln said that "you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." This truth is the key to the survival of representational democracy with its tendency to have a universal and hence "dumbed down" electorate. The electorate sometimes needs a "do over" on the government it selects. That no confidence vote comes from the fact that "you can't fool all of the people all of the time" . If all of the people are going elect the government they have to recognize that the candidates are going to package themselves attractively at election time. The electorate is busy with trying to make a living and elect people to take care of the necessary operations of government for them. Because smart marketeers can fool all, or a majority of the people some of the time, the people must reserve to themselves the right to "do over" when the truth becomes manifest. Yes we have individual recall procedures but we need that collective recall procedure. No one individual seems offensive enough to have motivated his or her constituency to have warranted a recall, yet collectively we have a Congress and a White House of dunces about to wreck the nation.
Consider the case of Senator John McCain. The people of Arizona are obviously pleased with him, they keep reelecting him. The U.S. Merchant Marine considers him their Jane Fonda, particularly the Jones Act Fleet. He is constantly sponsoring legislation to eliminate the requirement that our domestic water borne commerce be carried on American flag vessels manned by American Merchant crews licensed and certified by the U.S. Coast Guard. Would anyone really care to see the heating oil and gasoline, and jet fuel transported through out the eastern states, Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and along the Gulf Inter-Coastal Waterway by tank barge in the charge of Mexicans or Chinese? Why would a naval academy graduate even entertain such an idea? Why is it that Democrats from the desert states have often taken the same attitude and attempted to pass the same legislation. Could it be that these states which are not serviced by the Jones Act fleet have no constituency of any size that understands the issues enough to become offended by these proposals? Why do these people even get involved and even seek out committee positions that deal with maritime subjects? As others have said in this blog before....follow the money. The special foreign interests that would like to kill our Jones Act fleet realize it is waste of money to try to influence the delegations of states served by the fleet. Too many constituents have a direct interest in or understand the issue. In this case the special interest money is not worth losing an election over so it is unlikely to be taken. But the desert states offer no such constituency speed bumps. The occasional "no confidence" vote sends everyone back to their electorate tarnished. Sometimes this eliminates otherwise shoe in incumbents who in fact are making all sorts of national mischief that is more or less invisible to the local constituency.
AMERICAN BIPEDS GIVE YOURSELVES A DO OVER! DOING NOTHING AND THE OTHER ALTERNATIVES ARE UNTHINKABLE!
With All Sincerity,
Namazu
http://portsmouth-nh.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/sheaporter-no-congressional-spa-until-shutdown-ends-portsmouth-nh
Shop Amazon - Samsung Galaxy S5 - The Next Big Thing is Here
Well, maybe some body in Congress actually reads my missives or Ms Shea-Porter had one of those epiphanies where in a moment of clarity she saw herself and colleagues through the eyes of her constituency. Unfortunately, the fact that including the congressional spa as a non essential government service will require debate is just another sign of the fact that the government has become totally ineffective, and should be removed, all of it, immediately. But the constitution does not provide the American people with a peaceful manner of doing this periodically necessary governing chore. Most American's consider the constitutional right to keep and bear arms as the guarantee in steel against tyrannical government. They are reluctant to use this cure against a government that is merely stupid and inept despite the horrific real damage it is doing and about to do to the American nation. Most people understand that the revolutionary cure wouldn't work in time to avert the damage that is impending. I repeat, using this latest story from the Portsmouth Patch as an example. The stupidity has been allowed to go on too long.
There seems to be no choice but to endure the collapse that is in the works, but work should start now among the American people (no one is going to do this for you) to amend the constitution in such a way as to give the American people a fast response mechanism to incompetent government. A constitutional way must be found for the rapid detection and elimination of lunacy, disorganization, dogmatism, out of control partisan bickering. The solution used by other English speaking democracies is a declaration of "no confidence" in a government that puts an immediate end to the fixed terms of the legislative and executive branches of the moment and requires everyone to stand for election. Even if the majority of incumbents are returned they would be returning with an attitude adjustment. They will be looking for reason and compromise, with a reminder that the people are looking over their shoulder and have the power to peacefully end their political careers very swiftly if they prove ineffective.
Really my American biped friends you must consider the "no confidence" option because your only other option will have to be violent revolution at the next sign of governmental; incompetence. Would you rather have a no confidence vote option or have to resort to hanging the elected officials from every lamp post along Pennsylvania Avenue? At the moment this may seem far fetched, but if the Congress and White House go over the default cliff, the pain will be so severe, manifestly unnecessary,and ill received that millions of people will move from the "miffed with the government mode" to the "kill the bastards" mode. If that happens will the American armed forces protect the status quo, no longer representational government, and fire on the American people? Or, will they like the soviet Army, turn their tank turrets on the powers that be and join the American people. History tells us that their reaction will probably not be uniform and that means that a lot more than assault rifles will be involved and the resulting blood bath will be a lot worse than the last U.S. civil war. And what kind of government would emerge when the blood bath ended? Evolution is better than revolution. This crisis has multiple direct causes that come from both parties and their sponsor special interests in Congress. But it has festered to the point of imminent collapse of the nation due to a constitutional flaw. Pray that the idiots in Washington stumble into some "solution" that at least temporarily averts disaster. But you the people need to address the fundamental constitutional flaw now. Start working on a constitutional amendment that allows for a "no confidence" general recall of an entire government and provides for an interim government while general elections proceed. And push you present idiots who want to remain in office on all of the non constitutional reforms such as term limits, balanced budgets, etc..
Washington's current crop of politicians have demonstrated to you the people how fast a representational democracy build on a constitution designed for a republic can go dreadfully wrong. The evolution from republic, where the electors were qualified by having a stake in the society such as property, or the ability to pay a poll tax, and later such tests as literacy, gave way to a representational democracy over the space of 200 years with various constitutional amendments. Once that transition was complete the special interests took over the elections. Politicians need money to stay in office and they don't get it from the now expanded electorate. So office holding has degenerated into pandering to that large percentage of the electorate looking for a free hand out from the government, while doing the will of the special interests who funded your office holder's election campaign. In the rest of the English speaking world where representational democracy evolved more slowly the same problem of the expansion of the electorate, "dumbing down" the electorate, and the electoral process has on more than one occasion led to crisis in government. This in turn has led to the declaration of no confidence and the electorate gets an opportunity to try again to field a representative government that is effective.
Lincoln said that "you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." This truth is the key to the survival of representational democracy with its tendency to have a universal and hence "dumbed down" electorate. The electorate sometimes needs a "do over" on the government it selects. That no confidence vote comes from the fact that "you can't fool all of the people all of the time" . If all of the people are going elect the government they have to recognize that the candidates are going to package themselves attractively at election time. The electorate is busy with trying to make a living and elect people to take care of the necessary operations of government for them. Because smart marketeers can fool all, or a majority of the people some of the time, the people must reserve to themselves the right to "do over" when the truth becomes manifest. Yes we have individual recall procedures but we need that collective recall procedure. No one individual seems offensive enough to have motivated his or her constituency to have warranted a recall, yet collectively we have a Congress and a White House of dunces about to wreck the nation.
Consider the case of Senator John McCain. The people of Arizona are obviously pleased with him, they keep reelecting him. The U.S. Merchant Marine considers him their Jane Fonda, particularly the Jones Act Fleet. He is constantly sponsoring legislation to eliminate the requirement that our domestic water borne commerce be carried on American flag vessels manned by American Merchant crews licensed and certified by the U.S. Coast Guard. Would anyone really care to see the heating oil and gasoline, and jet fuel transported through out the eastern states, Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and along the Gulf Inter-Coastal Waterway by tank barge in the charge of Mexicans or Chinese? Why would a naval academy graduate even entertain such an idea? Why is it that Democrats from the desert states have often taken the same attitude and attempted to pass the same legislation. Could it be that these states which are not serviced by the Jones Act fleet have no constituency of any size that understands the issues enough to become offended by these proposals? Why do these people even get involved and even seek out committee positions that deal with maritime subjects? As others have said in this blog before....follow the money. The special foreign interests that would like to kill our Jones Act fleet realize it is waste of money to try to influence the delegations of states served by the fleet. Too many constituents have a direct interest in or understand the issue. In this case the special interest money is not worth losing an election over so it is unlikely to be taken. But the desert states offer no such constituency speed bumps. The occasional "no confidence" vote sends everyone back to their electorate tarnished. Sometimes this eliminates otherwise shoe in incumbents who in fact are making all sorts of national mischief that is more or less invisible to the local constituency.
AMERICAN BIPEDS GIVE YOURSELVES A DO OVER! DOING NOTHING AND THE OTHER ALTERNATIVES ARE UNTHINKABLE!
With All Sincerity,
Namazu
http://portsmouth-nh.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/sheaporter-no-congressional-spa-until-shutdown-ends-portsmouth-nh
Shop Amazon - Samsung Galaxy S5 - The Next Big Thing is Here
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