And the beat goes on. Not in the adult lifetime of this writer has there ever been a time such as now when both the government and the private sector have become so totally leaderless that the nation is in danger of economic collapse and/or a rapid increase of speed downward toward the now almost certain socialism that the liberals have craved for so many years. In the private sector, greed and stupidity on the part of both management and labor are the culprits. In the government sector, corruption and stark incompetence are the culprits.
Why did the banking and mortgage institutions fail, precipitating the domino-effect with respect to other enterprises? They failed because the members of Congress collectively sat on their well-appointed behinds and completely deserted their oversight responsibilities, whether for reasons of financial or campaign-fund gains or out of sheer petty politics. Who knows? In the Senate, for instance, every trick imaginable and reams of hours of time have been expended in unsuccessfully trying to nail somebody in the administration for the firing of a handful of federal prosecutors, notwithstanding that they can be fired without cause at any time, as proven when Bill Clinton sacked all but one of them on the same day in 1993 without so much as a fare-thee-well.
The nation's welfare is not the primary interest of this Congress. This was proven baldly in the recent elections throughout the nation. The filling of campaign chests is the primary interest. The fact that Obama could actually raise $743 million just to run for one office is both unbelievable and intolerable. This kind of waste also speaks ill of a nation whose "little" people are so gullible that they give of their hard-earned cash, not realizing that the "fat cats," institutionally and individually, on the prowl for whatever they can gain actually put up most of the money. Everything in Washington and state capitals is bought and sold, and the "little" people are not in the market.
Predictably as the result of "nobody being at home" in both government and private enterprises, the nation, cursed with bickering partisans in Washington, has wandered into the wilderness and seems slated to remain there for a long time...just like the Israelites of the Old Testament, who fell into bickering on practically the day after Moses led them from slavery in Egypt and, as a result, were banished by God to the wilderness for 40 years, or roughly until the generation of the ingrates had passed on.
Now, it appears that the Congress is about to appoint some sort of "automobile czar," thus socializing the car industry, just as it is already in the business of running the banking systems, this latest, of course, after throwing billions of taxpayer dollars into the car-makers' enterprise as it did with the banks. When Obama and his democrat Congress gear up in January and begin enacting their social programs, it's gangbusters time. The nation can survive by printing money for just so long. Sooner or later, the bottom will disappear and the government will own everything and tell the citizens exactly what they can and cannot have or do.
This is not what the founding fathers had in mind. They set up a very small federal government but succeeding generations, especially in the last 75 or so years, have made it into the end-all and be-all of everything. In the last 35 or so years, it has operated on the basis of political correctness, not to be mistaken for civil rights, the ultimate philosophy/result of that concept being socialism. As the nation is driven toward this political form – mistakenly believing it the course of least resistance – personal incentive will be deadened and all the desired results accruing to the using and compensating of the brightest and the best will not materialize.
Soon, drastic budget-cuts will be the "wailing cry." The cuts will come primarily from the defense budget, this administration being the first one since at least the 1930s to be composed of a president and vice president with not a smidgeon of military experience, not even boot camp, nor have the House Speaker and Senate majority leader worn the uniform. The magic word now is "diplomacy," as if actual threats to national security can simply be "talked away" at the very time when governments run by Islamic fanatics have vowed to rule the world and apparently intend to use terrorism as the main weapon until such time as they can raise actual armies.
Not even the Great depression of the 1930s, infinitely worse than the current recession, propelled the nation toward socialism. It remains to be seen whether or not current lawmakers have the intestinal fortitude to take a stand in favor of the free enterprise system that has made this nation the envy of the world. Getting rid of a majority of bumbling legislators through the electoral process seems impossible, so one can only hope.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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