Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:59:00
Mark Foley: Another fire in Rome
With both sides now spinning wildly, the Mark Foley scandal has become just another sign of something I’ve talked about in the past; the end of the Great American Experiment. Neitehr side cares about the problem: power-mad politicians doing whatever the hell they want.
Mark Foley is a bit of a low-life. He’s not alone. We’ve been hearing about sex scandals among Congressional pages for years and years. Maybe what Foley did is technically, letter-of-the-law legal due to the age of consent in D.C. He’s still a predatory low-life. This scandal, in the greater scheme of things, is a tempest in a teapot. We’re in the throes of something much, much worse.
I believe that we had (note the past tense) the greatest system of governance the world has ever known. We are currently the most powerful nation on earth. Our economy kicks all sorts of ass, we advance the state of the art is every way.
Today.
Tomorrow? Not so sure. We’ve become so deeply divided I’m not sure how we can recover. Every issue splits people into two camps, red and blue, left and right, (R) or (D). Most of us take a position somewhere closer to the center on a scale that runs from “crazy moonbat” to “rabid militia-loving right-winger,” but the truth is, we are still choosing sides. That in and of itself is not a problem. What is a problem is being intractable once you’ve chosen, in vilifying anyone who doesn’t agree with you. We’re all doing it. I do it all the time. I don’t really want to, but sometimes it just comes out..."Those damned liberals! They did X, Y and Z again! So typical!” Substitute “liberals” for any other group against which I may be railing on that particular day.
We are, if not already there, dangerously close to the concept of irreconcilable differences between the left and the right. These political differences are already reching into science and technology and stunting growth and development. It is only going to get worse.
I don’t know if there is a way to stop the coming crash. We can’t keep going the way we are, and I don’t think that a Democratic Congress or White House will change anything. It will simply reverse the haters and hatees. In four or five generations, we may find ourselves at the brink of an actual civil war in these United States.
I blame Lincoln. He broke the back of state’s rights. For a couple of good reasons, sure, but still, by creating a precedent for strong, centralized Federal control, he broke the model. We no longer stay together as a group of individuals who have chosen to band together. We stay together because we have no choice. We’ve been forced into this new model of the United States by power-hungry egomaniacs, the very same archetype we were escaping when this nation was formed.
Mark Foley is not an aberration in American government. I’ll bet a billion dollars that as I type this, some Democrat in the House or Senate is scrambling to try to eliminate evidence of some torrid affair between him/her and some young page.
Never get caught with a dead girl or a live boy...and yet these power-mad suit-wearing boardroom thrill-seekers can’t stay away from the young stuff. Because they can get it. They believe they deserve it. It takes that kind of ego to win elections. It takes that kind of ego to play the modern political game. The election process has been corrupted beyond repair, and it serves only to support those who have reached the marble halls of Washington D.C. These men and women believe they are kings and kingmakers, and we’re the ones who suffer for it.
We deserve better, but the system wasn’t maintained by us, it was maintained by them. Short of a unified strategy on the part of all Americans to vote all incumbents out of office and elect real, honest (or at least people who intend to be honest) people to serve...revolution and a change in how we govern seems to be the only solution. Organizing a strategy like that would probably be illegal under current laws. If it’s not, it would be about two months after it was first announced.
We’ll ever get election law reformed. The cards are stacked against us. We’ll never get things like fair taxation, line-item veto, single-issue legislation to prevent pork and riders, campaign finance reform that works...I could go on and on. We’ll never get these things because the system that they set up works against the interests of the people and serves to keep those in power exactly where they are.
The Great American Experiment is over. This is the decline. Just in case it happens faster than I expect, I’m going to hedge my bets. Fresh water and lots of guns. I might even start praying if the bullets start flying.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, because we’re fucked, folks. In the mean time, we should enjoy everything we can. Read a book, watch mindless TV, have crazy monkey sex, enjoy that new album you downloaded. Waste time at YouTube. Laugh. Make others laugh. Rome is burning and has been for a long time. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
You may as well enjoy yourself.
Posted by JimK at 12:59 PM on October 03, 2006
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Categories: News, Politics, The Federal Government, Things To Ponder
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Comments:
#2 Posted by JimK 
on 10/03 at 03:31 PM -
I get your point, but I think you might be missing a bit of mine - This is only going to get worse, as is our rabid partisanship.
Rome fell for a reason...or rather many reasons.
But yes - I am well aware that lightening up is vital, and I promise no more dark depressing posts for a few days. I’m not wallowing in it, even though this posts suggests I might be.
#3 Posted by Drumwaster on 10/03 at 04:34 PM -
I’ve been saying for YEARS that there will be a Second American Revolution. Before 2025. Possibly sooner.
Republics can only degenerate into one of two other types of government - dictatorships or fractioning into various smaller groups with their own forms of governments (many may attempt to imitate the “mother” form of government, if only out of a sense of tradition, but with all of the old corruption - which only delays the inevitable another generation or two).
I have seen nothing in recent years to make me change that prediction.
Leave us not forget that we have the most accurate and destructive (kilotons per pound) nuclear weapons on the planet - and more of them, too.
Pleasant dreams, kiddies…
#4 Posted by ErikTheRed on 10/03 at 10:46 PM -
Dude, lighten up. Sure things suck in Washington. Things have sucked in Washington for a long time (and licked, penetrated, nibbled, and e-mailed). For the rest of us, it’s still possible to live our lives, be successful, and enjoy life. Now go back and look at whats-her-tits in Penthouse few posts back, play with your wife’s breasts, and things will seem better.
As far as solutions go, what I’d like to see happen is either a third party emerge from the steaming bullshit, or have the South Park Conservatives take over the Republicans. There’s plenty of us out there. “Oh my God, they killed Vince Foster! You bastards!”
#5 Posted by Buzzion on 10/04 at 12:17 AM -
I’ll bet a billion dollars that as I type this, some Democrat in the House or Senate is scrambling to try to eliminate evidence of some torrid affair between him/her and some young page.
They don’t need to jim. The last time one of them had it happen, he got censured and they then gave him 3 standing ovations.
#6 Posted by Ryley R. Hayes on 10/04 at 05:38 PM -
It may well be that way Jim.
I don’t think all hope is lost though. At somepoint, we’re going to reach a critical point, and at that point, the people need to act decisively.
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Jim, step away from the eage you are going to fall off the end of the world. Come on lighten up a bit. Men in power haveing sex with young people. This is not new. It’s bad bad bad, but new it is not. There is a old joke (ok at 35 I find saying old joke bad.)
Why don’t Congressmen use book marks?
They like their pages bent over.
Bad bad bad joke, but it’s old old old one.
Point is: this is not the end and this is not a new thing.
Lighten up it’s almost Holloween…