American system of Government based on the doctrine of separation of powers is set up to prevent abuse of power by any one branch of said Government. If the voters elect incompetent or unproven president the system should prevent the Executive branch from going rogue by exercising the checks and balances in its disposal. While American people shed tears at the presidential election they jeopardize the constitutional system by electing petty criminals, political prostitutes, and just plain losers to the congress.
If your representatives performed their duty representing you, Iraq might not have happened (58% of democratic senators and 98% of republican senators voted for the resolution) or maybe billions of dollars of wasteful spending wouldn’t have been attached to already controversial bailout bill.
Apparently the quality of congresspeople didn’t improve over the past 100 years. Here is what Mark Twain had to say on the subject:
Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
- What Is Man?
…the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.
- Letter fragment, 1891
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography
Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man.
- Notebook #14, 11/1877 - 7/1878
All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn’t leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether–Well, you’d think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.
- Mark Twain’s Speeches, “The Weather”
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar
It is the foreign element that commits our crimes. There is no native criminal class except Congress.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927
Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.
- Notebook, 1868
…I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.
- “Foster’s Case”, New York Tribune, 3/10/1873
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7 responses so far ↓
1
Donna W
// Nov 6, 2008 at 5:53 am
On another note: One of my pet peeves is that, once elected, a person can spend his whole life as a congressman. I love my Congressman, Ike Skelton (he’s a Republican in Democrat’s clothing) but he’s been in there for YEARS! There ought to be a limit on just how long someone can hold that office.
2
Doc
// Nov 6, 2008 at 6:08 am
True enough: nits become fleas.
However, m.v., the idea is to cull the stupid, venal, lame and halt from the system at the local level before they can start ruining lives at the state or national level.
And we did a good job keeping Barnes from TIFing all of Missouri this cycle.
Is it perfect? Nope
Is it better than most other places? Yep. The fact that you or I can publicly pen our displeasure with whatever ruling faction we choose and not be ‘disappeared’ is proof positive of that: there is not yet a Lubyanka in this country, though George Bush came perilously close to establishing one in GTMO…
Yet another excellent reason to vote, each and every damned election.
I swear, between you and emaw…
; ‘ )
3
m.v.
// Nov 6, 2008 at 7:38 am
Doc, for an old man you are too idealistic and optimistic. Little more cynicism please! K.Barnes would have voted in line with Democrats 100% of the time, she is just disliked here for her previous deeds, you elected plenty of other fools. And freedom of speech is good but this country developed immunity to that speech, we just ignore it. In the USSR some guy was writing underground books and people hand-copied it and passed around like treasure. And I might have told this old joke before: a Russian and an American are talking about freedom of speech, American says: In America I can stand in front of White House and scream “Fuck Reagan” and I won’t be arrested. Russian says: so what I can stand in front of Kremlin and scream “Fuck Reagan” and I won’t get arrested either.
4
Doc
// Nov 6, 2008 at 8:30 am
; ‘ )
good one: hadn’t heard it before.
dood, i was reading ‘one day in the life…’ on my first leave to angor wat in ‘69; i know who solzenitzen was and is: he is precisely my point - one man, one hope, cna chage a country, a world.
don’t mistake me: i lived through jfk, mlk, bobby, the open wound that was viet nam and the scourge that was nixon. my “cynicism” came the old-fashioned way; i earned it.
you lived in one of the world’s most dysfunctional systems - your cynicism is also hard earned.
maybe it’s because i have youngs ones, true дети, that i can see the promise of an Obama administration after the debacle of the bush years.
but, as i told emaw this mornig, party on, dood: it’s your head.
; ‘ )
5
m.v.
// Nov 6, 2008 at 8:49 am
To illustrate my point using your example I’ll say that Solzhenitsyn is not viewed as a big national hero in contemporary Russia. He is seen as “jumped the shark”. Every hero has his time.
6
DKC
// Nov 6, 2008 at 10:50 am
to paraphrase President Eisenhower, “an empty cab pulled up in front of the capitol and a congressman got out.”
7
I travel for JOOLS
// Nov 6, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Let’s face it. After a couple of years they’ve all perfected the art of believing their own lies.
TERM LIMITS !!
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