Editorial #52A Inside the Political Club, March 21, 2019
To paraphrase an old Yogi Berra euphemism: They are so busy there they are not getting anything done anymore. This seems applies to our legislature. There were over a 1000 bills introduced this session, with issue like mountain lions, prairie dogs, gender issues, making more environmental regulations or the bits of outrage when a senator called The American Flag a rag, all debated. This session is half over with less than 1% of all proposals and less than 5% of the time spent on taxes. There should be a limit as to the number of bills introduced as the secret to success is not quantity but quality with each senator feeling pressure to introduce something so constitutes think they are working.
Practically all of these proposals have some agenda item to protect that becomes a distraction, often on purpose, at the expense of not addressing taxes Almost, all these distraction bills chip away at one or more of our core values of fairness, truth, sustainability and integrity which politician seem to forget are necessary for any law for it to be worth implementing.
Having spent thousands hours during my career watching the machinery of politics, I am baffled at the “good old boy’s club” mentality in politics. The orientation sessions given to freshmen, are essentially politic correctness lessons on how to be nice and cordial with particular emphasis on getting along. They are indoctrinated into being friendly, as there will be a price to pay if anyone falls out of line with the majority. They will be rendered impotent if they don’t play along. Senators will simply vote against any bill that individual introduces, regardless of the merits for the citizens of our state or country.
Real truth is practically non-existent any more, as evidenced by testimony seen on the news. Politician will show moral outrage if any inconsistency on a small point if noted in their testimony. For example: you stated you had bacon for breakfast this morning, but you actually had ham…..how dare you lie to us and perjure yourself? But, if a politician is caught lying by advancing a hypocritical agenda, they are quick to point out: “that’s just politics”.
Cordiality trumps any attempt at logic or using proven economic or scientific principles with compromise placed at a premium. Using facts or precedence is ignored in this age of political correctness. Almost every campaign speech has a part where they say they are willing to work across the aisle. That is code for: If someone demands that 2+2=6, then confronted by saying it is not, their response will be: “Let’s compromise on five.” This is not working across the aisle. That is simply stupid. The other compromise is how much more of your money will they spend to get some else’s vote? Reducing spending to cut taxes does not get one re-elected as someone will not like their gravy train being stopped.
This is no way to run anything, much less a government. We are supposed to elect individuals who are sworn to uphold the constitution and infuse those values into our laws. We are becoming the proverbial frog in the pot analogy, gradually being boiled to death, if politicians respond to demands for compromise on things that are simply wrong.
The most disappointing part is, usually, only compromisers get elected. President Trump is one exception. Lobby groups rally around anyone they can influence by showering their campaign with money to run against any candidate that exposes this hypocrisy.
We must all work to keep our core values from being compromised by political correctness and PACs. We must stay engaged and support those candidates that are not being controlled by big money. Go to the “Contacts” on my website for “Accountabilities and Disclosures”. This will show campaign spending for any politician so you can follow the money and see who is being bought by these lobby groups. It is very interesting.
This is Keith Kube wishing you the best in making the world a better place.