Long, Slow Burn

All of my life, people have cried out “Throw the bums out” and two things happen: (1) People don’t do it, incumbents re-win and (2) the new bums are as bad as the old bums.

Here’s what I propose: Just like with a misbehaving puppy, more training can do wonders, both with love/praise and with a newspaper to the nose.

I’ve been saying this for years, and I feel that this is more true than ever: Voting occurs once every couple of years, with presidential elections every four years. Not a lot of opportunity to make an impact. A phone call, a letter, an email however … can have the impact of 1,000s of votes!!! I called each of my senators and my representative over the last couple of days. I feel as if I made a difference. Sure, they may have been voting against Pelosi because of her whiny speech, or voting against Pelosi because she allowed all of her friends to vote against the bill while encouraging the junior members to vote for it, or they may have voted against it when the minority leader called the bill a “mud sandwich”, … or maybe … just maybe … our representatives
listened to the public that called and emailed in huge volumes.

Last night, the pundits were whining “We lost $1T dollars to evaporation in the market today!!!” Sob! Sob! Boo-hoo! (Okay, the last part was my addition.) Today, did the world end? Nope, not by a long shot! The
DOW opened up 200 points!!! As we speak it’s up 350 points!!! Does that mean that $500B condensated? (What’s the opposite of a stock market evaporation anyway?!?) All in ONE DAY!!! Sure, the market won’t
close up 350 points, but if it closes up 200 points, that’s a huge victory for our children and grandchildren by keeping the dollar strong. (at least not weaker like would happen with the bailout. Harumph!)

I plan on putting my phone where my mouth is and keep being an annoying ass by contacting my representatives and senators on each bill that I think is important. (Before I would just worry and whine and suck my thumb in the corner of the room.) And YOU SHOULD TOO!!!

Voting the old bureaucrats out of office won’t work. We’ve tried that for decades now. We need to learn our own lesson. Phone + email = tough love for our lost puppies of politicrats that have lost their way and in doing so have lost their spine.

Freedom. Freedom!!! There is nothing else. Do not give up. This tree can still be saved.

… and on that note, as you reflect on my above diatribe, here’s a little snippet of a story from a great book. No, I’m not going to tell you what book:

“The great oak tree had stood on the hill over the Hudson, in a lonely spot on the Taggart estate. Eddie Willers, aged seven, like to come and look at that tree. It had stood there for hundreds of years, and he thought it would always stand there. Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it but would swing the hill and the whole of the earth with it like a ball at the end of a string. He felt safe in the oak tree’s presence; it was a thing nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength.

One night, lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it next morning. It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted
away long ago; there was nothing inside - just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and the shape of it left had not been able to stand without it.

Years later, he heard it said that children should be protected from shock, from their first knowledge of death, pain or fear. But these had never scarred him; his shock came when he stood very quietly, looking
into the black hole of the trunk. It was an immense betrayal - the more terrible because he could not grasp what it was that had been betrayed. It was not himself, he knew, nor his trust; it was something else. He stood there for a while, making no sound, then he walked back to the house. He never spoke about it to anyone, then or since.”