Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The State of the Union cotillion . . .

A little bit ago I heard Ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi say in an interview that the Republicans should take their party back from all the extremists who are ruining it for everybody. Said extremists hate government, hate science, and hate Obama. So Republicans should take their party back. She probably should have thrown in "hate women" and it would have improved the rhythm of her rhetoric without in any way blotting the essential silliness of the statement, nor added any element of truthfulness to it. So I'm going to assume she left women out of the hate equation inadvertently, and give her credit for it

And by the way, the "Ex" part of Pelosi's title ought to suggest to her what the mood of the electorate is, seeing as how the Democrats remain the minority party in the House even after President Obama's re-election. But maybe she missed that.

Anyhow, she was being interviewed on the eve of the Presidential State of the Union report. Hey, he could have just put it in writing and had it delivered to Congress, as was done for many years. But if he had done that, he would have deprived all of our political masters of the satisfaction to be gained by assembling the entirety of government, legislative, executive, judicial, together in one large room for them to congratulate themselves and preen before television cameras as the President pranced into room, hyped up in knowledge that these weighty political lords and barons intended to stand and applaud each presidential utterance, burp, and pose.

Maybe Mrs. Pelosi is right in a way. I don't myself consider myself a Republican and haven't done so for easy fifteen years. But I think the Republicans would certainly benefit by taking their party back, as Pelosi suggests. I just don't think the people running the Party are all that wrapped up in hating government, science, women, and Obama.

I know I don't hate government, being of Social Security age, and I don't hate science, and I'm really sure I don't hate women. I've never met anybody who plain hated government in general, even if they hated this particular government in this moment. I've never met anybody who hated science, even if they thought certain scientists were roaring, raging, flaming, gaping assholes. I've met people who hated women but they didn't start out that way. It kinda crept up on them. And I don't think all that many, if any, people hate Obama. Despise him, sure. Loathe him, maybe. Fear him, probably. But not hate. Hey, nobody has even tried to shoot him yet, and remember, Reagan got shot, Kennedy, Jack and Bobbie, got shot. There's precedent, in other words, and when somebody shoots, that's hate.

For that matter maybe the Democrats should try to take their party back from the redistributers, and the regulators, and the race pimps, and the cronies, and the Marxists, and all the fellow-traveling mouthbreathers infected with excessive self-esteem earned by claiming to care about social issues and sciency stuff, and who demonstrate the same by attending the required demonstrations and sporting caring bumper stickers, many of which nearly make sense but even if they don't, entitle the bearer to a warm, smug feeling of superiority.

On the other hand, why should Republicans, in particular, bother? They're pretty much against most of the stuff President Obama wants to do to the country, good and hard, but it really doesn't matter who is in charge of the party. Why? President Obama has stated that he intends to go it alone, without lawful legislation of Congress, and with or without the approval, advice and consent of Congress. He is going to rule by executive order and doesn't need any stinkin' legal restrictions imposed on him by so-called constitutional limitations. It doesn't matter what the Republicans and Democrats in Congress do, or don't do.

Deadlocked? Who cares? Not President Obama? Doesn't need 'em.

It occurs to me that President Obama's stated intention to institute his agenda by bypassing constitutional procedures makes the votes of Congressmen, Republican and Democrat alike, meaningless, and in turn, makes the votes of the citizens who elected Congressmen to represent them in Congress, likewise, meaningless. We are, essentially, deprived of legislative representation when the executive legislates through executive order.

In that connection, I seem to recall that some years ago a group of upset Americans gathered together one night in Boston to communicate objection to being deprived of effective representation in their legislature of the time -- Parliament.

Just a stray thought, probably means nothing.

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