I heard a story about a young preacher once that comes to mind as I watch the antics in Washington D.C. It seems the young pastor took his first charge – a country church in Kentucky. His first sermon was a fiery oratory on the evils of gambling. He noticed many in the congregation getting pretty fidgety in the pews and thought, "They must be going to 'the boat'" and pumped up the oratory even higher. After the service an elder came to him and said, "Pastor, I know that's church doctrine but about a third of your congregation owns racehorses. Remember this is Kentucky."
The next week the young man gave another pulpit pounding sermon on the evils of drinking – all according to church doctrine and again he saw folks fidgeting. After the service, the same elder pulled him aside and said, "Pastor, I warned you to remember this is Kentucky. Half these folk work at Jack Daniels down the road!"
The next week the Pastor raised the roof with a sermon on the evils of violating offshore shrimping limits. The elder said, "Great sermon, Pastor. You'll do well here."
It seems to me that most political discourse today (and perhaps this is nothing new), consists of some variation of partisanship for nothing more than the sake of partisanship itself. There are areas of agreement where one can't go because a politician is beholden to whatever interests and cannot govern according to any principles whatsoever. But I'm not criticizing the politicians here. If you find a fox in your hen house you can't really blame the fox – that's what foxes do. No, you run the fox off with some lead and you secure the hen house.
Well, the fox was run off in the 18th century and they secured the hen house with the Constitution. It's our own fault we allowed the fox to worry the boards loose with various changes to the Constitution, (the 16th and 17th Amendments come to mind) and semantical sleights of tongue such as the "Living Constitution" theory of judicial review which winds up with ObamaCare in the present and a totalitarian nightmare in the future when followed through to its logical end.
Yet, we have the kneejerk reactions to the stimulus they provide to the point that no agreement on basic issues can be reached if it is in opposition to the status quo. People seriously argue that it makes sense for the executive to have weekly assassination meetings with his assassination Czar and has an attorney general who argues that the executive has the authority to assassinate anyone in world, anywhere in the world, American citizens included with no legislative or judicial oversight. We have two presidential candidates who agree with this. Yet, the electorate is so beholden to the government or the status quo that we can't agree this is not America and will vote for one.
People will seriously argue that it is necessary for national defense to garrison troops all over the world, spending nearly half of ALL global spending on military issues, six times that of China and equal to at least the next 16 countries. We REALLY need to be doing this? Yep. A third of the congregation is working at the defense department funded distillery down the road so you better "support the troops, pal".
It is past time for those who believe in the America that is our birthright to run the fox out of the hen house and fix those broken boards.
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