Is your mettle, metal or muddle?

There is one question that I hear repeatedly asked of my children by my wife.  She will ask often, sometimes daily, “Am I the only one in this house who knows how to reach down, pick something up and clean up a mess?”  I….ahhh….I…I’m sure she is only referring to the children when she asks that, sadly, rhetorical question.  She, of course, couldn’t be making any implication of me…at all…right?  Anyway, ahem, one of the frailties of human nature is to make a mess, see the mess and wait for someone else to clean the mess.  There seems to be this sixth sense, of sorts, that if we leave it alone long enough, someone with a compulsion to fix everything will show up to set things aright.  That’s called kicking the can down the road.

Unfortunately for the State of Maine, John Martin Democrats and their moderate Republican allies have played “kick the can” for so long they’ve acquired affection for the game and an addiction to the stench coming from the can.  Now that Governor Lepage is “cleaning up the neighborhood”, the Democrats, led by John Martin, and all the moderate Republicans in the appropriations committee are doing everything in their power to obstruct the efforts of the Governor and the Treasurer to set the State of Maine back on a course to fiscal solvency.  The reasoning behind their actions is the same old Kennebec two-step.  The Democrats want to preserve the bloated bureaucratic slush fund that pads their ample taxpayer funded behinds.  The moderate Republicans take their cues from the Democrats.  They believe their threat that a conservative fiscal approach will cost them their election.  So they are trying to save their own ample taxpayer funded behinds.

Sitting in meetings with several of these moderates on occasion, this columnist heard one legislator lecture us, ad nauseum, on how his decisions were influenced by all he had learned since he came to Augusta.  Hmmm, maybeeee….that’s the problem.  Legislators spend too much time learning from and adhering to the edicts of big government instead of listening to the people.

I have a photo that I use for inspiration. It was taken in Nazi Germany.  The year was 1936 and the place was Hamburg.  A large is crowd is “assembled” to “celebrate” the building of a warship.  All in the crowd are obediently raising their hand in the Nazi salute except for one man.  With arms defiantly across his chest and a look of disgust, August Landmesser refuses to follow the crowd.  Moderates could do well to heed his example.  We the people are asking our leaders to lead, not bow to government demands.

Here is how the people view the situation.  Big government is way too big.  It’s obese.  The people want the government to quit eating so much, cut back and lose weight.  They ask our legislators to have the courage to say, “No!”

As these politicians act with all the focus and dexterity of the Keystone Kops, it becomes more apparent that the appropriations committee needs a transfusion of strength and common sense from the people, since they are sorely lacking their own.  By the time this in print, the weak watered down appropriations bill, filled with gimmicks and tax hikes, will be back in the legislature for vote.  Call 1-800-423-2900 (House) and 1-800-423-6900 (Senate), tell them to vote “no” on this bill and stop obstructing the Governor’s plan to balance the budget. Let’s Set Maine Free!

B.e Y.our O.wn B.uffoon

We are bombarded on all sides by a myriad of opinions.  Historically, varied opinions will find some common ground, coalesce and then start the political struggle to become the majority.  In modern America, this seems to be the establishment view.  Change can only come through government, specifically Federal, and so we have evolved now into this never-ending frenzied power struggle for who can control Washington D.C.  Our Founding Fathers coalesced around a much different consensus than the modern political view of today.

Our Fathers viewed government as the source of a nation’s problems not the solution.  These men had watched the broken governments of England and Europe stagger beneath the leadership of drunken witless men whose lives were consumed by a passion for the never-ending cycle of gluttonous feasting followed by shameless wenching with a quick return to the tax-funded glut.  No, this was before the time of Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd.  Predictably, the wealth of these nations was soon depleted.

Without the intellect, integrity or initiative to work to find their own wealth, these buffoons set their sights on the bursting treasure trove in the New World Colonies.  Much to the utter shock of dim-witted magistrates and monarchies, those colonists, who had carved out their own wealth with their own blood, sweat and loved ones lost, were more than reluctant to give it to a slothful soulless magistrate.  When taxes and tariffs became so onerous that these colonists began to lose their own businesses, they fought back.  They became radical right-wing extremists.  You know the story.

Our Founding Fathers formed a government that vested power in the people from the bottom up; that is, the power of government weakened the farther it moved away from the people it represented.  In this way local government, such as counties, would exercise more control over the matters of local ordinance since those officials must face their electorate on a daily basis.  The idea was to promote individual sovereignty.

The Founders created a form a government designed much like a professional athlete, with all its parts proportioned to their need and function.  This is in sharp contrast to our government today, which is shaped more like a bobble-head doll.  The head is grotesquely large, listless, and stares straight ahead.  It only moves when you bump into it and then it just bobbles in place.

Our Fore Fathers knew that it was not a crime to be a buffoon.  The crime would be the inevitable buffoons in government who could be organized by someone who was crazy like a fox.  Now foxes have gathered together enough governmental tomfoolery that the labyrinth of government bureaucracies is once again choking out the people’s wealth.  Leaders throughout government, such as John Martin here in Maine, have carefully crafted layers of regulatory bureaucracy governed by mindless unionized leaders who obey their every bidding.  They shamelessly pad their taxpayer-funded behinds with more and more of our hard earned treasure.  Because they lack the initiative to create solutions to this disease, they block those that do and, instead, look for other ways to pilfer the people’s treasure to fund their wanton glut