The Problem With Term Limits
Although, my late wife generally saw eye to eye with me when it came to politics, the one issue we could never agree on was term limits.
Although, my late wife generally saw eye to eye with me when it came to politics, the one issue we could never agree on was term limits.
Apparently, judging by a lot of the email I receive, many among you agree with her that the limits would be at least a partial solution to the problems heaped on us by the political class.
One of the problems is that for the corruption, cowardice and incompetence of the many, the few would suffer. After all, even someone as cynical as I am when it comes to politicians have to acknowledge that there are some who appear to be doing a good job. Which is to say, I agree with them.
Another problem with term limits is that politicians are generally interchangeable, so kicking one out is generally just going to result in replacing him or her with someone equally obnoxious.
The Islamic enclaves in Michigan and Minnesota will continue to elect the likes of Keith Ellison, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, just as the folks in the Bronx will keep sending their own rock star A O-C back to the House for the next 50 years unless she decides to run for the Senate or the presidency.
The problem, as I kept trying to explain to Yvonne, is that the politicians aren’t really the problem; the voters are. They’re the ones who should have term limits.
It’s probably a good thing that our Founding Fathers aren’t around to see what a hash we’ve made of their remarkable experiment in self-government.
Thomas Jefferson, about whom our young people know precious little aside from the fact that he owned slaves and slept with one of them, opined that: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
That was then, this is now. Considering the state of our government and the equally rancid state of our newspapers, I think even Jefferson would have thrown his arms up in disgust and said: “Skip it. I’m sorry I opened my mouth.”
One of my least favorite politicians when I was growing up was Earl Warren, who went from being California’s governor, where he oversaw the incarceration of American citizens of Japanese descent, to being the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, where he led his colleagues in evicting God and the reading of the Bible from our public school, by intentionally misinterpreting the First Amendment, so that instead of merely ensuring that the United States would never become a theocracy, the Court pretended that the words “separation of church and state” actually appear in the Constitution.
It’s like the Court’s pretending that the 14th Amendment, written to guarantee citizenship to freed slaves, extends to the babies of illegal aliens who have no right to be on American soil.
Somewhere along the way, the Courts went from deciding that certain minority groups are not merely entitled to equal rights, but to certain rights not granted to others.
I believe that most people think that every American is entitled to his say in how things are run, but balk at the notion that just because someone is a member of a designated victims group, he or she gets the final say.
In 1963, when the Warren Court, in the Abington School District v. Schempp case, banned Bible reading in school, only Justice Potter Stewart stood up for reason, stating in a dissenting opinion; “It led not to true neutrality with respect to religion, but to the establishment of a religion of secularism.”
And since then, things have only grown worse in our schools. Between teachers’ colleges churning out second-rate robots spouting leftist propaganda; a federal government curriculum, Common Core, that promotes the U.N. and globalism, while stiffing the kids when it comes to reading, writing, arithmetic and reasoning; and the feds extorting schools by withholding funds if they dare rebel against the restrictions; we have a public education system that has been carefully devised by the likes of the Rockefeller Foundation and George Soros to turn out sheep, 58% of whom are convinced that Socialism is the answer to their prayers. Their secular prayers, that is.
Along with all his other sins, Jimmy Carter created the U.S. Department of Education. As was the case in every evil regime of the 20th century, American liberals understood that gaining control of a nation is only part one; in order to retain control of a nation, one must control both the military and the schools. In the U.S., the military might still be up for grabs, but the Communists definitely have a stranglehold on the education system, and not just K through the 12th grade, but all the way through grad school.
One of the lies perpetrated by FDR and Governor Warren was that the internment camps were created to provide safety for Japanese-Americans. While it would be unfair to call them concentration camps inasmuch as the prisoners weren’t gassed in ovens, experimented upon by an American Dr. Mengele or worked to death in coal mines, it would also be unfair to pretend that the camps were intended to protect those locked behind the barbed wire and the guard towers.
As one of the prisoners later remarked, “If they were supposed to protect us, why is it that the guns were pointed at us and not in the opposite direction?”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez may be too young to run for President of the United States, but she should consider running for the presidency of Mexico. After all, she is only the second person I ever heard compare a wall at our southern border to the Berlin Wall. The first dope I heard who seemed confused as to the difference between a wall built of keep citizens in and one built to keep non-citizens out was the ex-president of Mexico, Vicente Fox.
It’s not as if Chicago doesn’t already have more problems than it can handle, what with a nincompoop like Rahm Emanuel as its mayor, 3,000 shootings in 2018 and a murder solve rate of just 16%, now actor Jussie Smollett has come along to further embarrass the Windy City.
Although I had never heard of the guy or watched a show he’s on called “Empire,” he became famous overnight when he alleged he had been beaten up by two white guys, calling him names referencing his race (black) and his sexual identity (homosexual), and shouting “This is MAGA country!”
It smelled fishy from the start. Two white guys in a city that has a huge black population that went over 80% for Hillary Clinton announcing it to be MAGA country?!
But that didn’t stop the usual suspects — Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris — from racing to his defense. Sen, Harris, quite predictably, called it “a modern-day lynching.”
I’ve thought about it, and what I’ve concluded is that a modern-day lynching is one where not only is nobody hanged, but is, instead, one where a black gay actor gets two friends to rough him up while shouting their support for President Trump just so Mr. Smollett could garner himself sympathy and nation-wide publicity.
I know that most actors hanker to direct, but if this is an example of his work, Smollett would be well-advised not to give up his day job.
