Congress's Collective Congenital Criminality
"Women!" some men like to exclaim, to demonstrate their worldly-wise insights. "You can't do with them, and you can't do without them."
The same must be true about congressmen and senators. The ancient Romans -- who were inspirations during the founding of the U.S -- seemed to think so, judging by the regularity with which a number of emperors consigned large numbers of senators to the executioner's ax. Still, the Romans considered being a senator to be a great honor, and they loved having one or more of that ilk hanging somewhere on their family trees. And today, in our home states, we honor and respect these so-called "solons," while paying no attention to their defects that become so pronounced once they arrive in the sacred corridors of the U.S. Capitol building, because usually the blame for any misdeeds is placed on the rascals that some other misguided state sent and not on one's own.
Early in life I chanced upon several Mark Twain remarks that have stuck in my mind and have remained unfailingly accurate ever since. One, formulated back in the 19th century, went something like: "Congress is the only true American criminal class."
The exterior of the U.S. Capitol building is more familiar to me than is my neighbor's house across the road. Yet, though I was born in and spent the next 45 years of my life in D.C., I was never once moved to set foot inside that place. I never heard of it having any graces that even remotely compared with all the books in the Library of Congress, or the paintings in the National Art Gallery, or the objects in the many other galleries and museums. Even the stern simplicity of the Washington Monument, with its numerous flights of stairs to climb to the top in lieu of taking the less challenging elevator, was more interesting than anything the Capitol ever had to offer. I knew that that joint teemed with ugly, officious characters, including the infamous Capitol police, and they were best left to snarl endlessly and unobserved, in their glorious, domed, marble pen.
Something happens to otherwise good people in that building. The power, the prestige, the perks, and the pay overcome them, and their heads become so inflated with the gasses of mechanisms much like hot air balloons that they soon have trouble remaining attached to the general populace. It's especially disconcerting to see how, during hearings shown on C-Span, people who appeared to be so modest and humble at home while begging for votes and money, become angry tyrants behind their inquisatorial microphones and brook no challenges to their wisdom, their all-embracing knowledge, and what they take to be their absolute authority, to the point where they're not above snapping viciously even at their colleagues.
One of the tragedies of Presidential campaigns is that, with so many worthwhile possibilities in other fields, the candidates have to be chosen from the political world. Due to the habits they cultivate in that line of work, that prior employment is actually a poor reflection on them, and so excuses must constantly be made.
Ever since the Democrats gained the majority in both Houses during the last go-round, I had been willing to overlook their frequent and odd willingness to go along so often with what the Republicans wanted. I rationalized that they had some deeper and more subtle purpose in mind, such as letting the miscreants get even farther out on the limb before sawing it off. But now that the Democrats in Congress appear to be on the verge of again buying a pig in the Bush poke by going along with the big Wall Street Bailout stickup, just as too many of them did in going along with the Iraq thing and later rued the day, it's beginning to look as if all hope finally has to be abandoned here.
Maybe it is, in fact, time for another deluge to cover the earth. I would suggest that this time a better choice of the sole survivors would be a good thing -- provided that that's possible. Noting the preferences that were made among Noah's children right at the new beginning, it was easy to see the inequities and the iniquities that would plague the world ever after, and that included the "necessity of solons."
The same must be true about congressmen and senators. The ancient Romans -- who were inspirations during the founding of the U.S -- seemed to think so, judging by the regularity with which a number of emperors consigned large numbers of senators to the executioner's ax. Still, the Romans considered being a senator to be a great honor, and they loved having one or more of that ilk hanging somewhere on their family trees. And today, in our home states, we honor and respect these so-called "solons," while paying no attention to their defects that become so pronounced once they arrive in the sacred corridors of the U.S. Capitol building, because usually the blame for any misdeeds is placed on the rascals that some other misguided state sent and not on one's own.
Early in life I chanced upon several Mark Twain remarks that have stuck in my mind and have remained unfailingly accurate ever since. One, formulated back in the 19th century, went something like: "Congress is the only true American criminal class."
The exterior of the U.S. Capitol building is more familiar to me than is my neighbor's house across the road. Yet, though I was born in and spent the next 45 years of my life in D.C., I was never once moved to set foot inside that place. I never heard of it having any graces that even remotely compared with all the books in the Library of Congress, or the paintings in the National Art Gallery, or the objects in the many other galleries and museums. Even the stern simplicity of the Washington Monument, with its numerous flights of stairs to climb to the top in lieu of taking the less challenging elevator, was more interesting than anything the Capitol ever had to offer. I knew that that joint teemed with ugly, officious characters, including the infamous Capitol police, and they were best left to snarl endlessly and unobserved, in their glorious, domed, marble pen.
Something happens to otherwise good people in that building. The power, the prestige, the perks, and the pay overcome them, and their heads become so inflated with the gasses of mechanisms much like hot air balloons that they soon have trouble remaining attached to the general populace. It's especially disconcerting to see how, during hearings shown on C-Span, people who appeared to be so modest and humble at home while begging for votes and money, become angry tyrants behind their inquisatorial microphones and brook no challenges to their wisdom, their all-embracing knowledge, and what they take to be their absolute authority, to the point where they're not above snapping viciously even at their colleagues.
One of the tragedies of Presidential campaigns is that, with so many worthwhile possibilities in other fields, the candidates have to be chosen from the political world. Due to the habits they cultivate in that line of work, that prior employment is actually a poor reflection on them, and so excuses must constantly be made.
Ever since the Democrats gained the majority in both Houses during the last go-round, I had been willing to overlook their frequent and odd willingness to go along so often with what the Republicans wanted. I rationalized that they had some deeper and more subtle purpose in mind, such as letting the miscreants get even farther out on the limb before sawing it off. But now that the Democrats in Congress appear to be on the verge of again buying a pig in the Bush poke by going along with the big Wall Street Bailout stickup, just as too many of them did in going along with the Iraq thing and later rued the day, it's beginning to look as if all hope finally has to be abandoned here.
Maybe it is, in fact, time for another deluge to cover the earth. I would suggest that this time a better choice of the sole survivors would be a good thing -- provided that that's possible. Noting the preferences that were made among Noah's children right at the new beginning, it was easy to see the inequities and the iniquities that would plague the world ever after, and that included the "necessity of solons."
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 5:00 AM
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