Attitude toward Congress

It is definitely lucky for me that I have absolutely no chance ever to be called to testify at a Congressional hearing. That non-likelihood is because, though state and national legislatures manufacture new crimes every minute to justify their existence and their perks, the only real crime that I know that I have committed and on a regular basis is attacking the Republican Party, with words and in public, though this site couldn't be considered to be in the public eye by any stretch of the imagination.

But of course that is not a crime at all but a duty that is incumbent on every American who cares about observing the country's ostensible ideals, and it must be done whenever necessary, which is pretty much all the time, because siding with the Republicans is invariably following the German model of 1933.

Nevertheless, it's a wonder that, during the last eight years from which just recently they were finally removed for power, the Republicans did not outlaw webloggers criticizing them. In that time the Repubs certainly did all they could to make the U.S. even more of a prison-happy state in every other way they could contrive, most often using the "terror-fighting" ploy.

The reason why I am so fortunate is that I know the moment I stepped into the hearing room and even long before, such as now, I could reasonably be charged with something close to Contempt of Congress, though I guess it would all depend on how that charge is defined by whoever happened to be present among the row of glowering hucklebucks sitting high up on their carved walnut perches. I assume that merely looking at them cross-eyed would be offense enough, especially from someone like me.

From my point of view, however, what I feel toward them is not actually contempt. That is too powerful a word and an emotion, that can't easily apply to such an inconsequential and ineffectual group.

But Congress people need to have the concept of contempt ready for instant use as a lethal weapon, because their inflated natures require them to cast any challenge to their nonsense in the worst possible light.

So, because Congress people have the power to jail me for the least little offense to them, while neither I nor anyone else has the power to jail them for the great offenses that they routinely commit against everyone just by being too buried in their act to do anything really beneficial for about 99.9 percent of the time, I would best be advised to come there prepared not to be able to return home for a long while, if ever, no matter what I said there. (And I have long had a couple of tiny, set speeches prepared to bat back any garbage on any subject that they might try to fling at me.)

It's sad to see how much hope is invested in sending people to Congress, when it's so certain that, from one term to the next, that group they join so proudly and confidently will not do anything worth writing home about. The culprit is overweening pride and ego, several hundreds of such cases all milling around and trying to prevail over each other while maintaining the grossest of crocodile smiles and syrupy strychnine words. And that becomes as much a part of them as their gleaming new offices, the moment they arrive on Capitol Hill. They may have been pleasant, considerate, and even thoughtful and innovative people at home, but the moment the majority of them steps into those marble halls in the Federal City, it's all over.

But that seems to have been the nature of all Congresses in all lands in all eras, which is why, as bodies, they never receive much attention, much less praise, from History's otherwise generous hands.