Notes From Gordon 250107: Send In The Clowns (Can You Spell FUBAR?)

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Reading time: 544 words @ 238 wpm = 2 minutes, 17 seconds

TAGS: Politics, corruption, Congress, FUBAR

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Our Clown Show Congress (Can You Spell FUBAR?)

The theory behind representative government in a constitutional republic is that the legislators who write the laws—laws that compel you to do as they say, lest you suffer fines and other penalties—necessarily must be staunch and stalwart individuals of irreproachable ethical and moral fiber who are fully cognizant of the awesome power of the lawmaker and well educated in the history of the institution of government and its potential to be a dangerous master.

Our nation’s founders anticipated that the enlightened and well-informed citizen could take a break from their personal life to perform a period of public service in Congress:

• To serve as a steward of the liberties of the people.

• To avoid entangling alliances as George Washington warned.

• To protect and maintain the traditional American way of life.

• To then return to private life and clear the way for the next citizen to serve.

Is that what we have seen in our own lifetimes?

Can someone please cue the laugh track?

Today’s Congress commits sedition on a daily basis, passes legislation without reading it, tacks pork onto unrelated legislation to benefit special interests, vacations on junkets paid for by lobbyists, enriches themselves from insider trading… the litany of corrupt behavior goes on and on.

Clowns to the left of us, clowns to the right. Here for your edification is the latest legislator misconduct database https://www.govtrack.us/misconduct

Are you familiar with the military term FUBAR? Thirty years ago I befriended a big, beefy guy who had been former U.S. special forces during the Vietnam conflict—back when the military, the CIA and organized crime partnered together to import drugs onto the streets of America.

He told me that he had been the leader of Team C. That Congress had only been told about Team A and Team B. That if a special ops mission went FUBAR, the job of Team C was to go in, kill everyone and blow everything up.

Seen as a whole (with rare individual exceptions) today’s Congress is totally and utterly FUBAR. Why?

Garbage in » garbage out.
Public school in » ignorance out.
Feckless, spineless narcissists in » corruption out.

But nature has a way of bringing all things to an end. The institution of Congress will end when America ends, a process that is well underway. And then some new form of government will emerge in the decades to come.

What will this look like? I have no idea, but I do know that it will be legislated for and otherwise administered by today’s 20-to-30-year-olds.

Here’s a test to see how that’s likely to work out.

Visit a local shopping center with a bucket full of dollar bills and a sign: FREE MONEY! Offer any young adult you see a dollar if they can describe any five of the first ten amendments to the Constitution that we call The Bill of Rights.

Not all ten, just any five of their own choosing. And not even verbatim, just a basic explanation of the liberties they each protect.

My prediction? Send in the clowns.

Gordon