Soap Box

The words �public service� are misnomers when applied to present day politicians. It�s no longer about service to the country but service to self, party, ideology and greed.

The days of "Give me liberty or give me death" and "Ask not what your country can for you, but what you can do for your country" went out the back door with Watergate and business as usual in the District of Columbia is more like customer service than public service.

To say our Capitol is dysfunctional is like calling Lake Pontchartrain a sump hole or Mount Everest a speed bump.

As Harry Reid mumbles his way through another day of accomplishing absolutely nothing, the Republicans rush around looking for a TV camera to denounce him for the hundredth time.

Net result, zero.

Even the mentality and lexicon have changed, hardly anybody even talks about politics in the terms of service or sacrifice anymore, the pundits just pass over the ramifications of political actions and go straight to the politics, how it will effect the vote, to hell with the country.

In my humble opinion, there is a divide and conquer thing going on here, keep the races at odds with each other, the different financial strata stirred up and the have-nots ticked off at everybody and you've got the country segmented into special interest groups to pander to.

The scare tactics used by the Obama administration to bulldoze Obamacare through Congress, their insistence that the nation could not go another day without this monstrosity, that it had to be taken to the floor of both houses and pushed through with bribes, threats, coercion or whatever hook or crook methods that would work, is a prime example of what's going on in the halls of power these days, as a lot of supposedly dedicated public servants sold out their constituents and the country, prostitutes trading the future of the nation for a bowl of Obama's porridge.

The seduction of power inside the beltway is such that honorable men and women who go there with devotion to duty in their hearts and stars in their eyes morph into rubber stamp hacks no better than the hack they replaced by promising their electorate a change.

A reticent president who's idea of decisive action is to take something under advisement for six months and let it slowly fade away, an attorney general who only enforces the laws he agrees with, a sleepwalking Senate majority leader who blames the other party for inaction and refuses to allow any of their legislation to even see daylight, a totally corrupt Internal Revenue Service, a Vice President nobody can figure out and a permanently deadlocked House and Senate.

Even the few who go to Washington with the best intentions soon fall under the spell of lobbyists who never seem to run out of football tickets and invitations to social extravagance at the Kennedy Center or senior members who can secure a seat on important committees or an invitation to function at the White House.

It's heady stuff and the first thing you know, the young idealist from the heart land who came to Washington to change things has jumped right on the gravy train taking them farther and farther from the folks back home and the promises he made them.

You're either in the club or out of the club and looking from the outside in means you're not going to get anything much done during your tenure because the power brokers, the jaded old political hookers who have been there for decades have banded together and seized power.

They know how to play the game, they have checked their collective consciences at door and they don't care who or how many they hurt as long as they get their way. They take no prisoners and they make more deals over martinis and scotch than on the floors of the house and Senate.

Our forefathers never crafted our political system for professional politicians. By it's very nature it was designed to kept do fresh faces and fresh perspectives flowing, never taking the concentration of power out of the hands of the voters and place it in the hands of a few power brokers who can send enough pork back home to continue to get elected.

Folks, what do you do when somebody you do business with fails you time after time, somebody you give good money and trust to do a job continues to fail you.

You fire them.

Why should a Senator or Congressman serve longer than a president. Why not an eight year limit for everybody?

Sound radical?

Good!

Let's try it.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and for the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniel