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Why Congress is like a colon
Author: TriSec    Date: 07/13/2013 11:29:54

Good Morning.

Some of the more delicate among you may want to read a different blog this weekend. :-)

In any case….I've been pondering some discussions we had earlier this week with one of our members, and I had a passing thought about it.

Back about Monday, our friendly RWLMs excoriated a local brewer because their commercials loosely quoting from the Declaration of Independence somehow managed to omit some wiggly bits about "The Creator". I did indeed shake my head sadly and poured some of their product out. (Into a glass, and then drank it, but I digress.)


But my response to our loyal member was for him to EMBRACE SECESSION, because someday we're all going to realize that we're going to be better off without "them". As our friend replied, he's a "unionist through and through, secession is the way of the quitter". I must take pains to disagree with this assessment. But, this is from the point-of-view of an actual Unionist as well, not a "Rebel". You'll see how this relates to the digestive system in a minute.

Try to envision the United States as a vast, living, breathing thing. There's the brains, and circulatory systems (highways), energy systems, breathing, waste management, and even some of those weird and vestigial things like an appendix. (Alabama.)

Our Congress is quite alimentary, to my way of thinking. What do we live on in this country? It's Laws. We are a nation of laws. But the way we get to those laws is not unlike the digestive system.

Congress bites off things it might find tasty or nutritious. (Legislation suggested by citizens, the president, special interests, etc.)

It gets chewed around a bit in the Congressman's office, and if he doesn't spit it out outright, it will get swallowed (and hopefully written into a bill.)

Then it goes to the stomach (committee) to be digested and start to get broken down so the nutrients (codification of the law) can be absorbed.

Then it's off to the lengthy process of moving through the Congress (colon) so it can be adjusted, reconciled, and whatever else it is that Congress does to partially-digested laws.

But here's where I think secession is the answer. Think of secession in terms of medicine. Right now, our Congress/Colon is very unhealthy. I'd go so far as to say it's become obstructed, and is responding much like mine did a year ago, with pain and dysfunction. For me, that resulted in a lengthy hospitalization and emergency surgery, and you know how that all turned out.

Our Congress/Colon has a cancerous obstruction in it, and as a result, all the good and nutritious things it should be doing are getting unhealthily backed up. If this were a person….well, it should be in the hospital RIGHT NOW to get things checked out and fixed. If we don't, then that cancer will continue to grow and spread. More damage will be done, and at some point it's going to be too late to do anything about it, and the patient will die.

So secession may be the answer. But this might be one for the Constitutional Scholars to ponder. 226 years ago, the original 13 colonies banded together under the Constitution of their own free will; the people ratified it within their own states and we started operating under the new rules after 2/3 of the colonies had approved it. 153 years ago, some of those states tried to leave the agreement, again of their own free will, and we know what the result was then.

But what if we did it the other way? Suppose the Union got together and decided that certain states were no longer worthy of membership in said Union? It's true that some representatives of some states are so disembodied, so drunk with their own power, so interested in obstruction and avoidance that they are holding the rest of the United States back from any progress. Is this too much power for one group to have? What would it take to point a finger and say "YOU are the problem, and you can't play with us anymore?"

I'd be all for Preserving, Protecting, and Defending the Constitution of the United States, yet that kind of defense is such a tidal shift from what we all interpret it as. But all the same….certain elements of government, ostensibly representatives of the people of their states, are so hell-bent on making progress impossible, isn't that an overt threat to that which we hold dear, and shouldn't they be treated as such?
 

3 comments (Latest Comment: 07/14/2013 03:53:06 by Raine)
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