Transparency so thick you can cut it with a knife

The collusion of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and President Obama in an attempt to pass health care legislation via the politics of the proverbial smoke-filled room (or is it arugula-filled, these days?) is a clear example of the oligarchic leanings of the Democratic Party, and gives the lie to whatever pretensions the party had to being representative of anything resembling democracy. Obama has broken his campaign promises that the legislative debates would be televised, White House Press Clown Robert Gibbs defiantly stonewalls the media’s requests for an explanation of the gap between word and deed, and Pelosi virtually wiggles with the self-satisfaction of being able to lie shamelessly about transparency and get away with it.

It is true that this is all reflective, to some extent, of Chicago machine politics, but it is so much more than that. The notion that the generality of citizens are hapless Pithecanthropi for whom the challenges of this complex modern world are overwhelming, and that they (we) therefore require the constant ministrations of a watchful government, has long been a fundamental tenet of the Democratic Party’s ascendant (and now dominant) leftwing. This, of course, is only the ideological underpinning; there is also the kudzu-like growth of corruption, as personal cupidity dovetails nicely with the elected official’s opportunities for wringing money from the taxpayer in order to deliver benefits –sometimes only intangible and even mythic, but real enough in the minds of the putative beneficiaries – to favored constituencies. In fairness, this last aspect of elective government is a danger that is inherent in perpetual incumbency, regardless of ideological or party affiliation; however, the Republicans are so bad at managing self-serving pork-barrel politics that they are almost always found out, and pay a heavy price (and deservedly so). Democrats have a knack for portraying themselves as the spiritual descendants of Robin Hood’s merry band, engaging in wholesale theft under cover of public philanthropy.

And now under cover of secrecy and backroom negotiating. Will this socialist star-chamber succeed in stealing our patrimony and suppressing our rights? I not only devoutly hope, but strongly believe, that, ultimately, no, it will not. There is no inviolable principle of physics that makes entitlement legislation impossible to overturn. We will have a fight on our hands, to be sure, perhaps a fight of unprecedented proportions; but I am very far from subscribing to a belief in the omnipotence of the likes of Obama, Pelosi, et al, let alone in their ability to bind future generations – or even this one – in an economic suicide pact.


Your legislature in action.