For Gays and Thousands of Weddings

This is the second day of debate in the U.S. Congress on whether or not to hand to the States a referendum to add a specific discrimination Amendment to our Constitution. Sadly it is not the first time this measure has soured our national debate and it won’t be the last. The amendment defines a marriage as only between a man and a woman. It would be the first time in our short history we have conducted nationalized, bureaucratically approved, democratically endorsed bigotry based on a particular human orientation.

The arguments (scratch that), the reasons for creating this Amendment (scratch that), the cause (no), the logic (scratch that), the rationale (oh putz), the words being used to describe the seemingly credible reasons why the supporters of this restriction of the equality of a minority, range from “protecting the institution of marriage,” to “saving the family tradition,” even “protecting traditional marriage."

I agree with some of the premise within the above statements. Marriage is institutional. That is, it has become far less spiritual and far more documentary and government managed at the local level. In cultural anthropological terms, family is a traditional function of human beings, but that is rapidly changing in evolutional terms. For millennium family was a function of survival for those weakest in the family. Forming a unit was a necessity. But once a member was no longer weak, staying within the unit was but a matter of a lack of something better to do, anywhere better to hunt, a safer place to encamp. We have evolved past those needs of our hunter gatherer past. We have created infrastructure and technology which allows us to break that ancient, inherent bond, and to lose that genetically implanted insecurity which had kept our tribes together. We mature and many of us, men and women, gay and straight alike, say to our selves, “hey . . I don’t need this shit . . why do I stay with this lunatic?"

The bill mentions nothing of marrying the prostitute you have been seeing for six months. The bill mentions nothing of marrying that woman at the bar you’ve been drinking yourself into a stupor with, every single night for a year. The bill orders gay people to stay out of our town hall licensing departments. The bill does nothing about that eighteen year old straight couple in love that gets married in a day, has three children with three years. Within the marriage, for example, one of the two pillars of this marriage becomes alcoholic, the other gets fat and loses all attractive appeal. They fight, they throw objects at each other, their stress and their aggression is absorbed by the young children. One of them leaves. The family court gets involved. One of them along with the kids, appears as black and white mug shots on the side of milk cartons and is called a “kidnapper," the children are called “missing," with no good cause given to the public. The bill doesn’t ban divorce in an effort to “protect the sanctity of marriage." The bill doesn’t set an age minimum for the joining commitment. The majority of married straight people will get a divorce, at least once. Sanctified!

Irony: The proposed Amendment stops a particular kind of people from getting married ,like other people, because of their behavior and their expression of their feelings for each other. Marriage is a wreck to more than %55 of straight couples, because of the particular kind of people they each choose to marry. In those straight marriages it truly is the particular behavior they exhibit and the expressed feelings that they have for each other that is the reason those marriages become ulcer inducing roller-coaster rides through Hell. So, for the very reasons the homophobes wish to stomp out same-sex marriage, most marriages become dysfunctional and, sooner rather than later, obliterated.

Perhaps one day medical science can save us all from bad marriages. Genetic compatibility matching? Virtual journeys through the minds our prospective partners?

The excuses blathered out by our selected president included those above, which are words of holy dictate to the right wing Bible thumping homophobes, but added in the past several years is the latest word game in covering up bigotry and homophobia with a Constitutional Amendment; “Activist judges with arbitrary decisions have left the American people no choice!"

It is because a federal judge charged by our Articles of Confederation can not rule against the Constitutionality of a actual Constitutional Amendment, only how it is interpreted in specific cases, that the right-wingers now see a new Amendment which discriminates, as their only decent hope.

What is an “activist judge?" He or she is any federal judge who might rule against the Christian fundamentalists goals, or against the goals of anti choice advocates, or against the goals of both groups combined with the homophobic sections of the grandstands. But their particular kind of judgment is a ruling on the Constitutionality of the matter, which really boils the righteous blood of the right wingers. If you hear an emotionally charged Liberal say something to the effect of “Conservatives hate the constitution!" [I personally am guilty of this statement on more than one occasion] It is because of this type of Conservative unwillingness to understand the Constitutional and the separation of the three branches of our government, and or an unwillingness to accept he reality of the Constitution as the basis of our laws. “Activist Judges!" Is a politically correct cry of their own kind. A way to rally the frustrated among them toward a cause of unconstitutionality, of unequal rights, of “separate but equal," but by their definition.

A caller yesterday to the Randi Rhodes show on Air America inspired me to write this today. During his call he voiced an often heard call of the American Civics ignorant. Following his besmirch of “ . . all Liberals," he then proceeded with a common expression of a Conservative utopia, a world where there is no Constitution, where the mob rules.

Caller:

“ . . this country is supposed to be ruled by the majority . . not a bunch of activist judges ! The people always vote against gay marriage, in every state where they had a vote the people said no! But these activist judges . . . (etc.)."

Randi didn’t address this aspect of his call. I think she was tired or just too upset. But the attitude of this Con is typical. He never did get it, in history class, or in civics, or never even got civics in his school. Democracy does imply majority decisions win to represent group action. But on federal matters, the local level of choosing our representatives is where the founders decided that majority of the will would stop. From there our elected representatives vote for us. They are welcome to vote with our intent, our feelings on any matter, and they are also welcome to vote against us, of their own free will. They’re actions are restricted by the U.S. Constitution, a.k.a. Activist Judges, and the veto of the Executive branch. One other matter involving the Gay Marriage discussion: State’s Rights to choose who can be married, and or which states can recognize the marriages of other states and etcetera. This is a false narrative. An argument that should never have occurred. An excuse used by politicians who want to avoid taking a principled stand on either side of the Gay Marriage issue.

If you understand what a Civil Right is in America than you must understand that the right must be continuous from U.S. State to U.S. State. We call it “the United States," for a reason, we guarantee to the same rights all citizen within the U.S., its Equal Protection, its Free Speech, its the guaranteed Right to Interstate Travel, its protection against discrimination of race, color, creed, gender. All principles articulated in the Bill of Rights and in U.S. Law.


"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

- Thomas Jefferson

If our Supreme Court rules contrary to this understanding, it is their principles which have become warped from those of the founders and the authors of the Bill of Rights and the entire U.S. Constitution. They won’t be “activist judges," just old farts with antiquated ideals rooted in poorly reasoned Conservative philosophy, and they will eventually vote again.

“We need to protect Traditional Marriage!"

This about the stupidest statement made by the right-wing homophobes. It displays no sense of history, no concept of evolvement of societies, the subjugation of women throughout known time, or the initial reasons any man and woman would marry to begin with.

Define “traditional," as that practice which is similar, but has a lengthy period of time in its history. It can be a ceremony of similarity. It can be a doctrine of practice, of belief, of ritual. In history the “tradition," of marriage, and by any other name any joining for commitment of two persons (a man and a woman). This is fine to accept that the man and woman have traditionally married, except so much else has changed about this arrangement that only the varying gentiles remain similar.

Most common in marriage of human history? Enslavement of the woman by the man. The woman? No. Most commonly it was a girl, a pre-pubescent girl, virgin, terrified, bound by the orders of her parents. Beaten if unlucky, killed if deemed more trouble than she was worth. The reasons? For her family, the money, the livestock, or payment for a loss. Next commonly in “tradition." To make peace with a neighbor, a nearby village or a ruling King. If one tribe or village exchanges a virgin bride with another, bonds are formed, bonds which may protect each tribe or village from attack against the other.

Next most common tradition, the dowry, the buy off. Still practiced throughout the Near East. A daughter in a family of farmers, or nomads of herding, or hunter gatherers, is a burden, not seen as capable of the strength and fortitude a male can provide, not perceived as able to take the reins of the patriarch’s control, his estate. A male suitor is found by the two fathers, sometimes the mothers are consulted. A dowry is delivered by the father of the bride upon marriage. No love. No romantic meeting of the prospective couple. Forced marriage, arranged, cold, materialistic only, pragmatic only to their parents. Traditional marriage! Given there are more than a billion families practicing this sort of “traditional marriage," and less than seven hundred million Europeans and Americans combined whose idea of marriage is not at all like this; I would safely say that this Near Eastern “traditional marriage,” is the truly the most practiced. Traditional marriage!

I wear a tee shirt from my collection of Liberal message shirts, that well explains the principle that is often missing from this discussion, it is the foundation of the issue of Gay Marriage:

“If Gays and Lesbians
are allowed to have
equal rights . . .
then everyone will
want them!"

A Culture of Lying Accepted as Normal

We are a lie-happy society. Our incessant need to write television comedy with nearly every episode based upon one or more character’s lies to another may have made us comfortable with dishonesty. In the cases of many of us the boob-tube has brainwashed us from a young age into believing that lying is a common function of life, practically a necessity. Count the lies in your life. Start your next day carefully monitoring the truthfulness of every single person you encounter. Don’t discount small lies for they are dishonesty no less! Don’t assume your best friends and lovers won’t lie to you also.

Jack Benny tells a lie to Rochester at the beginning of the weekly episode of the Jack Benny (radio) Show. Rochester buys it and complexity wrought with humor ensues for the entire half hour. At the end of the episode the truth is discovered and Jack Benny is embarrassed, Rochester is mad, and the audience enjoys a hearty laugh.

Ralph loses his job at the bus company but is ashamed to let Alice know and so he lies to her. The stage is set for the half hour television sit-com. He brings Norton in on the deception, but Norton spills the truth to Trixie, who can not contain the deception from Alice. Alice conducts another deception of not disclosing her knowledge to the humiliated Ralph. In the end Ralph threatens Norton and then Alice with a trip to the moon. But at the very end Alice loves Ralph and Ralph proclaims he is the luckiest man in the world. The audience is swooned with romantic sympathy and laughs and cries tears of endearment.

Television history had begun and its writers understood that when any other story line fails to move, a lie is a source of content unparalleled in its ability build interesting scenario, to take a storyline anywhere and to end the story with anything. Ricky conceals from Lucy that television cameras will be broadcasting his show at the Tropicana, because he wants her to stay away. He tells Fred Mertz because he can trust him. The lies and deceptions follow and hilarity fills the pilot episode of I Love Lucy. The sitcom was so dependent on dishonesty in its plots there was even one episode titled Lucy Tells the Truth, this willingness to propagate lying on a national scale in 1955. Days of virtue? Family values?

Our television entertainment has not changed in five decades. We still are exposed to a majority of episodic entertainment involving dishonesty, outright lying, obfuscation and avoidance of direct truth. We sit our children down on the floor in front of these seemingly harmless, family oriented, half hour vignettes of characters unable to speak truth. Interestingly, every single episode is showing a moral lesson to the viewer, that dishonesty always results in hurt feelings and complexities and trouble. But because the lesson is bathed in the murky water of laughs and giggles, the lesson is lost on every viewer.

But no sitcom can properly convey the feeling of being lied to by a friend or a lover and so Rochester’s emotional sinking pains from being lied to by his lifelong boss and companion is not conveyed at all. If a sitcom were attempting to imitate real life, the small screen conveyance of a feeling that Alice Cramden has when learning that her own husband won’t tell her the truth about a major event in their lives, would be incredibly difficult to portray and would surely cause every viewer to change the channel. No one season of episodes will convey how Ricky Ricardo feels to have realized that he has to live with a wife whose word is consistently untrustworthy. Portrayals of real human pain, of real consequence and the sharp stabbing of betrayal, are reserved for the directors of cinematic drama, who seek realism and not a quickie portrait of the world through happy-glasses.

A solution:

Stop lying yourself. Don’t lie to yourself that you’re not lying – life long liars will be dishonest to themselves to the deep core of their own psyche – it’s a defense mechanism your brain has self trained to react with.

After a few weeks to a few months, the people around you will realize you are a wall of honesty. Their realization that they can’t get away with any bull-shit around you will cause the habitually dishonest ones to fall-out from your circle. The semi-honest friends and acquaintances will begin to change their demeanor and comfort level with you, for the better. At the beginning of your change to honesty you may feel like a dweeb, like young Jimmy Olson from the Superman comic books. Your honesty will lift stress from your shoulders, tightness from your neck and jaw. Confidence will show itself as speaking and planning and interacting no longer requires any forethought of deceit or thought of how and when to implement dishonesty.

Point out to your children each lie portrayed on each television show and ask them how that would be, in real life.

We Could Be Heroes

___________________________

A Hero is Discovered in Harlem:

" . . The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said. So he made one, and leapt. Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time . . . . "
Read the entire story: 1/2/2007 New York Times

__________________________

Quasi Heros and Real Heros

We are getting carried away from important ideals and their English vocabulary definitions, for the sake of feel-good emotional docu-drama. We are calling the wrong people heroes and we are afraid to acknowledge truths to squelch our own collective emotions regarding the September 11^th massacres. Former mayor Gulliani of New York City is not a hero. The firefighters and police or New York City are not heroes. George W. Bush is certainly not a hero.

What is a hero? Is it someone who does his job, or someone who goes beyond his or job and into danger or humility when he doesn’t have to? I say it’s the later. Take for instance the firefighters at the scene of the world trade center massacre; are they heroes for attempting to save lives, forsaking their own lives and going into the scene, either into the buildings to get people out, or toward the catastrophe of rubble to evacuate pedestrians in the disorder of the collapse of the towers? Heroes are the pedestrians and otherwise civilian bystanders who risked their lives to do the same. They were not expected to, yet some did. If heroes are civil servants and rescue personnel who carry on their persons their own resignation papers, for quick turnover to their immediate supervisors in case a situation gets scary, then yes the NYC firefighters and police were heroes for not resigning upon viewing the tragic circumstances of the moment.

A hero is the boy out for a walk who notices a man bobbing up and down in a large ice hole in the middle of a frozen lake. The boy takes off his shoes and coat and jumps in to hoist the man to safety. A hero is the man driving his car on the highway, he sees a burning wreck on the side of the road, he stops, he runs to the vehicle, reaches into the scorching hot car and pulls another driver to safety, saving a life. The boy walking and the man driving are not rescue trained civil servants performing obligations for pay and to meet performance expectations of their peers and supervisors, these hypothetical people are real heroes.

We cheapen the word hero by further exalting this title on people doing what they were expected to do. We make heroes out of every Tom, Dick and Harry in a uniform.

Enter into the melodrama of television cable (“we’re more patriotic than that other network”) news squawk shows. The faces of military personnel killed in the illegal action of our invasion and occupation of Iraq, face us from the dead, in memoriam. The show-graphics announce them as American Heroes, and or “they died so we can be free.” Where is the logic is these statements? Nowhere. Emotion dilutes and clouds logic but it increases cable ratings! Your average Joe Military young man signed up with the understood knowledge that the great majority of his comrades will eventually come home alive, just like WWII or from any other war of our past, no matter how bloody history has recorded them to be. As a bonus, their recruiters promised shoeboxes of money for college, health care delivery. Besides it was better than hanging around a dead-end town and becoming losers like so many of the young men they had known. Joining-up made their parents proud and gave them and their family hope for their futures. We all know the cliché dogmatic philosophy born out of the “good war,” that we tell young men who don’t know what to do with their lives: “It will make a man of you. You’ll gain confidence. You’ll learn leadership. You’ll come back and anyone will be glad to hire you!” Does a hero require these perks? Is it love of country and angelic selflessness that drives these eighteen and nineteen year olds into the services? Lets get real. These young men are given protection, given numbers of brothers to surround them for increased safety. They bond with their units, they feel the “got your back,” pact of their unit. They are not the lone highway traveler who with all choice to do nothing, chooses to rescue a trapped motorist from a burning vehicle. They are not the boy who disrobes to dive into a freezing lake to rescue a drowning person from a break in the ice.

Its wonderful to show appreciation for a dead or wounded serviceman. To show our gratitude for a task that held the possibility of great danger is a needed commission and in the case of those vulture-like cable news shows, its really the least they can do.

Time magazine had chosen to make Rudy Gulliani “person of the year,” like the firefighters he has been called a hero for doing his job. The cliché phrase “man of the year” is generally an honor of positivism bestowed on someone, or something for being the best at something in a year’s time. Time magazine’s honor traditionally is neither positive nor negative, it is supposed to be for an individual who has affected world events the most in that preceding year, for instance Adolph Hitler was given this dubious honor.

Three weeks before the magazine announced it had placed terrorist Osama BinLaden on the “short list” for man of the year the criticism started rolling in. Americans couldn’t understand the acknowledgement. They said it gave him publicity he didn’t deserve. They suggested good people by our standards, they suggested Mayor of New York City Rudy Guliani, and they suggested the court selected president George W. Bush.

What did mayor Gulliani do that any other mayor of any other city would not have done? Nothing. Is there precedent for a mayor to run and cower when his city is besieged with calamity? No there is not. His and any mayor’s job in a time of crisis is to keep the city running, to provide for emergency assistance the best that the office of the mayor can do. He did his job. Do we shower him with praise for not running to a motel room to take cyanide tablets? Is he a hero for not freaking out and going on a three-week alcohol and drug binge?

What did president select George W. Bush do that was hero like? It couldn’t have been his drunken AWOL service to our country in the Air National Guard. Might it have been the heroic manner he jumped around from military base to military base in Air Force One on September the 11^th? Must be all the brave teleprompter readings he gave and continues to give on network television? If his speeches had some substance I might grant him a small degree of hero worship in that department, but the hyperboloid rhetoric that is contained in every speech reminds me more of a salesmen’s convention than substantive information for the public.

Evidence of our national denial in a sea of emotional docu-drama is the ABC television v. Bill Maher incident: when one man dare to point out the inconsistencies of president select Bush’s child like speeches, he gets fired by his boss. Bill Maher’s well made point that the hijackers of the planes could not have been cowards, as the president select had told us a few nights before, was light hearted truth that was met with ignorant and emotional bitterness. He became blacklisted for his subversion to patriotic mushy mush.

Lets remember who heroes are before half the population is wearing a hero medal and suing for hero pay and television time. Lets honor substantial speech and continue to criticize talk that makes little logical sense.

James G. Mason
This editorial was first published
in 2/02

International Family Migration and First Do No Harm

“The illegal immigration problem!” The Republicans effort to introduce an illegal immigration “reform,” bill (warning: when the republicans even speak the words “reform,” run for cover. It means they want to do something that they know the mainstream public would find reprehensible, if they found out the particulars!) became a rallying point for the sympathetic public that remains in existence in the United States. The bill seeks to criminalize, nay felony-ize, illegal immigrants.

Liberal democrats, like myself, saw this debate coming from years back. We knew the “cons,” would need another divisive issue to bring out the angry white men they rely on so heavily. Immigration was the festering blister ready to pop in our faces. It only needed labor related issues like a struggling economy, like outsourced jobs, like multinational corporations moving their operations to slave labor countries, and anguishing issues like the continued stagnant wage levels for nearly every category of the American work force. Stopping gay marriage just did not quite tip the scales enough in 2004, a three to five point margin is a scary one for the cons, even their placement of key states’ Secretaries of State in their pockets, along with voting machine contractors connected like mafia to political family members was not enough phony victory for them.

When the millions of immigrant supporters took to the streets and flooded their representatives with email and letters and phone calls, the message frightened the bajeezus out of the cons. Shock! There seemed to be a lot more of them than the angry white folks the cons thought they had in their pockets! Yikes, now the cons still had the angry white folks, many even angrier than before, but now the cons had millions of brown folks ready to tear them a new one.

Many cons still don’t get it. Its about not harming families for doing all they could to best survive in an economy in which real hunger looms on the other side of each sunset. Its about not criminalizing a families quest for sustenance, for hope, for a half descent future. Its a bureaucratic violation of documents to cross our borders unchecked without form 10Z1ABQ34-8 (example) but its not currently illegal. It is unethical, uncivil, some would say disrespectful of us born Americans to do so.

Solution One:

Fix the damn borders. Using every available technological doo-dad available to us. No harmful or wounding devices, no guns, no alligators or possessed dolls with evil intent. Work with the Mexican and Canadian authorities to accomplish the goal of complete containment. Address the border containment issue as a separate and first priority issue in congress. Ignoring all other noise until the border solution is settled.

Solution Two:

I know it’s a tough request for a congress containing any number of conservatives, but the Oath of the great teacher Hippocrates, “First do no harm,” should be given to all members of the Congress (as if oaths are any more valuable than oats). It sounds so Liberal, so mushy mush, not at all like the veiled attempt at political correctness of the whimpering cry: “we’re compassionate conservatives!” Symbolic yes, but some people hold symbolism dearly, as if not honoring a symbol will cause God to strike them down with a bolt of lighting. Interesting note; the Capital Dome is indeed lightning proof!

Considering that solution one has been enacted for more than a couple of years, its now time to address the social and economic ramifications of Family Immigration. Allow any employer with available jobs to register with a central federal computer database. In doing so, that employer would be agreeing to “job adopting,” the eligible laborer, if that laborer were coming from across our borders, or across the oceans. The employer would also be agreeing to paying all employees, citizens or not, no less than %60 of federal Prevailing Wage in that region, this percentage would automatically increase as the years of the program proceed. On the other side of our border a jobless, or otherwise desperate person, willing to travel away from his or her family would access the same database. At his terminal he would be issued a ticket matching the employer and particular job in the States. At his emigration office he would receive legal papers and a work visa to exit his country and into the United States. His prospective employer stamps his visa on the day he begins work, this action certifies the workers’ visa card. This action makes him eligible to apply for a drivers’ license marked with a prominent “NC,” for non citizen, this prevents him from registering to vote, but this is his only restriction. He is allowed a checking or savings account without American established credit ratings. He may only use a checking debit/credit card at any retail establishment, discounting any need for him to have had credit ratings established. He will be sent a Medicare card as soon as his address is established. This employer would have immediately began paying into the Medicare program through the standard payroll tax known as F.I.C.A..

So imagine if you will, no immigrant crosses our border without already having a place to work. He may even have safe transportation. No job is taken from an American citizen as wages would be equivalent. This economic disincentive upon large employers, like the agribusinesses, will begin to reduce the inflow of immigrants, as those jobs are more in demand to citizens, and less available to immigrants. As the immigrant worker requires health care, its paid for, the cost is quantifiable, record able, reimbursable.

When more immigrant families are able to live in their home country, partly due to the open and legal crossing of their principle earner into the States, and partly due to the availability of housing paid for by their principle earner, then more children can stay in their home country, in their home with their mother, at attending their local school and speaking their own language. How much more pro family could an immigration policy get?

James G. Mason

R-E-S-P-E-C-T What My Party Should Mean to Me

A party that realizes the electorate has been beaten and is bloody and deserves a long and healthy dosage of respect can capture and hold the White House and both houses of Congress.

We get no respect! Its true. We are the Rodney Daingerfields of the Milky Way Galaxy, except no-one is laughing at our attempts of humor. Instead the audience is overcome with pity and shame for us. We are the abused. The party that can run on “Respect,” can win over the populist vote, the angry vote, the “sick to death of it . .” vote.

To us in the Democratic Party and those of us who are true liberals and progressives, our relationship with the current administration is as if we are the scrawny book-worm neighbors, abused by the six foot six inch, three hundred pound beer-pounding brute who moved in next door five years ago. The arrogant lummox throws his trash over the fence into our yard, he steals anything we leave outdoors. We get no respect from this new guy. We must be cautious of this buffoon next door. But living in fear with excessive steps of caution distract us from our lives, our own growth. The effects of the disrespect ripple through the life of the neighbor as his own messages are lost in the turmoil, his family is frustrated with his frustration expressed as yelling fits, and four hour stops at the local pub after work.

The arrogant and obnoxious neighbor can’t be reasoned with, as there is no critical thought from the hair down, and so there is no point in attempting to explain the complexities of concepts such as community and sharing, courtesy, or why playing a positive role in the neighborhood is better than his negative role.

On all sides of the American political spectrum respect has been blatantly absent from the neighbors that are the Congress of the United States. Lead by Republicans, the One Hundred and Ninth Congress, and the Senate of Two Thousand and Four, may be the most corrupt in our short history. Often in secret and with blatant disrespect, they ignored our best interests to cater to the desires of credit card corporations, of pharmaceutical corporations, and of health insurance corporations, military contractors, and mining companies. The President and the White House administration has disrespected our constitution on multiple counts. Our Bill of Rights and our Articles of Confederation, had been written with respect in mind and they have been abused.

The left wing of American politics can be the Respect party. Respect for the Labor that (truly) drives our economy. Respect for the education’s of all Americans choosing to pursue intellectual growth for the benefit of all. Respect for the necessity of affordable health care for all Americans. Respect for our environment and the maintenance of our free lands. Respect for privacy. Respect for the single email or letter or the phone call from a voter in the district, a respect tied down with chain that can not be raised and counter weighted on a giant brass scales by satchels of gifts, golf trips, and private jet flights.

Above all the new respect our nation needs from government must be based upon a philosophy which defines government, stated by a Liberal president who happened to carry the label Republican:

“ . . . government is the coming together of peoples as a group or as a whole to accomplish together what they could not, or would not, as individuals.”

Abraham Lincoln

The respect afforded the populace by adherence to this philosophy is paramount in maintaining the honor of the government. Each program or spending allocation must meet the justification, included in this statement, and respect will follow and the electorate will know they are respected. It is an evidence based logic that dictates government actions following this philosophy. No opposing factor will be able to dismantle, for example environmental protections, without showing evidence that the states, or cities, could effectively manage the cause of problems by themselves, or that those problems effect none of their neighbors. Respect must sweep from the farthest ocean ports, to the distant islands of all of the United States.

Two Hundred and Thirty years ago a rather exclusive group of liberal thinkers, men of imagination, men of aspiring dreams felt disrespect from the throne of King George. Servile positions to a monarchy across the sea did not allow them accomplish as small groups of peoples (the colonies) or as individuals what they strongly felt they could as a large group, unified against the disrespect.

James G. Mason

Sunday, April 30, 2006