Senator No-Show

Some thoughts on how we're being "represented."

First of all, the photo above is a a metaphor. I know that the Congressman’s office generally sends staffers to events like this and sometimes they need a break. I just happened to catch it at the proper time. (The “Senator” is because we know she’s running for it.)

And just as an aside, I’ve been to the Delaware State Fair several years running now (we moved up here in 2019 after the fair, but we’d gone a couple times before that since it’s reasonably close to Salisbury, where we lived.) Friday was the first time I’d been in the building that houses the displays and booths for the state offices, but any port in the storm of a sun-baked, humidity-laden Delaware summer heat wave. (I always wondered why I never saw the Democrats there, now I know why - they share the same space. The Delaware GOP is in another building that I have frequented more often.)

But this post isn’t about the Delaware State Fair, it’s about political philosophy.

Our nation has regressed to a point where millions of people depend on government at all levels for their livelihood and/or sustenance. On the one hand, they’re employed by the government, whether as a teacher, secretary, snowplow driver, lady at the DMV, or regulator who goes to work each day dreaming up new restrictions because “it’s for your own good.” On the other side, it’s those who get a government check each month, go to the doctor when they are sick believing the government will help pay for curing their sniffles, or wave their inaptly-named “Independence Card” at the grocery store when it’s time to pay for their frozen pizza, pop, and chips. Sometimes those people are one and the same, but generally the groups are mutually exclusive. Yet put together they are a tremendous voting bloc.

We’ve become accustomed to the mantra that government should give people a hand up, not a handout. But that’s already losing the argument about the proper role of government. A quote attributed to James Madison, at the time a Congressman, goes, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” Well, I can’t either.

When I see what LBR crows about online as “achievements” they’re usually falling into the category of what Madison decried. If she wanted to be a good representative, she would be working on ways to restrict the federal government to do just what they’re supposed to do, and no more. Instead, she works toward whatever her special interests and backers want, which is often to get their fingers into the government pie. So, as a believer in limited government, I thought the no-show was apt to show as the photo.

On the other hand, the other side of the aisle isn’t blameless in this, either. For the most part, their philosophy seems to be that of making the government that we’re saddled with run more efficiently while enriching their own set of special interests and grifters. At one time Democrats were held captive by their special interests of Big Labor, environmentalist wackos, and race pimps, while Republicans were the party of big business, the wealthy, and the warmongers. Now it indeed seems like we have a Uniparty since both parties cater to all of these interests to a certain extent, although the Democrats have added the Rainbow Mafia since then. As some lament, we don’t have money to cater to our homeless veterans but we have another few billion to send over to Ukraine, along with any weapons we didn’t happen to abandon in Afghanistan. The rest of the largesse gets spread among the millions of illegal immigrants we’re letting in so that government has a perpetual underclass and the Chamber of Commerce types have cheap labor. But at least they work.

Soon I will be 59 years old, and I’m now sadly realizing that most of these problems - which, in some cases, began before I was born - will long outlive me, unless maybe I turn out to be like Noah and live well over a hundred years. But that doesn’t give me a pass on trying to set things right anyway. Remember my philosophy comes from Matthew 13.

Elsewhere in the Book of Matthew, there is the quote where Jesus says, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21.) Certainly there are aspects of life which would not be possible without our system of government, but more often than not we get to thinking that Caesar is our god. There are many things I know I have been blessed with, but in the end Caesar wasn’t the provider of these blessings. Unfortunately, those who represent us seem to think Caesar was.

When it comes to things I have truly been blessed with, Caesar was a no-show, too. So when America puts Caesar in its place, we will all be blessed.