The other night, I was driving my daughter and a classmate to an event. Discussing the failings of another girl, my daughter said " I stand behind her, so I couldn't see, but it looks pretty bad from the back". Whereupon the other girl, who's 13, said " Well, someone should tell her to get a bra. No one's boobs go that low." I damn near went off the road.
I read a web page this morning about wordings in some federal legislation which make it significantly easier for the president (I still find it difficult to capitalize that word when thinking of the current White House resident) to declare martial law and override state authority in the deployment of National Guard troops, and also to use federal troops to maintain order in the case of local breakdown of order. If you believe in the integrity of the person invoking the rule, then the breakdown would be things on the order of natural disaster or terroristic attack; if you don't, its anything that would let that person do what they feel like doing, without the restrictions of local authority or congressional oversight. Given the predilections of the current heads of government here, I think the latter more likely, though I don't subscribe to theories of insidious plots. I don't entirely discount them; I just don't subscribe to them.
In reading the page, though, I noticed that I wasn't getting even a little agitated about what I was reading. The idea that a head of government could take such actions with less than honorable intent should shock me, but it did not. I wasn't even a little outraged. Frankly, I was numb to the idea. The most that I could summon up was thinking 'gee, I hope that doesn't happen'. I think that you have to have a feeling that you can affect events and actions before outrage does any good. I know that there are people who seem to spend their lives in a state of perpetual outrage, but I'm not like that. I recall once, talking to someone who said that a given state of affairs wasn't acceptable, and pointing out that obviously it was acceptable, because it had been going on for quite some time, and no one had stopped it. It wasn't desirable, but it was acceptable. I knew that I was playing semantical games, and I'm afraid they didn't like it very much, but I meant it. As things are now, I don’t feel that I can affect the course of actions by anyone outside of my own household – and not always that. Whats scary is, Congress seems to feel the same way.
Saw Obama last night doing a town hall in eastern Pennsylvania. Boy, do I like listening to him. I’ll admit, I got a little worried, listening to his plans to pay for this, that, and the other, thinking ‘Surely he knows that this money won’t just pop up; how plausible is it that he’ll be able to generate funds for these things?’, but I’m a believer. I want to believe that he’ll be able to do it.
This takes, ahem, a lot of balls:
4 comments:
Lol! I'd have nearly driven off the road when hearing that conversation too.
Regarding the wording issue, sadly, I think Americans have gotten used to, even expect, tricky wording from their politicians :-(
Yes, I agree. Its possible that Obama is simply better at faking it than anyone else - the old joke about faking sincerity - but I hope not. I hope that he is real, and that he gets the chance to prove it.
On the other hand, have you been following the Mayor of Detroit "Quamby Fitzpatrick" scandal? The more I read about it, the more I am drawn into it, like an episode of Barny Miller....it just gets more and more bizzare as it goes along.
Gotta admit, 'Merican politics is way more interesting than Canuck politics. Though come to think of it, MY mayor is facing charges that he failed to creat a patronage appointment for a political rival. Only in Canada is the failure to create a patronage appointment considered to be worthy of questions being raised in the House.
(shakes head sadly)
So maybe the people who say there is a secret plot to merge Canada and the US have something going for it -- your laws, our patronage...
Yeah, the Detroit thing is pretty strange. Read a novel, years ago, called Vote for Quimby - and Quick!, wherein a political consultant muses on the number of New Jersey politicians who have gone to jail while steadfastly proclaiming that they will be exonerated 'once all the facts are known'. Apparently, not just New Jersey!
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