Contributors
Charles Kopp - Contributor

Charles Kopp is a graduate of the New School for Social Research. He is a composer and musician, and an ardent lover of poetry. He has been a teacher and a systems analyst. In Lafayette, California, he now designs websites and works on creative projects. He can be contacted at charleskopp@earthlink.net [go to Kopp index]

The Government We Deserve
When Will We Have Good Governance?
[Charles Kopp] 4/20/04

America’s government today is mostly a cynical mockery of the institution founded by our Constitution. Our President’s Administration, in concert with major elements of our military and intelligence services, is managing an earnest effort to fulfill the basic governmental obligation of defending our safety. And they are facing heavy criticism for having the audacity to serve the public.

Almost every other aspect of our government’s functioning today is pathetically ineffective at best, and actively destructive at worst. You will not hear issues debated and problems solved in our House and Senate; our elected officials speechify there, generally in a room all by themselves (they are too busy raising money to listen to each other), and they eventually vote in accordance with reasons and agreements arrived at off-camera, which we are unlikely to ever discover.

The great federal institutions from the State Department to the Congressional Budget Office employ predominately members of the Democratic Party and function as a wholly owned subsidiary thereof. The judiciary is a predominately leftist and activist body, seeking month by month to impose their utopian notions upon an American citizenry which they disdain, having failed through electoral means to persuade much of anyone of their radical agenda.

From the bow to the stern, you look in vain to find a person even attempting good governance for the general well being of the American people. One could wish to scrap the entire District of Columbia and start over from scratch, if history were not so replete with disastrous attempts in various other places.

The Democratic Party has iron control over public employees' unions, which can effectively vote themselves pay increases, budget and staffing increases, and breadth of power increases, simply by walking into their polling precincts and casting a vote for the Democratic candidate. The public education system is entirely in the grip of politically correctness and revisionist history. It is in question whether parents have a right to instruct their own children according to their beliefs. There has not been intellectual freedom in our universities for decades now, and there will not be in the future since those composing doctorate theses have to satisfy the ruling ideologues. Great proportions of the populace pay no federal income taxes, or live on public welfare, and await even great dispensations from the income of working people via reparations.

On top of these entrenched legions, the party of the left is actively working to enfranchise felons and non-citizens, and where possible to disenfranchise the military. Herein is a strategy to become a permanent majority party, and eventually a one party America with no further need of elections.

We should not have been surprised by any of the natural consequences of all these circumstances. When the future of Social Security is considered, the financial realities of the coming decades are not relevant to the left; the issue is purely a political consideration of constituencies and power. When the future of medical practice is concerned, similarly, the issue is to compel those who can provide services to do so for free “for our constituents”; fairness and even practicality are not relevant.

With a host of issues bottled up in Congressional intricacies, similar observations beg to be aired. The death tax on income which has already been taxed cannot be repealed, not even in cases where the tax forces children to sell the homes or farms of their parents in order to pay the tax; repealing it would reduce the income stream flowing to “our constituents.”

Our government is no longer about governance; it is about taking from “their side” to give things to “our side.” Minority Democrats in the House and Senate do not want to pass legislation to help our nation, because the President would get to sign it. Anything that helps “their side” is bad. Profitability is a moral evil, and most government institutions are firmly dedicated to eradicating it from American life. The thrill of class warfare drowns out the simple truth that businesses have to succeed in order for Americans to live well.

In the midst of all this, the quality of electioneering in our nation is in a downhill dance that seems frustrated that some public venues such as gangster rap manage to be more vicious than politics. Clearly folk such as Senators Kennedy and Byrd find hatred itself an overpowering and beautiful narcotic. The fact that during Watergate there were accusations against a President, based on some items of actual evidence, seems an irrelevant detail (recall, there where burglars with checks in their pockets from the Committee to Re-elect, and White House phone numbers, etc).

But today, if we can imagine a crime, we can accuse our opponents of that crime. We should not be surprised by this either. Late in October some new “information” will come to light; some employee of Kerry or McAuliffe is sitting at this moment, working on creating this “information” and orchestrating its dramatic discovery. Do I know this person? No, but I can speak of them with confidence, having the 2000 National and 2002 California elections to look back on.

Something even worse may happen this year; Al Queda has a Spanish victory to emulate here. In the event of a terrorist strike in America in the days before our election, we will need to bear in mind who is trying to influence us, and why. By the way, there is no campaign finance reform.

Another prominent arm of the DNC, of course, is Dan Rather and his fellow anchors at the three networks -- Tom Brokaw has even been openly mentioned as a possible running mate for John Kerry. “Public” radio and our newspaper of record behave completely consistently with being owned and operated by the Democratic Party. White House reporters are not going to ask our President a single question to which they suspect he’ll have an answer that plays well to American citizens.

Despite the left-wing whining about Fox and Limbaugh, its own ownership of mainstream media is complete and absolute. For those who have not noticed it, the left does not believe in a free press. They believe in the right of Nazis to terrorize survivors of the German holocaust in Skokie, but they do not believe Americans have a right to a fair presentation of news about their President. Incidentally, they do not believe in the liberty of individuals, but in the superior ability of government to provide all and control all for the good of the us all.

What then is our future like?

In the short run, the next eight months are going to be ugly. It will not matter what gaffes Kerry makes, or how many flip flops, or how silly his presentation of his “moderate and mainstream” credentials becomes, the press are not going to present him in this light. A host of allies from Clinton to Kennedy will be expressing their deep and profound reverence for this remarkable candidate.

Reunions with his "band of brothers" will be staged in every city for 8 months, and this will be the “news” from Dan Rather and company. It will not matter how little evidence (if any) is offered to support accusations against President Bush: they will all get headlines as if saints and angels had verified each and every one of them.

Your television will present a fantasy land in which turning Iraq over to the U.N. is an idea of pure genius and statesmanship. And not a single prominent Democrat will confess to the unfairness of all this. Congressional and other investigations will release reports carefully timed in coordination with the DNC, to maximize political damage to the President in the election cycle.

Will it win the Presidency for John Kerry? Possibly. Will it turn out to be worth winning, after the government has no non-partisan department left, and no legitimacy? I doubt it.

Even if Kerry fails and the President Bush prevails, enormous work has to be done to restore our government to its rightful place as a servant of all of us, one nation, under God, the citizens of America. When will children in public schools again learn about the radical and brilliant work of our founding fathers? When will both conservative and liberal speakers be welcomed and listened to on university campuses? When will senators and representatives work together to solve important problems facing our nation? When will they feel ashamed of conspiring daily for partisan victories that harm our country? When will political candidates refrain from slander, and attempt to persuade voters of the quality of their own ideas?

Make no mistake; we have the government we deserve, and if we ever deserve better we have it in our power to create better. We can be thankful, that we have a military which is better than we deserve. Thanks to them, we have some time to do the work that needs to be done. Let’s get it done. CRO

copyright 2004 Charles Kopp

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