PC left untreated will be the death of our society and country.

It has three strains:

Political Correctness
Pseudo Compassion
Political Careerism.

The first is a bludgeon used to impose a synthetic morality, limit free speech, and justify certain behaviors and rules that common sense would not.  The zero tolerance idiocies like schools who would dispel a second grader for pointing a chicken finger and saying “pow” shows how this mushy thinking manifests.  A more serious example might be the legal discrimination enforced through affirmative action somehow ameliorates actual discrimination.  Much, if not all, of this craziness rests upon the concept of …

The second PC, pseudo compassion, facilitates and perpetuates the illusion of a higher moral authority to justify control.  Pseudo compassion is the K-Y lubricant of political intercourse; it’s unseemly result being the domestic policy of good intention and foreign policy of wishful thinking.  Pseudo compassion allows its practitioners to reduce any issue to an emotional rather than rational level. Call it government by guilt.  Empiric, simple arithmetic, let alone actuarial accounting, have absolutely no bearing on the thought processes of the pseudo compassionate.  This is what happens when the 60’s counter culture, whose modes operandi was “IF IT FEELS GOOD, DO IT” are in charge of the house and senate.     

The third are the agents, or to further the metaphor, carriers of the social disease, and the first subject of this three part essay.

I decided to start with political careerists first as a shout out to the Get Out Of Our House folks, who I am meeting this weekend.  Readers in the Black Earth, western Dane County Wisconsin area, are welcome to join host Scott Patchin at his restaurant D.W. Heiney’s Dining and Spirits.  Link for directions on the right.

Political careerism is the single biggest contribution to the regression of this country from a representative republic to a vast self-serving corrupt government spoils system because a crooked system requires, spawns, and enables, crooked operators.  

The framers forewarned about the danger of career politicians:

The people must remain ever vigilant against tyrants masquerading as public servants.
-George Washington

Where annual elections end, there slavery begins … Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.
- John Adams

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.
-Thomas Jefferson

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.
-James Madison

There is an almost knee-jerk tendency by conservatives like me to put the framers on pedestals, but when you ponder the profundity of these sentiments in light of the political scene today it is hard to resist.  At the very least you have to give them credit for prescience.

On the other hand, the light of wisdom they shine is fairly simple, it’s really only the recognition of and accounting for human imperfection, and when you add power those imperfections tend to metastasize.  Their aim, backed by term limits they put into in the constitution, was to prevent a ruling elite and foster a continuous flow of citizen legislators through congress, an endless transfusion of new blood necessary to the good health of government. 

For over 200 years, the decline of the original citizen legislature model is in direct proportion to both the growth of its antithesis, political careerists, and the growth of government.  Today, the only thing ignored faster than their oath of office, as though that gets any thought at all, is that their being there was set up as a temporary arrangement.

Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens.
-George Mason

Political careerism is a cancer that overwhelms its host body, the government.  As their numbers increase so does the appetite for power. Power requires control.  Control requires legislation.  Legislation requires enforcement.  Enforcement requires numbers. Numbers grow government. This is a self-perpetuating, self-fueling problem that cannot be fixed internally due to the dearth of political courage therein.

It is becoming more apparent than ever we are approaching the point, at an alarmingly accelerating pace, that the host crumbling of its own weight is inevitable.  Political careerist carriers are either oblivious, incompetent, or too damn busy feathering their own nests to do anything about it. 

The survival of America requires that citizens remove this life threatening malignancy from her body politic. That’s where GOOOH comes in. The exponential increase in communicability afforded by the internet makes this the best opportunity in our lifetime to effect bold profound change on a wholesale level.  This group is seizing that opportunity. 

Hey, I’m a realist and eschew generalizations as a rule.  I understand that saying all members of congress are political careerists is neither fair nor accurate, but the proportion reached and maintained a critical mass during my lifetime starting in the late fifties. It was Ike Eisenhower who warned against the military industrial complex wherein he explained the potential hazards of an unhealthy collaboration between government, business,and special interests. 

The baby boom generation allowed this to happen on our watch.  Only those comfortable as the first generation in U.S. history to leave it in worse shape than we found it should stand aside.  Something has to be done - - by us. I have no intention of abiding this discomfort and shame. No patriot would.

Drastic times call for drastic measures and sometimes the surgical removal of a malignancy requires sacrificing healthy tissue.  We have a saying here in Wisconsin; cream rises.  Here in Wisconsin I honestly hate the idea of losing a rising conservative star like Paul Ryan, but if Russ Feingold goes down with him, it’s a net gain.   Sincerely altruistic citizen legislators like Ryan will find a way to serve, or their fellow citizens will find them. 
(UPDATE:  After hearing Tim Cox explain the process this no longer applies as the GOOOH model pertains exclusively to the House of Representatives.  That said, this would free up Ryan to run for Senate eventually)

Sometimes when considering a renovation you are forced to recognize that everything, all the way to the inside of the outside walls, needs to be removed to salvage the whole structure.  We are at that point. Keep it in perspective, and acknowledge that this may be properly labeled drastic, but is not necessarily radical. 

I am for making of terms annual, and for sending an entire new set every year.
-John Adams 

Now that’s radical!  So remember, the whole concept rests on the foundational instincts of a group of citizen legislators whose character and integrity is so immeasurably superior to the political class of today the only thing they have in common is title.

William F. Buckley famously claimed he would rather be ruled by the first 500 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard.  I’ll update that notion by saying I’d rather be governed by randomaly selected citizens, like a jury pool, than political careerists.   Adherence to such a wild notion might mean you agree with this:

The ordinary affairs of a nation offer little difficulty to a person of any experience.
-Thomas Jefferson

Which sort of reminds me of my favorite heartland axiom:
It’s not that it’s too complicated to fix.  It’s that it’s fixed to look too complicated.

Political careerists are masters at complicating issues to deliberately instill a sense of hopelessness and defeatism in the electorate as a way to posit themselves as our saviors.

Hitch up your britches, adjust your cup, gird your loins, and get ready.  Self-interest compels them to rig the game to insure their own survival. Those in control have neither incentive nor willingness to upset the status quo so the responsibility falls on us. Our only weapons are the rights we still have, speech and assembly being paramount, and most importantly of course, the ballot. 

Fellow patriots, it is time to empty the quiver.

It's either GOOOH, or the status quo.