Actually ‘Playing’ to Win? If Only Politics Were More Like Sports
So the shutdown is over, the Republicans decided to go into victory formation with first and goal on the Democrats one-yard line, still down by 1. That’s right, forget the quarterback sneak, forget the field goal, Coach McCain wants to run out the clock because, somehow losing will be a moral victory. So Mitch McConnell takes the knee and the RINO cheerleaders do “the perfect cheer”, but the fans go home deflated.
In the mean time, McConnell gets a new multi-million dollar bonus for losing. Make sense to you? If John McCain and John Boehner were the head coach and offensive coordinator of any football team in the country, at any level, would they still have a job?
One of the Democratic talking points that the mainstream media was all too happy to pass along was that the Republicans were holding the government hostage: either Rush Limbaugh hypnotized the Tea Party or Ted Cruz slipped us a date rape drug, but someone had raided dad’s gun cabinet and was stopping our dear leaders from their essential and non-essential work. I wish it were true!
I, for one, would love it if our government were “held hostage.” Sure, have at it! Waterboard the little tyrants while you’re at it. Did they really think that they could drum up sympathy for the government with half the country out of work and congress less popular than Jeffrey Dahmer? I’d even be willing to do a prisoner exchange.
Recently an NBC/WSJ poll was commissioned that showed 60% of Americans would like to see the whole of congress voted out. What do you think the percentage would be if we commissioned a poll that asked “Should congress be detained indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay?” Or, “Should congress get ‘perp walked’ out in Sheriff Joe’s pink boxers and be forced to pick up litter on the side of I-55?”
The best-case scenario is for these guys to be furloughed until the next election, but no, the Republican leadership decided to bend over, and collect a fee. Some things are just that obvious – they’re simply rank whores.
The good news is that there are around eighteen senators and seventy congressmen that get it and are still worthy of our support and encouragement. We must never allow cynicism to blunt our vigilance. Rage is the order of the day!
Rage against the machine and against the dying of the light! Rage against a complicit press corps and in the face of a docile “opposition party!” Rage at the school board meeting and in the town hall!
Rage in person and on the phone; rage in email and through snail mail! Let your light shine and your voice be filled with beautiful, passion-filled, outspoken righteous indignation! Summon the AWOL, shame the silent and cry out at injustice! Weave the three strand whip, turnover the tables of the money-changers! Never tire! Never give up!
The moment that fatigue begins to set in think of the sacrifice of your fathers, think of the chains that would be your sons. Summon the strength of faith to endure, we are not blind to the path, just follow the blood stained footprints of those who trod freedom’s trail just yesterday. Our enemies want us to give up or, at least, to give in. Let evil not triumph because the righteous have abandoned the field.
As Burke has warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” so I, would have you believe, that “the good man, once informed, will never choose apathy!”
The history of the Republican Party has been one of fighting injustice in the behalf of true freedom; we should not suffer RINOs who sell our heritage for a bowl of lentils or Democrats who plough with our heifer in their plot to deceive.
We had a team prior to this one that was comfortable just showing up and never talked about victory, then a guy nicknamed the Gipper came along and gave us the game plan, “We win and they lose!” It’s time once more that we dared to challenge the status quo and moved beyond “détente.”
I would not have you switch teams or give up the game all together, but as for the current Republican Party, it’s time we forced new leadership and gave the ball to Ted Cruz.
Image: Weekly juvenile magazine 1907;source: Library of Congress; public domain; copyright expired