The Gauntlet We Face

The American Action Report began as a blog with a single purpose: to drive the rats out of Congress. Once I began tugging at that thread, I found, as the ancients discovered, that “…all things work together….”
If we succeed in driving the rats from Congress, we mustn't assume that their successors will not also be rats, or will become rats through exposure to Congress. As many people already know, the system itself is a rotten barrel that spoils the apples. How do we gain by making room in Congress for other rats?
I'm reminded of the writer who said, “Nobody ever reads what I write. I continue to write because I want to know what I think.” The more I wrote and discovered my thoughts, the more I realized that a whole-systems approach was needed. I also discovered that I make a poor newsman and probably a worse rabble rouser because I think too much and too deeply, and I have too many ideas.
No, with my nimble fingers tickling the keyboard, the American Action Report is more appropriate as a political guidebook and reference book. If it ever becomes an honest-to-goodness book, made with real paper formed from trees that have been assassinated expressly for the purpose of giving people something to hold as they read, perhaps the name should be changed.
Perhaps then it should be titled The John Book of American Politics. In book form, each article would be about two pages long. That length is perfectly suited for bathroom reading. One can learn more about attending to his constitutional responsibilities as he attends to his constitutional. Already, I'm convinced that neoconservatives (previously known as Trotskyites) and other authoritarian types have found that reading these articles has helped to relieve their symptoms of irregularity.
As for solutions to our political woes, I'm not a bit optimistic. I've never believed in optimism. Optimism is the madness of maintaining that everything will turn out well simply because we want them to turn out well.
No, I'm a possibility thinker. There's a difference.
There are far more ways that things can go wrong than right. For that reason, I believe that things naturally go wrong; and they seldom go right except by planning and effort. If we sincerely want to “take our country back,” we'd better have a plan as to what we're going to do with it; and we'd better be willing to accept that responsibility. If we don't, we'll lose it again. Worse still, for each demon we drive out of Congress, seven more will take his place, and the situation will be worse than before. The rotten barrel must be cleaned before they can spoil the fresh apples we put in it as replacements for the incumbents. This calls for fortitude.
I've also observed that there's very little that anyone can do about anything. Opportunities to affect things for good are few and fleeting. Here's the good news: The difference between a person (or group) that is effective and one that isn't is the alertness to recognize those opportunities as they arise (or anticipate them before they arise) and make the most of them before they can get away. This calls for prudence and vigilance.
The members of Congress will never be better than the American people. If we want the blessings of peace with other nations, we must learn to be at peace with one another. We can't always understand each other. We can't always like each other. We can and should always care for one another's well-being even when we don't understand one another.
If we want the blessings of prosperity, we need to respect one another's property and hold government leaders to the same standards.
If we value the right to life, we must respect the lives of others.
If we want the blessings of liberty, we must respect the rights of others and demand the same of government. That includes the recognition that people in far-off lands, who are no threat to their neighbors, have a right to be left alone.
If we want a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, then We the People must become more closely involved in it.
Sending an honest person to Congress, we send him out as a sheep among wolves. If ethical behavior were always simple, there would be no decisions to make. Many corporations have divisions devoted especially to guiding their employees in doing the right thing. We the People have offered no such guidance for our Congressmen.
A careful study of the major acts of legislative embezzlement and shredding of the Constitution over the past ten years will reveal systemic failures that the voting public have failed to address. The demonically evil people guiding various embezzlement bills and human rights violations (the USA PATRIOT Act, the bailouts, and the “healthcare” scam, to give a few examples) through Congress followed certain patterns. They systemically cut congressmen off from their sources of guidance, lied incessantly, offered them a choice between two appalling evils, and pushed them in the direction of the decision the government gangsters wanted them to make.
Many of them, having already signed away their souls, eagerly embraced these atrocities against their constituents. Others went along with the evils because We the People were not there to offer them the guidance they needed. When our congressmen are faced with choices between two evils, We the People can't always expect them to have the wisdom to find a third way. We the People must take that responsibility.
The damage is done. We must clean up the mess we helped to make, bring about a rebirth of freedom, and take steps to keep from making a mess of things in the future.
Congressmen who failed us must be replaced for the same reasons that a sick patient sometimes must be removed from the source of his ailment. If they're returned to Congress two years after being removed, they’re likely to return as better representatives. Congressmen who are willfully corrupt must be removed for the same reasons one might remove an alcoholic from his job as a bartender or a pedophile from his job at a day care center. Scoundrels such as they should be cast into outer darkness and never returned to any position of public responsibility. In all probability, criminal investigations of dozens of congressmen should be carried out.
Sweeping the rats out of Congress, then, is not a cure-all. It won't be enough to drive the money changers from the temple. A clean-up from top to bottom and from inside out is needed. Much of that clean-up must take place within the lives of each voter. Figuratively speaking, our bones have been broken partly because We the People have repeatedly gone astray. If a proper cleansing takes place and the right spirit is renewed in us, then the bones that have been broken may rejoice.
I pray that the American Action Report—admittedly, one of many blogs written by many bloggers—will, in its small way, serve as a reference and guidebook toward that end.

Pray for wisdom in the 2010 congressional elections.
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What's All this about the GOOOH Movement?

By now you’ve heard a thing or two about the GOOOH Movement. GOOOH, pronounced, “Go,” stands for Get out of Our House. GOOOH is a non-partisan, grassroots movement to replace all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and elect citizens who, presumably, will serve for only one term of office. It’s the brainchild of Jim Cox, a computer specialist who quit his day job to devote all his time to GOOOH.
I won’t go into the details of how the GOOOH process of candidate selection and election is designed to take place; nor will I try to get you fired up for or against the movement. I’ll refer you to the GOOOH web site for the details and the rah-rah stuff. As I write these words, I’m listening to one of the You Tube videos (of seven) answering that question.
This article is a discussion of the pros and cons of a movement to remove every member of the House of Representatives in a single election. I’ve often heard that the Chinese word for crisis is a composite of two words, one meaning danger, and the other meaning opportunity. In the present crisis, the GOOOH movement represents both.
The greatest danger is that we have an unelected, extra-constitutional (some would say unconstitutional) branch of government in the regulatory agencies and other areas of the federal bureaucracy. In the face of an entrenched bureaucracy, newly elected congressmen are babes in the woods. Rather than getting true representatives in Washington, we may be exchanging poor representation for no representation.
The greatest misconception of the GOOOH movement is that we can solve the problems of Washington by electing “the right people” to Congress and leaving them alone to do good. The late Milton Friedman said that congressmen are, in effect, businessmen who will do the right thing or the wrong thing depending on which is more politically profitable. (Perhaps a more apt word, given his rationale, might be mercenaries rather than businessmen.) While his view may have been overly simplistic, he makes a vital point: If the voters don’t monitor their congressmen’s behavior, somebody else will, and probably not for the better.
Another shortcoming of the idea is that it’s not sustainable. Let’s say you throw half the bums out. The other half will probably figure that GOOOH will never be able to give a repeat performance. Not only will they feel less vulnerable, they’ll also know that, with their experience, they can run roughshod over these newcomers.
On the plus side, the voters themselves will feel a sense of empowerment that they’d never felt before. They’ll have seen that they can make a difference. We probably would see a higher degree of citizen participation in government. With that higher degree of citizen participation, we may see a higher determination to throw crooks out of office.
For reasons I described in the series “How Washington Really Works,” the problem in Washington isn’t a case of a few rotten apples spoiling the barrel. It’s a case of a rotten barrel that spoils the apples. Very few academic papers have been written on the Rotten Barrel Theory; but, in certain areas, fundamentally decent people are corrupted by the systems in which they function. I believe that Washington is one such system.
The movement to get the crooks out of office is laudable. That, in fact, is the main reason I started the American Action Report. The GOOOH movement provides some of the direction for the excitement generated by the Tea Parties. The GOOOH movement also should provide some of the incentive and sense of empowerment necessary to watch congressmen once they’re elected.
I know of no movement—and certainly not the American Action Report—that can promise to deliver everything needed to clean up the mess in Washington. I believe, though, that the GOOOH movement is worthwhile for at least two reasons: the immediate gratification we expect to see in removing a significant number of corrupt congressmen, and the sense of responsibility I expect it to generate among its participants.
Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not an end; it’s a beginning. The more difficult part will come after the election.