Don't You Know Who I Am?

Reese Witherspoon
Gorgeous, but arrogant.

Reese Witherspoon and her husband were arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and DUI last week. She asked the arresting officer, "Do you know my name?" The officer said he didn't need it. "Well you're about to find out", she said. Art Garfunkel asked a similar question when police apprehended him for possession of marijuana several years ago.

They're not the only ones. What is the matter with these people? If they ask me, "Don't you know who I am?" I'll say, "Who do you think you are?"

Here's the deal: When it comes to the law, I don't give a crap who you are. I expect the poorest schlub to get the same treatment from my government as Elvis or The Beatles. Or Charlie Sheen.

Hey Reese! Go soak your head!

You're the 99%? What's the Problem?

Dude, if you're the 99%, then what in blazes is your major malfunction? Are you telling me that one percent of the population has you and all of the world's power and wealth cornered? Tell me another!

I certainly do not support corporatocracy (or union-ocracy) but if it weren't for the kakistocracy, we wouldn't be in this mess. An activist government is a fraud magnet. When government goes around trying to make the world "nice" by choosing winners and losers, and regulating everyone "for the good of the planet" or "for the good of society", that's when the special interests selfishly begin lobbying government to make their lives easier. If everyone had equal justice instead of social justice, then everyone could duke it out in the real world of good luck, bad luck, and the school of hard knocks and real work, on a truly level playing field -- not a government mandated one that gives special advantages to arbitrarily chosen "victim" groups, species and planets.

Here's life's first lesson: life ain't fair. I don't expect it to be. You shouldn't either. Government cannot make it so. Any government that governs against natural law is bound to fail. It is our individual duty -- not government's -- to help those less fortunate among us, including nature. True, some people are greedy, heartless bastards. But using government to force them to "play nice" (who gets to define "nice"?) always has, and always will, backfire.

Hear me now, and believe me later: to make the world a better place, the founders gave us the First Amendment. It's a great tool; you should try it. You can convince people to follow your lead -- voluntarily. You can convince people to join your church -- voluntarily. But the non-establishment clause says that you cannot make it mandatory.

If our politicians would follow The Constitution that they all take an oath to uphold and defend, the problems that we are facing today would be far less severe. Bailouts to large banks? Unauthorized. Take-over of the automobile industry? Unauthorized. Fraudulent grants to "green" industries? Unauthorized. The enumerated powers are very short, but the list of shame goes on.

Constitution Day Tea Party Crashers

Yesterday, I attended the Constitution Day Tea Party on The Guide sponsored by The Bellingham Tea Party. It was windy and chilly, threatening rain, and turnout was less than usual. The people who attended were very enthusiastic, as was the reception by passers-by. We had a lot of honks and waves, along with the usual number of extended middle fingers (from those who disapprove of The Constitution, I guess).

The crashers were interesting, though. They were in their late teens or early twenties. A young woman was carrying a sign that said, "SATAN loves you, just the way you are". A young man, wearing green eyeshades (they weren't glasses, exactly) had a sign that said, "I [heart] Dick" (I assume he wasn't referring to his good friend Richard). He spent a lot of time having simulated sex with his sign. The signs and behavior were obviously intended to attract attention, and to offend as many people as possible. They must assume tea partiers are a bunch of board-up-the-butt fogies that would be easily offended. Really? Most of us were raised on Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, National Lampoon, to name just a few. We were all young once, if not now, and we've seen it all, and done a lot of it ourselves.


(Crashers toned down their rhetoric and antics for this video, courtesy fellow tea partier)

If they object to tea party principles, it was impossible to tell how, or what. Their protest was too generic. So what was on display by the crashers was a complete lack of perspective and maturity, and complete lack of gratitude for the rights that they were abusing. I think our public schools are responsible, for not teaching young people about the brilliance of the form of government that the tea party was assembled to celebrate. If We the People fail to uphold and defend The Constitution, these crashers' generation will lose, within their lifetime, the right to poop on the very document that they mock.