Sunday, July 31, 2011

Give Them the Name That They Deserve

Another day has passed in the continuing saga that is the debate over the raising of the U.S. Federal Government's national debt.  As should be well-expected by now, Congress remains at an impasse; unable to come to any sort of reasonable conclusion to this ridiculous display.  And let there be no doubt; this is a ridiculous display.  Nothing more; nothing less.  It's ridiculous, first and foremost, because it's a debate (and drama) that is entirely unnecessary.  More than that, it's a debate that has not been held for decades.  Some may suggest that it is because this debate has not been argued before that our nation is facing a huge amount of debt; a debt that will take decades, if not centuries, to pay-off.  To those I say, "Get over yourself and your supposed lofty ideals!"  If there was going to be a serious, honest debate about our nation's debt, it would have been had long, LONG before now.  And let's be perfectly clear, the fairly pathetic charades that have in the past passed for attempts to resolve our nation's debt issue have been nothing more than 'kicking the can down the road' because noone ... and I mean noone ... has the political will and courage to actually make the changes that must happen in order for our debt to be reined-in. 

As this 'debate' continues to rage, I think it important to recognize that one of the key reasons I firmly believe that this is a false debate, at best, is that our Constitution, the document that so many have thought it appropriate and reasonable to wrap themselves up in, essentially forbids anyone ... including the members of Congress ... to question this nation's debt.  The thinking behind the 14th Amendment is essentially this: laws are created by a Congress, elected by the peoples of this nation to represent them, and signed into enactment by a President, who has similarly been elected by many of those same individuals.  If Congress, the freely elected representatives of the populace, choose to pass laws which spend more than the government receives from its many funding sources, and resultantly is required to secure funding through borrowing, then that debt is essentially unquestionable.  Congress and the President caused it.  For members of Congress to balk at raising the debt limit so that the federal government can make-good on its existing debts, those members of Congress are choosing to ignore ... one could even say act contrary to ... those elements of the Constitution which tells all Americans that our national debt is unassailable with respect to it being valid and worthy of settlement.  For that reason, I suggest that we begin naming those members of Congress who refuse to raise our nation's debt limit for whatever partisan political points they hope to make; oathbreakers. 

In ancient times ... veritably eons ago, when one's word was considered to be of more worth than anything else ... when one made an 'oath' to anything, it bound that person to that cause.  And for those individuals to abdicate the responsibility that such an oath invokes is tantamount to publicly proclaiming that their word is worthless ... that they have no honor ... that they are to never be considered anything than the lying, deceitful inidividual that they have purportedly become.  That sounds disturbingly like some members of Congress who, after promising the American people (and the world) that they will act in their best interests (not their own), and after accepting the responsibility conveyed by the oath of office that they must take prior to their being seated in Congress, chose to ignore some of the most important aspects of that oath.  And for that reason, I name those members of Congress as oathbreakers. 

Admittedly, such a moniker will today wear much less heavily on those members of Congress who have so vilely earned it than it might have centuries past.  Be that as it may, I feel that some ... those who still believe in honesty and integrity ... who believe that a man or woman's word is their "bond" ... will find themselves in agreement.  And, in the future, will consider those members who so dubiously have earned their new 'title' with the contempt that they so richly deserve.

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