All Quiet On The North of Here Front (OMG another rant?)

Since the house manager is in the Indian Ocean or somewhere on the other side of earth, I have been designated as the guy to call if anything goes wrong or if the guests staying at the resort house have any issues. So far no problems.

Perhaps since they have a security contingent and the clout of high level DC stuff behind them, an anonymous rebel like me is not something they need. Of course, I don't think they know I am the sort that homeland security frowns upon; you know, a guy who questions the wisdom of not holding to early Constitutional limits, who suggests eliminating the IRS in favor of something less oppressive, all that. I'm still amazed that calling one's self a "Constitutionalist" is considered threatening in a country that allegedly is guided by such a body of law. Not sure that is what I call myself as I think the document doesn't limit governmental power enough.

Be that as it may. There can be no doubt that I relish in the peculiar circumstance. Here I am doing ace work for someone who helps put people in power whom I wouldn't hire to do basic labor if I owned a landscape business. Unlike a lot of people, I do not have overwhelming personal dislike for most of those people. I just don't like their philosophy and find their tendency to sell their souls a bit disheartening. One on one, many of those people would be OK. I doubt I'd find that Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer are fun to be around, but I doubt they'd enjoy me, so there you go.

I miss the days when I had Ted Kennedy to kick around. Having known people who'd brushed shoulders with him or lived in his Palm Beach 'hood, I'm sure I'd not have enjoyed his friendship, so I felt fine with personal cheap shots. Easy prey.

Avoiding personal attack and stupid cheap shots is the best course. Unfortunately, I often hear people who seem to oppose policies which I oppose ranting on about complete trivia and getting personal. That hurts the substance of the point. The big problem is that the choices for replacing people that I think are trouble are often not that great.

The cleverest thing I heard lately was pulled by Jerry "MoonBeam" Brown's campaign. Supposedly he left a voice mail then didn't know he had not hung up. OK. Stop right there. These days people rarely have such an issue if they are not driving or smashed out of their minds. The "unintended" stuff goes on with Jerry and aids discussing how he is unwilling to compromise his principles regarding some pension, and how Meg, his opponent, is likely to jump at the chance to pick up their support. His aid says, "she's a whore", and they go yea. Then someone says, "you should tell them". Yea, we should use that.

Now, c'mon. It is being spun by Meg supporters as "Oh, Jerry Brown called Meg a whore. This is an insult to women everywhere." Give me a break. It was obviously used in the sense that politicians who trade influence for votes are whores. Had nothing to do with whore as woman selling sex. This is one of those cases where the Brown opponents jump on a bs thing and pretend it is other than what it was. The big joke is that I think they played right into his hands. They are playing the sound bites and then ranting, but it makes Jerry look all concerned that an unprincipled opponent will use his stout character and integrity against him. Talk about a rope-a-dope maneuver.

So, once again, people who oppose what I oppose (maybe for different reasons) act like fools and give thoughtful dissenters a bad name and image. They hurt the cause. Not that I am all that trusting of Meg. I just think Brown is a gentle version of Castro or Chavez. He believes in more government function, not less. Simple as that. And his past policies indicate a willingness to interfere with personal mobility for the greener good, etc., which I believe to be a trap and not the way to do those things. But what do we focus on? Jerry said "whore". Or his aid did and Jer did not object. In a country that has little kids on TV talking about kicking ass and any number of other borderline uses of language, I find outrage like this to be purely phony and opportunistic. And it backfires. They are doing nothing but helping the people I believe don't need to be in power.

That has little to do with the guests at Mr Big's house----as far as you know...