JFK had the “New Frontier”, LBJ had the “Great Society”, and Barack Obama has his "New Foundation." Big plans and unlimited ego in an administration convinced it can apply beaurocratic solutions to huge and unpredictable systems -- the banking, auto and health-care industries, for instance, or the supposed man-made alterations in the climate. These are people deeply impressed by their own smarts, the ones for whom the word "elite" has been given. A group of people claiming to possess higher abilities or simply an in-group who granted themselves extra privileges, discriminating against others they deem less worthy.
Today I want to talk about the ‘elite’ of Congress. Congress is elitist in the extreme, and evidence of this can be seen every day on Capitol Hill. Congress doesn’t see itself as working for the people as public servants, but governing them. They do what they want, not what their constituants want.
These elite, these men and women on the Hill that are carefully coiffed, clothed, made up for television cameras, move apart from the tourists guarded by their own police force. They have burdened the people with massive regulations and have tried to exempt themselves from all of them. Everything that they do is geared towards raising money for re-relection, accepting favors from lobbyists, and doing their best to keep the public out of the loop – after all they are the elite, the annointed ones, the ones who will take care of us as long as we let them dominate all aspects of our lives.
They have created procedural screens behind which they can conduct business without interference from the public. When the public is allowed to view what is going on what they see is orchestrated ‘hearings’ with select witnesses, not to mention the speeches given to no one in particular as each member of Congress takes their turn at the podium to deliver their version of why a bill should be voted for or against. Congress has created a legislative system which goes its own way, forming legislation on its own terms and with input only from those other elites, the lobbyists and pressure groups, which it chooses to hear. Nancy Pelosi is a prime example of elitism off the deep end. Let us not forget that she is the one who oversees energy legislation in the House of Representatives, and I quote from an interview she gave with Tom Brokow: “You need a transition as you are going to go from fossil fuels, you can’t do it overnight, but you must transition. These investments in wind, solar, biofuels and natural gas, these are the real alternatives.” I guess some elites are not real clear that natural gas is a fossil fuel, but then do they really care about the details?
Today I want to talk about the ‘elite’ of Congress. Congress is elitist in the extreme, and evidence of this can be seen every day on Capitol Hill. Congress doesn’t see itself as working for the people as public servants, but governing them. They do what they want, not what their constituants want.
These elite, these men and women on the Hill that are carefully coiffed, clothed, made up for television cameras, move apart from the tourists guarded by their own police force. They have burdened the people with massive regulations and have tried to exempt themselves from all of them. Everything that they do is geared towards raising money for re-relection, accepting favors from lobbyists, and doing their best to keep the public out of the loop – after all they are the elite, the annointed ones, the ones who will take care of us as long as we let them dominate all aspects of our lives.
They have created procedural screens behind which they can conduct business without interference from the public. When the public is allowed to view what is going on what they see is orchestrated ‘hearings’ with select witnesses, not to mention the speeches given to no one in particular as each member of Congress takes their turn at the podium to deliver their version of why a bill should be voted for or against. Congress has created a legislative system which goes its own way, forming legislation on its own terms and with input only from those other elites, the lobbyists and pressure groups, which it chooses to hear. Nancy Pelosi is a prime example of elitism off the deep end. Let us not forget that she is the one who oversees energy legislation in the House of Representatives, and I quote from an interview she gave with Tom Brokow: “You need a transition as you are going to go from fossil fuels, you can’t do it overnight, but you must transition. These investments in wind, solar, biofuels and natural gas, these are the real alternatives.” I guess some elites are not real clear that natural gas is a fossil fuel, but then do they really care about the details?
Ralph Kinney Bennett, of the Heritage Foundation, wrote an article entitled “A Congressional Priesthood,” where he talks about a conversation he had with Bob Potts that illustrated the way Congress has become a world apart:
Mr. Potts said, "Senator Armstrong was on the Treasury and Postal Subcommittee of Appropriations, so I would go to all those hearings with him. One morning we had a meeting in which the Secretary of the Treasury was testifying. It was just a small room and there weren't many people there. While he was testifying, a man and his family, tourists, came into the room. It was just a man and his wife and their kids, kind of thrilled, I guess, to be seeing democracy at work close up."
And he continued, "At one point the Secretary had to leave the room to make a phone call or something and there was a break. This man got up and raised his hand and said, "Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman," very quietly and politely. He said he knew something about the point they were discussing and he had something helpful he would like to say. We all ignored him. I remember the staff people who were there, just regular guys, good down-to-earth people, but suddenly they were part of the different world, the different culture, and we ignored this guy.
Finally some staff guy felt, "Well, I'd better do something," and he went down and spoke to the man for a minute. He came back and we asked, "What did you tell him?" He said, "I told the man that if he had anything to say he could sign up to testify and come back in a couple of months."
Why didn't we just let this guy say what he had to say? It wouldn't have hurt anything. But no, we were the Senate and he was just a citizen."
We can now see that Congress has stepped even further into the role of elitist as they try to push through legislation that they haven’t even read, or in some cases they are voting on legislation that hasn’t been written yet, legislation that is going to raise taxes and hinder business development in this country. At some point the people of this country, the ones that Machiavelli said would not put up with being dominated by elitists are going to say “STOP.” It is already happening. Beware, Congress and Mr. President, for We the People are the heart and soul of this country, not you. You work for us and we can fire you without reason every election year.
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