House of Eratosthenes

We’re funny. Eight years ago Republicans had a bare majority in the House of Representatives, a threadbare majority in the Senate, and they barely won the White House. You could argue they possessed a five-out-of-nine majority in the Supreme Court.

What did we hear from the mountains, to the valley, all across the fruited plane?

ONE PARTY RULE!!! ZOMG WTF!!! BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!!!

And now the democrats run everything, everywhere. Federal, state, municipal. Where are all the screeds against one-party rule?

Wouldn’t they be more appropriate right about now? Wouldn’t they be more in service of the public interest? Can someone show me where — anywhere — the democrat party has a lock on power, and the result isn’t chaos, disaster, bedlam…hopelessness?

I’m typing this from California. So if you have something to offer, you’ll understand why I have to come asking for it. Things aren’t so good here. We’ve yet to see that democrat-run hopey changey wonderfulness sink in…after…what are they up to, eleven years now? Or twenty? Depending on how important the Governor’s office is, and how effective you think the Republicans have been in there.

I’m just seeing on the teevee my lady likes to leave on when she gets ready for work, that Karen Bass, the CEO of the lower chamber of our wonderful state legislature, is pulling shenanigans. Our state-level counterpart to Nancy Pelosi is trying to do an end-run around Prop 13, which requires a 2/3 majority in our legislature for any tax increase. It’s a two-prong approach: Use the “In Times Like These” argument, that says because the situation is oh so dire we can’t follow rules anymore; and, call the taxes “fees.” She’s been trying this for awhile now, and with June coming to a close, it’s time for a showdown.

The beginning of July is the constitutionally-required deadline for passing the state budget. It is almost never met. It’s an annual summertime circus. If you think things are under control, here, you don’t want to be watching this.

Looks like Arnie will veto it. But there’s a problem with the Governator: He’s kind of a Republican Obama. He’s “really trying hard” and he “inherited this mess.” You can’t really depend on him to stop talking to you, go off into a room with someone else, and do what he told you he was going to do. Not when it comes to stopping the democrats from doing something. A terrible emergency will be declared, and then…off he goes to achieve some compromise.

He compromises a little too quickly. I guess that looks good to you if you’re worried about the budget being late by a week…or a month…or two months.

BOHICA It’s a little irritating if you possess the brainpower to understand the BOHICA Cycle, and can comprehend what’s taking place here. The folks who have a monopoly on power here, are dedicated to making goods and services needlessly expensive for those who depend on themselves to earn the goods and services, and don’t depend on government. They’re using “market forces” to force all commerce to go through the government…and it’s working out just great.

So the independent-minded folks leave.

We have a shrinking tax base to pay for a growing sumptuous buffet of “social” services…and more and more and more union jobs, with more and more and more union-contracted locked-in benefits. We’re the General Motors of states.

You realize, by saying what I just said in the paragraphs above, I have just committed a terrorist act? Oh dear, I’m afraid this time it’s really true…I’ve really stepped in it now. At least, in the mind of Speaker Bass. She had this to say about opportunities to present the ~~conservative~~ Let’s Not Tax The Bejeezus Out Of People viewpoint on the talk radio medium. Notice the adorable euphemism she uses as a substitute for “tax increase.”

How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature’s work?

The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: “You vote for revenue and your career is over.” I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair.

Hat tip to Boortz for that.

I suppose you could look at this like — it’s so nice for Assembly Speaker Bass to continue to allow us to listen to talk radio, when it gives her such a case of indigestion. But I think it should be clear to anyone that she has yet to make her peace with it. And I think when you have an elected official referring to something as “terrorism,” especially in the context of wondering why we allow it to exist, it’s a safe bet it’s in her things-to-do list to get rid of it somehow. Maybe circumventing Prop 13 has a higher priority at the moment. But something tells me she’ll get around to the other stuff.

One party rule, folks. It was supposed to freak us out, once upon a time. Where’s the outrage? We have one state deep into the BOHICA spiral showing no signs whatsoever of pulling out of it…probably well past the event horizon. A whole bunch of other democrat-run states close behind in the process.

The same folks who want to ratchet up taxes, are the ones who want to make things needlessly expensive before you pay those taxes on what you bought…from labor, to energy used to manufacture, package, transport and sell goods. That is their one aspect of consistency, on all the issues, from minimum wage, to global warming, to grab-bag giveaways to tort lawyers and union goons, to taxes: Things should cost more. Except for the things they want to make “free,” by forcing taxpayers to pay for them, and those “free” things end up costing more too.

Dozens of states and hundreds of municipalities have been trying this…some of them for generations. The outcome is pretty consistent. Crime, costs, budgets, unemployment — all out of control. And those wonderful freedoms that are supposed to be recognized in the Bill of Rights…they end up being attacked fairly regularly by the freedom-loving democrats. It turns out when you and your friends are in power, and start worrying about staying in power tomorrow, you tend to lose that “love” of freedom kinda toot-sweet. Maybe that’s why the Bill of Rights was jotted down in the first place.

But back to this hideous experiment we’ve been repeating on so many levels so many thousands of times. Where is the Utopia that has resulted from it? If no one can point one out to me, then how many more times do we have to keep trying it?

I’m just waiting for the Federal Dems to recognize BOHICA and say the only way to fix it is to make the rules the same everywhere. In other words, essentially abolish the states. Oh they wouldn’t put it that way and we’d still have all of our pretty colors and shapes on the map. But after all, California is too big to fail. And Michigan. And New York. And ….

Then the whole country can uniformly head down the Randian death spiral.
- philmon | 06/29/2009 @ 11:11
It’s also important to recognize that Democrats have greater majorities than Republicans did. The Democrats have unstoppable majorities. When they start trying to claim that they pass so much legislation because of leadership (and that will be the claim), people need to know that that’s not true. It’s not leadership to steamroll an agenda through the legislature. You’ll notice that no one calls for bipartisanship now that Democrats are in charge. That’s so passe.
- JohnJ | 06/29/2009 @ 12:15
There’s a wonderful column by Dr. Sowell that just barely failed to make the cut this morning — not for lack of pertinence or lack of quality, but because on my end there was a time constraint. I don’t spend equal amounts of time on all topics…and on this one…boy, I can write a novel-sized screed before I remember to take another sip of coffee. It gets me completely frosted & steamed & all manner of other types of stuff.

A Gallup poll last week showed that far more Americans describe themselves as “conservatives” than as “liberals.” Yet Republicans have been clobbered by the Democrats in both the 2008 elections and the 2006 elections.
:
Republicans, especially, need to think about what this means. If you lose when the other guy has all the high cards, there is not much you can do about it. But, when you have the high cards and still keep taking a beating, then you need to re-think how you are playing the game.

I don’t know if the Republican leadership deserves all the blame. I think there is a fundamental incompatibility between the core conservative message, and human nature. People don’t find it appealing to formally declare that a bad idea has been tried so many times, and has been found to so consistently fail, that it’s time to retire it to the ash can, weld the lid on top, and throw the whole thing down a bottomless pit.

And isn’t that what conservatism is really all about? “Look, it’s been tried, if it was gonna work it would’ve worked by now. MOVE ON.” Perhaps there’s something in our basic programming that everlastingly dooms us to banging our heads against the wall.

But there is cause for hope. Average time for the electorate to get sick of so-called “conservative” policies: Six years. Average time for the electorate to become similarly fatigued with hardcore left-wing policies: A year and a half. Of course, that may be because, as John points out, a conservative “majority” is something within the statistical margin of error, whereas a liberal majority is like clobbering-time. Having their inner goodness proven to the simpleton class, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per election cycle, ultimately absorbed by the taxpayer — they are emboldened.
- mkfreeberg | 06/29/2009 @ 12:28
It goes back to questions I’ve had for at least the last 4 years now. And those would be …. why are Democrats really so opposed to voter id laws? Why do they fund ACORN? Why does ACORN routinely register lots of bogus voters, overwhelming county clerks’ offices?

Who is it that is being picked up at their residences and driven to polls by volunteers, and who are those volunteers really volunteerining for?

Why is the kid from The Sixth Sense cowering in the corner and rocking himself on voting day?

And if, as all these polls show we are a center-right nation and many more Americans call themselves conservatives than call themselves liberals …

Why do we have the most ~~liberal~~ Progressive president ever and why is the House run by a commanding Democrat (Progressive) majority and the senate by at least a slim majority of the same?

Everybody knows there is voter fraud. The question is, how bad is it? And when the party that fights hard to keep those waters murky gain so much in so short a time while polls suggest it should be otherwise …

Inquiring minds want to know. Is there something more rotten in Denmark than we have imagined to this point?
- philmon | 06/29/2009 @ 13:07
Just to be clear, I was referring to Democrats’ having supermajorities in both houses of Congress. Whereas Democrats had the numbers to block most Republican initiatives, republicans don’t have the ability to block Democrats. It doesn’t have anything to do with leadership (because this is the least bipartisan administration ever); they just have the power to enact their agenda over Republican objections.
- JohnJ | 06/29/2009 @ 15:07
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Karen BassMonday, June 29th, 2009

Karen Bass
Monday, June 29th, 2009