'Well, What The Hell We S'posed To Do, You Moron?'

Well, what the hell we s'posed to do, you moron?

Rob Christenson, long-time political commentator at the Raleigh News & Observer wrote a long piece recently entitled: 'NC GOP Rolls Back Era of Democratic Laws'  

Such a headline brings to mind the immortal words of The Stork in 'Animal House' when John Belushi (Bluto) starts his 'Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor' speech:

'Well, what the hell we s'posed to do, you moron?'

Does Mr. Christenson expect the NC GOP, now with the first veto-proof majorities in both the state House and Senate in close to 140 years PLUS a GOP Governor in the Mansion for only the 3rd time since Reconstruction, to 'expand the era of Democratic laws' somehow?

Electoral leadership is not like judicial precedent in the Supreme Court. Legislators write laws and they can change them at any minute. They can change the Constitution through the amendment process and thereby trump the Supreme Court whenever 2/3's of both the Senate and the House in Washington and 3/4s of the states ratify an amendment.

Elections are held every two years to hold the vast majority of our elected representatives accountable to the people. The people who 'vote' that is. People who do not vote and are not officially registered to vote do not count in that bi-annual calculus.

Which makes it even more important that everyone is legally and officially registered to vote, but that is another whole column or two or a hundred.

We'll let you read Mr. Christenson's work and form your own opinions about whether he is right or wrong.

Here's some things to consider, not only for government but for any life activity from your business to your family to your faith to your personal integrity:

1. If things are not working out the way you had hoped, do you continue doing what you are doing...or try something different?
2. How do you re-allocate your time and resources to improve your lot in life?
3. Will you wait for someone else to do it for you first?
4. At what point do you declare defeat, put up the white flag of surrender, and beg for mercy?
5. What is America if not a place to try, try and try again if at first you don't succeed?

There are some things in Mr. Christenson's piece that are fair game and worthy of discussion. Just because there is a difference of opinion about the size of government doesn't mean that the other side is wrong about everything. There are some functions that government alone has to do since the private sector is incapable of providing the service, as in the case of national defense. (It would be a very bad idea to ever have privately paid legionnaires or militia running our national defense for example)

However, here are some unassailable facts that more and more government has yet to solve in North Carolina at least over the past 140 years and more particularly, in the last 40 years of the modern era:

• Public education
• Rising tide of high school dropouts
• Income and job opportunity disparity across the state
• Increasing numbers of people trapped in a welfare dependency cycle
• Expansion of Medicaid costs that threatens to crimp or crush other budgets such as education, transportation, public safety and environmental protection
• Exportation of the vast majority of textile and furniture jobs overseas

You can add a list of your own: tax reform, over-regulation, excessive licensing comes to mind. Maybe government programs such as the Rural Economic Development Center need to be done away with simply because they are not doing the job they were formed to solve.

But the point of this thought-bomb is to impress upon you the importance of having the freedom through our electoral process to 'do something different' and not be tied to the tried-and-failed ways and policies of the past. If we ever get to the point where we can not try new approaches to solve our nation's problems, we will truly be in a pickle we may never get out of.

You know who really tried something truly 'bold' and 'different'? Our Founders in 1776 and then in 1789 when they ratified the US Constitution.

There were the Rob Christensons of the world back then headlining the Lexington Gazette:

'Minutemen Try to Roll Back the Safety and Comfort Offered to Us by His Excellency, King George III'

And we are sure there were some nuts in the back of the crowd shouting out just like the Stork: :"What the hell we s'posed to do when they won't let us have our freedom?'

Good for them then. What about today?

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