Folks,

Dux:

No one in their right mind should pay any attention to what I think regarding politics, or anything else for that matter, however everyone is always entitled to my opinion. IMHO the greedy politicians here out number the selfless statesmen by a huge and growing majority. Why do we continue to vote them in? Why do we think that total strangers will look out for us and not just line their own pockets and that of their friends and business associates? The naval hero and Vietnam ace Randy Cunningham, who IMO was a genuine hero...is a pathetic case in point. Politics corrupted him absolutely and today he wears an orange jump suit and pilots a federal cell. That one I took personally.

For one thing, over here at least, we are given choices that amount to six of one and a half dozen of the other. Those hopeful few, the doomed candidates professing to want real change, never really have much of a chance as the powers that be see that the political process quickly weeds them out. You cannot get elected dog catcher in this country without great wealth behind you and a crap load of political IOUs in your bulging carpetbag. Our politicians, even the well meaning amongst them must spend an inordinate amount of their valuable time raising funds, even when an election is not eminent.

As in your case, our politicians have voted to cut services and entitlements, and then blatantly ask us to tighten our belts while raising their salaries at the same time. We are idiots to accept it. Isn't the government supposed to be 'us'? Isn't it supposed to be there for our protection and benefit? Isn't it a government 'of the people, by the people and for the people'? Why then do we all feel it is an 'us' and 'them' situation? Our politicians are too far removed from mainstreet methinks. Sooner or later I suppose that all governments become a bloated monster that siphons off the national treasure and gives little in return. It has become its own reason for being. Such a government is too bloated and self indulgent to respond to the complex needs of the people in a timely fashion. Your government is much older and I am not sure precisely when it skipped the rails. It has taken ours less than 300 years.

When an outsider does manage to sneak into Washington he is completely thwarted by the Washington establishment. Like him or not, Jimmy Carter was arguably the most intelligent President since Jefferson. He was smart enough to drive a nuclear submarine anyway. He went to that Pennsylvania Ave. address with a pledge to change the way Washington did business. He was going to sweep with a new broom....In fact that broom turned out to be a wheezing old Hoover vacuum that was apparently un-plugged. For many reasons, although Carter was a fine man and meant well, he was a mostly ineffectual leader that brought us double digit inflation, the gas crisis and the Iranian hostage crisis that took up most of his valuable time while in office. His greatest success was probably in foreign policy. The Middle east may have benefited but as I recall it, we here at home paid a high price for the Carter administration.

I had the pleasure of sitting with one of our former NC congressmen at the Lizard Lick Hairstyling Academy, Family Barbershop and Used Tire Center recently. The stories he told of the madness he found when he got to Washington made my thinning hair stand on end. When you reach my age, the cutting of your hair becomes as much an art as it is a science. Trust me, that rigid hair of mine did not help the hapless barber in his artistic effort one whit. Oh well, unlike the taxes I have paid, the hair will probably grow back.