The following was written by Dan Meyer, Colorado author and COS supporter.
This morning Senator John Thune appeared on Fox News. On the topic of Paul Ryan’s announcement that he was not going to run for re-election, Thune said that Ryan is young enough that at some point he could “get back into politics”.
Most of us let comments like this just slide off our backs, and that frightening truth demonstrates how far down the rabbit hole we have all fallen. Every time I hear the word “politics” and “politician,”my blood begins to boil.
A politician is a person employed by some level of government whose salary is paid with taxes, credit from China, or dollars printed out of thin air, who dispenses a mix of partial truth and blatant lies told with the intent to deceive his or her constituents for the purpose of advancing otherwise unpopular agendas, the retention of power, or both.
So a “career politician” is someone who lies for a living. And the dark art of politics is nothing more or less than the practice of dispensing self-serving lies and deceit, using our tax dollars to do so.
Sometimes “career politicians” break the law, resulting in desperate measures to ensure their reelection, not with the intent to serve We the People, but to retain power necessary to escape accountability for past “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Since our Constitution was written to keep We the People free--and freedom cannot exist in the absence of truth--politics is, by its very nature, unconstitutional. So a “career politician” is really just a professional liar and life-long assassin of constitutional government.
This underscores the absolute necessity of an Article V Convention of States. Standing members of Congress cannot be trusted to restrict their power bases and impose term limits or a balanced budget amendment on themselves. Limiting members of Congress to, say, one six-year term in office will result in standing members carefully avoiding any form of shady dealings or outright corruption that will be uncovered by their replacements.
As it stands now, some elections seem to be more about avoiding prosecution for criminal behavior while in office than serving the people. Six-year terms will also make members of Congress maintain their ties to the real world to which they will return after their limited time of service is over.
There will be those members of Congress who will claim that six years is too short a time to serve their country. What they really mean is six years is not enough time to serve themselves. Continuing as we do now and stagger turnover in Congress so all 535 members don’t change at the same time results in more than enough stability. Ironically “stability”—meaning entrenchment as a member of our elite political ruling class—is precisely what term limits are meant to eradicate.
To put six years into proper perspective, Thomas Jefferson drafted our Declaration of Independence in seventeen days. Our Constitution was written in one hundred working days. The United States was involved in World War I and World War II for about four years each, so limiting members of Congress to six years during which they serve We the People, not themselves, might actually be too long, but it’s a start.
Any member of Congress who resists either term limits or a balanced budget amendment must be reminded that a congressional approval rating of 15 percent is light years below an “F,” and abdicating all of their constitutional duties to the executive and judicial branches of our government renders them useless.
The demands we must make of all candidates for public office are nonpartisan. Republicans who want to remain in Washington, D.C., for their entire lives are enemies of We the People, as are Democrats, because both seek power over We the People so they can remain as lifelong members of our elite political ruling class while they inflict their versions of big government on us.
Both parties are guilty of hollow rhetoric and outright lies—it’s just that within our broken two-party system, the choices We the People have often boil down to picking between bull manure and pig manure.
Urge your state legislatures to vote “yes” on legislation approving your participation in an Article V Convention of States so We the People can drain the swamp, and take back control of our own government.
