Tuesday, June 29, 2010

R.I.P. SENATOR BYRD

One can only hope that this is the last time a U.S. Senator serves as long as the late Senator Robert Byrd has served the state of West Virginia - and serve it he did. There may be a 7-11 somewhere in the state that doesn't bear Senator Byrd's name, but that's about the extent of it. In some ways, Senator Byrd was an admirable man. He was an old-fashioned Democrat, not of the Barack Obama variety. He was also a living example of what is wrong and deceptive about his party, including in his resume such things as membership in the Ku Klux Klan. On the other hand, he grew up dirt poor in a state that is historically more impoverished than most, educated himself out of the hole into which he had been born and was an expert on the workings and rules of the Senate. And any man who carries around a pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution, has some admiration from me.

The framers of our Constitution did not intend that the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives should become a career option, but rather that service would be a part time thing for relatively short periods of time.

Having these people entrenched for decades can and frequently does lead these senators and congresscritters to believe that they are somehow "above" the citizens for employ them. It further leads them to vote themselves inordinate and ridiculous salary increases as well as exempting themselves from onerous legislation imposed upon the people for whom they work. Term limits are an idea whose time has come and these term limits should be imposed by a Constitutional Amendment that specifically states how many terms should be permitted in each house and limit the ability of these clowns to vote themselves huge pensions and special perks. This isn't some kind of half-assed monarchy. This is a Republic and the power of our legislators flows from the will of the governed, not the other way around!

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