Frying Pans and Fires
by Chris Claypoole
igli1969@comcast.net

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

The recently concluded elections across the country have produced another alleged change in who rules us. At the time of this writing, the Dems have re-taken the House of Representatives and the Senate nationally. Here in Maryland, the Dems have re-taken the governorship and added to an already overwhelming majority in both houses of the Maryland Assembly (state legislature). Locally, the voters seem to think that divided government is good for the country, but one-party iron rule is good for Maryland.

As the usual suspects either crow or bemoan the supposed change, my feelings are pretty much what they would have been if the GOP had held on to their majorities: we're still gonna get screwed. Oh, sure, from a slightly different angle, and by different people, for different causes and reasons, but we're still taking it up the a**, folks. I know I'm largely preaching to the choir, here, but bear with me, this is cathartic.

The two wings of the Boot On Your Neck party (BOYN) are both statist to the core. As Governor George Wallace said, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the two." I know many people will be happy (as am I) that the GOP and Bush were "rebuked" for the disaster in Iraq, the War on the Bill of Rights (they call it the War on Terror, a phrase so bereft of meaning as to generate confusion and/or amusement in any person capable of independent thought), and the stupidification of the Presidency. Not to mention the Republicans in Congress, who would be an embarrassment to drunken sailors on leave in Las Vegas.

But the Democrats are nearly sure to prove that both sides of the BOYN party are insane and stupid. (I'll withhold judgment on the evil for most, but not for Schumer, Waxman and their smarmy ilk. They have no more respect for our rights than Hastert or McCain, much less Bush, Cheney and the recently resigned Rumsfeld. With no offense meant to the Free State Project's mascot, the difference between the Capitol and a porcupine is that with the latter, the pricks are on the outside. But I digress.) They are already talking about a large increase in the minimum wage, a possible tax hike and other economic idiocy. And while they are promising "investigations" into various GOP sludge projects, how many people here believe that those hearings will be anything other than a circus designed to promote the Dem agenda? Because both groups have their fingers into so many pies, a truly intense examination of any scandal with economic implications would tar both Republicans and Democrats. And that just wouldn't do, would it, Bunky?

The best that we can hope for is that we get gridlock, which has always been the reason to opt for "divided government." But with the current occupant of the White House, logic and reason don't seem to be in the offing, especially now. Bush has yet to veto a bill in almost six years, even when it seemed that only an idiot would be unable to see the potential damage some bills, like the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, would cause. Oh, that's right - Bush is an. . . but I digress again. In any event, I'm not sure that W would veto anything other than a gay marriage or embryonic stem cell research bill. The only convictions he seems to have (so far, chuckle, chuckle) are religious in nature. He certainly has no more attachment to the concept of individual rights than Lincoln did.

But while the national picture IMO looks like stormy weather with high winds and property damage, the outlook here in Maryland is probably more like unnatural disaster. The Maryland legislature, ranked by John Fund of the Wall Street (Opinion) Journal as the most corrupt and incompetent in the US, has added to their majority in both houses, and now has a Democratic governor in Baltimore Mayor Michael O'Malley. O'Malley is a techno-liberal, using computer programs to statistically prove his success (not) in Baltimore and adding more and more surveillance cameras in a futile attempt to stem the violent crime there. Baltimore is one of the most violent cities in the US, and no one will be able to solve that within the usual government paradigm. And his father-in-law, Joseph Curran, the retiring Attorney General, is a leading proponent of gun confiscation. (Maryland is not a shall-issue state; it's ruling Dems are very much in favor of victim disarmament, for the most part.) Post election conversations I have had with like-minded friends have centered on how much money we need to save to prepare for the inevitable tax increases now, and what to do about our guns—we expect registration and then confiscation within a few years. Do we move or find a way to resist? Many of us have strong roots here, with family circumstances that make leaving difficult. What to do, what to do?

While the courts, both state and federal, struck down the most egregious of the Maryland legislature's attempts at ruling without limits of constitution or law, there is no guarantee that that can continue. The Dems have bragged that if they won this election, they would make sure that no Republican ever got elected to state-wide office again. I have no doubt that this boast was made in all seriousness. We have seen the damage that uncontrolled one-party rule can wreak in our and other countries; I shudder to think what can be done to Maryland. At least on the national scene, the end of the nightmarish GOP rule is over for at least two years. With the thin majorities the Democrats currently have, the gridlock should be as impressive as an emergency evacuation of Manhattan on a weekday afternoon. In Maryland, to quote P.J. O'Rourke, "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." The Democrats here now have all the power, and that lets them take however much of our money they want. Mr. O'Rourke also said, "Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby."

We're screwed.

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