Apropos Austrian Aphorisms

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September 06, 2008 - Posts

Chicago, IL—Democratic Senator Barack Obama today introduced legislation that would make “community organizers” a legally protected minority in the United States for affirmative action and equal employment. “This bill (S. 31337) effectively kills two birds with one stone,” Obama announced to a rousing ovation from his political state of Illinois. “It shows Governor Palin the might of community organizers that we will not be mocked lightly, but also that I can author a major piece of legislation.”

Senate Bill 31337, if approved by the House of Representatives and signed by the President, will legally protect anyone officially registered as a community organizer from being discriminated against in the employment process, from being fired, and will deliver reparations for the many years of being unappreciated for serving the public good. It has met with unanimous praise and glee on the part of Democrats across the nation.

“Governor Palin is a sweet woman,” said fellow woman Nancy Pelosi (D CA). “But she overstepped her bounds outside of the kitchen of politics when she disgraced community organizers in her speech [Wednesday, September 3rd].”

When reached for comment, Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden (D DE), said he found Palin’s comments as a gross and representative statement of the Republican party. “Just think about what she said,” Biden said, “and substitute any other unappreciated minority for ‘community organizer’. She wouldn’t say, ‘Being a white person is sort of like being a black person, except that you don’t steal,’ or, ‘Being a heterosexual is sort of like being a homosexual, except that you aren’t a ***.’ So why should Governor Palin be allowed to trample on community organizers, people who serve a vital social service? She shouldn’t, and we won’t let her.”

Biden also continued on to say this is just the first, landmark step on the path to Obama’s heralded presidency. “This is just the beginning of the end of the Republican party’s elephant-like stomping of civilization. The American public only has more world-changing legislation like they’ve seen today to look forward to.”

Local community organizers have responded enthusiastically to Obama’s new legislation. “When a community organizer is mocked, we are all mocked. That’s the human condition,” managed a local Chicago mom who made time to speak in between organizing events for her community this weekend and baking a cake in the mold of Barack Obama’s head. “This weekend we’re going to have a fundraiser. We’re going to have community organizers speak about their roles as community organizers and all proceeds are going to go toward helping future community organizers organize their communities. We’re going to have this cake and eat it, too,” she smiled.

When asked for comments, both John McCain (R AZ) and Sarah Palin (R AK) were unavailable for comment. A lone congressman in Texas was reached and had the following comment: “The only thing that surprises me about this legislation is that it was constitutionally introduced as a bill instead of Obama waiting until elected to make this an executive order."

Posted by thedo | 257 comment(s)

She’s Even as Qualified as Barack Obama and John McCain to be President

Allow me to indulge in a child’s old adage: My mom is as qualified as your mom to be vice president. Upon such a claim many will naturally ask what my mother’s qualifications are. Certainly they should be extensive given the media scrutiny to Sarah Palin’s underwhelming qualifications. But my mom’s are not much. She’s simply over the age of 35, a naturally-born citizen, and has resided in the United States for the past 14 years. Like many of her peers, she’s as qualified as the next person, according to the U.S. Constitution.

It’s true, if you look, that the only “qualifications” to being vice president, even president, are the ones I listed for my mother. That’s not the impression one would get from those who criticize Sarah Palin and even Barack Obama as lacking in “experience.” Those people never define what the qualifications and experience are. Allow me to bolster my mother’s defense.

My mom is a mother of three (lovely, if I say so myself) children. She’s a college graduate, one who even went to school while tending to her children. She graduated with a degree to teach. Simply put, my mother can read, write, and listen.

These three traits encompass the delineated powers of the vice presidency and presidency in the U.S. Constitution. Namely, to be the head of the Senate, for the former, and to make treaties, appoint judges, and tell the Army and Navy what to do. When you consider that a vice president and president get most of their policy information from their cabinet and peers, my mother could surely do all of these functions with ease.

The cynic of course will say this is all too simple. The office of the vice president, and the president for that matter, is much more complex than the simple trifles of domestic life. This is where Palin receives her criticism. Not even her “town of 9,000” was big enough to provide her with experience to stand behind the president. This criticism is apt and correct.

Yet only in a time when the U.S. Constitution no longer applies is the vice presidency and presidency complex. A look at what is asked of both offices clearly explains this present-day complexity over the past-day simplicity. The president and vice president today are held to explain how they will create jobs. They’re asked about their energy, fiscal, foreign, environment, and tax policies, and so on and so forth through an extensive list nowhere mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.

My mom, of course, has never dealt with these ugly political manners. She’s never “created” any jobs. She’s always gone out and achieved her own. Her energy policy consists of the “simple” idea of not consuming more than she can pay for. She doesn’t counterfeit money as the Federal Reserve does, always paying her bills. She doesn’t go around to her neighbors destroying their land to show them how to live freely. She properly disposes of her trash, doesn’t steal other people’s money, and so on and so forth.

My mom, of course, is a woman of pride and would never act as such a brute. We wouldn’t expect any decent human being to act as such. Yet many people see these actions as O.K. and all too well to do because the U.S. Constitution no longer applies. It’s now expected that the vice president and president make these actions a part of their so-called policy.

Frederic Bastiat long ago clarified the proper role of the Law and, by extension, the government. The law is “the collective organization of the individual right to self defense”—to defend person, liberty, and property. That is, anything we’d expect an individual not to do, a government should also not do, such as oppress and plunder.

Only when the law is confined to its proper place will the cries over “experience” and “readiness” for any form of presidency cease. As Bastiat said, “if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder — is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?”

Truly, if the U.S. Constitution were cared for, in all of its check on executive power, my mom, among many others, would certainly be qualified as the next vice president or president as any of the existing candidates.

Posted by thedo | with no comments