The Nanny and the Government

The Nanny and the Government

I’ve been watching two nanny shows on TV recently. One is “Super Nanny” and the other is “Nanny 911”. I admit they are fluff and I should spend my time on more intellectual and self-improving pursuits; I do not, I watch the nanny shows. Like most, I despise the nanny state intrusions on people’s lives that a nanny state produces and expects. But this missive has nothing to do with the nanny state and her tyranny, so let’s drop any association with that term right now.
The nanny shows I have been watching stress an important aspect of child raising and discipline. Children need both defined standards of behavior and concrete, clearly defined consequences to those expected behaviors when they are not followed. What does this have to do with government you ask? Americans are under a false interpretation of the constitution in relation to the child/parent relationship. Most think our elected representatives are the parents and we are the children when, in fact, the converse is true. We elect them (bring them into the world), and we donate to their campaign and insure our future votes (support) because they support our interests and ideologies (are our future). But that paradigm has been very much abused.
Now we have a situation where the lesser of two evils has become the only, seemingly viable option. Republican senators and legislatures know they are the only choice for the voters in those states who elected them to office. Who wouldn’t take one of the most moderate republicans over a liberal/socialist democrat? What recourse do the voters have when faced with this situation, a third party? That would be ideal, but it doesn’t look like it is happening. So we walk the same path which has led us, well, you know where it has led us.
The reason this behavior is acceptable is because the voters do not do what the nannies do. Nannies lay out the rules to their charges from the very beginning. The nanny posts on her rule board (NO BITING). If a child in the house bites he goes to time-out or some other previously defined consequence to his breaking the rule of NO BITING. Our representatives are never given any clearly defined rules that will result in their ouster if broken. If a body of voters were to say to their state representative,” You will not make any deals on judges with the democrats. If you do, the people of this state will automatically remove you from the possibility of reelection the next time your seat comes up for a vote. We will not abide your presence in the senate, no matter what the opposition candidate may have over another politician in our party, you will not be chosen by this party to run for the senate or the legislature again.” Sadly, we do not have any voters saying these things when representatives are elected. Instead we have a situation where the rep. votes in direct opposition to the will of their constituents and later the people complain about the votes that were made on their behalf. Even later the people forget that the rep. voted in direct opposition to their will and, when looking at the democratic candidate, will elect them again to go and do the same thing.
The people can’t really blame the rep. for his behavior. Can you blame a child for biting when no one told him not to? You can expect the child to know that biting is not permissible. Both you and the child know that he knows biting is unacceptable, but there is not reason to punish him for it. No one ever told him it was against the rules and he should not be punished if has bitten someone. A child will get away with anything he can get away with. That is a child’s nature. A politician will take as much power, vote in his own personal interests, and perform all manner of betrayal to his constituents. That is a politician’s nature. We expect both children and politicians to act in this manner.
What can we do? We can set concrete, well known rules before the representatives are elected. We need a blackboard with rules and clearly defined consequences in our states that our politicians will follow and fall prey to if they violate. The people of this state don’t want a national ID card. If you vote for an ID card, we will not vote for you in the next election. The people of this state do not want to be a part of the United Nations. If you do not vote with Ron Paul on this issue, we will refrain from lending you our support in the next election, and we don’t care how bad the democrat over there is. If the democrats pick up a seat in this election, that will only teach the republicans the consequence of breaking our clearly defined rules.
Give these politicians something to fear. As of this moment, they have nothing to fear except bad press, and that is not adequate protection against their betrayal.

NO BITING MODERATE REPUBLICANS, OR YOUR CAREER WILL GO TO TIME-OUT, HENCEFORTH
By Jeremy J. Luzier