audacity of the arrogant

The audacity of the arrogant!

When individuals promote themselves as candidates for elected office, they speak in lofty terms of working for the people, doing the people’s business, people first.

If they are a son or daughter of a wealthy family, an ex actor or a retired sports figure, somehow their assumed fame and celebrity and large personal expense account permit them to sashay and sway the public, and they get elected. They pretend to be running for office because it’s the people who want them to serve, but in reality they are among the many self serving individuals using the people for personal gain.

Senator Jim Bunning (R) Kentucky (an ex- pitcher in the major leagues for 17 years, holding the second highest total of career strikeouts) became Senator in 1999 and was elected because he represented all that was America… motherhood, apple pie and baseball. The citizens of Kentucky wanted a good ‘ole boy with whom you could invite to dinner and then go out in the backyard and shoot a few squirrels.

Mr. Bunning who politicked against the Washington DC crowd of “…beltway robbers…”remained in the Senate for 11 years, denying his association as a politician, and coming back home to the “bluegrass” state as vacationing in Washington but always a real Kentuckian.

As did he worked his magic on the baseball mounds, he promised the people of Kentucky he would work his magic in the Capitol and do the peoples will.

Senator Bunning decided that unemployed people, people who rely on paycheck to paycheck to just survive, those who receive COBRA coverage, were not really good Americans, and needed to be taught a lesson for not working, not making enough money, and not affording real Health Insurance, and sabotaged a bill in the Senate which would have extended coverage towards jobless benefits for 30 days.

His arrogant and abusive behavior stalled the dollars necessary for the average American, (you know the kind you want to have to dinner and shoot a few squirrels with), to make it through a day without fear of losing their homes, paying their bills on time and seeking medical care.

And not until the Democrats made noise and the media covered the story of one man ruining the lives of millions did anyone in Senator Bunning’s political party…THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, even come public to chastise and confront his actions. And then it was Senator (milk toast, I only worry about me) Susan Collins ( R ) Maine, who pleaded with Senator Bunning to stop being an obstructionist. (Ms Collins waited and waited to make her plea, but the media in Maine harrumphed loud enough and Madame Senator reacted.)

And to make matters worse, Senator Bunning received encouragement from Senator Jon Kyl (R) Arizona (as if that state didn’t already have one dazed and confused senile Senator in John McCain).

Senator Kyl, the Republican whip argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting “because people are being paid even though they’re not working.” He went on to add, “Unemployment insurance doesn’t create new jobs, in fact, if anything continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.

The absurd audacity of a man who is so entrenched in his upper class world of privilege, who is so removed from the current events of this nation, who is hired by the people of Arizona to their work but refuses to recognize for whom he works.

And to add more coals to the fire of audacity, Rand Paul, a self described Libertarian/Tea Party Candidate running in the Kentucky primary for Bunning’s seat had organized a group of self centered, what’s only good for me, I share nothing with the larger community group of Tea Baggers to support Senator Bunning’s and Kyl’s accusations that being unemployed is the sign of a lazy person. Pull yourselves up from your own bootstraps they say, but if you can’t afford boots to pull up too bad.

The audacity of the arrogant! And year after year, again and again, we listen to the promises of those who speak in flowing colors of red, white and blue. Who mention religions, who speak of family values, which designate them from us, whose rhetoric rambles roughshod and ridicule. And year after year we buy their damaged bag of goods and ruminate afterwards as to how we fall prey to their pathetic preaching.

And yet the arrogant have the audacity to run for office, and the lemming instinct kicks in and the masses vote the bums in office. We shake our heads in wonder and wonder why we once again were duped.