The Ouroboros

Great Dr. Zero post.

Excerpt:

It’s not an exclusively partisan scandal. The party in power tends to attract the big payoffs, from contributors eager to turn thousands of campaign dollars into millions in taxpayer loot. It’s an investment that pays huge dividends, no matter how rotten the economy might be. As the party dedicated to government growth and central control, the Democrats are more aggressive salesmen, and they can count on general media disinterest, so they can be more brazen.

The sharpest fangs of the Ouroboros are public employee unions, especially the teachers’ union. Titanic amounts of taxpayer money are poured into the hands of the NEA, and despite generally poor performance, they are politically shielded from reform. One of the biggest controversies from President Obama’s first year in office was the brutal murder of a popular District of Columbia school choice program, carried out by the Democrats on the order of the teachers’ union. The NEA buys this kind of influence by donating tens of millions to Democrats each year – over $56 million during the 2008 election season.

These very expensive money-laundering systems have been running for decades, consuming taxpayer billions to stuff millions into the coffers of politicians, who then grab more billions to throw into the machine. As long as vast sums of money are accumulated in Washington, the politically connected will gather to feast. Politicians need funding to stay in office, and despite their posturing as selfless public servants, they tend to be greedy and envious… with a strong sense of entitlement to the lavish lifestyle paraded before them by big-money contributors. They will always lose the battle against temptation to sell their power. They wrap their sins in self-righteous rhetoric, which they can sometimes convince themselves to believe. No central accumulation of power has ever escaped corruption on a massive scale, anywhere in human history.

Consider the terrible image of this huge serpent feeding upon itself, and ask yourself: what is the use of a “moderate” agenda that merely causes the beast to chew a little more slowly? What is the “centrist” position relative to a system designed for automatic, perpetual growth? Even if the President repaired to the golf course for the rest of his term, and Congress held no further sessions, the growth of the federal government would continue automatically. You can hear the sounds of the serpent’s teeth scraping against its own tail in talk of baseline budgeting, and the term “cuts” used as a curse against reductions in the rate of spending increase.

How will you maintain your “independence” when control over every aspect of your life is fantastically valuable, and politicians have plenty of eager buyers with deep pockets lined up?

It’s not enough to tinker at the edges of this system. Vast amounts of power must be torn from Washington, and returned to the people. We must begin the fearsome task of pulling the serpent’s tail from its jaws, or we will all be crushed by its death throes.

“Moderate” voters would be well advised to study the Tea Party critique of our unsustainable government carefully. As dramatic as it sounds, it’s the truly moderate position. The Ourboros has shown it cannot be reasoned with, and there are no firm boundaries it respects. The “living Constitution” is but the tip of its flickering tongue. Leave it alone for a few more years, and it will teach you the true meaning of “extremism.”