http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_dougherty_com/19990806_xcjod_we_didnt_h.shtml
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FRIDAY
AUGUST 06
1999
We didn't hire them for this
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
A pair of news reports yesterday brilliantly demonstrates
why a good housecleaning is long overdue in Congress.
It's getting worse than ridiculous in Congress; it's getting
downright weird.
In the first story, USA Today reported that Rep.
Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., has introduced legislation in
the House that would -- are you ready for this? -- make
it legal for women to breast-feed their babies on federal
property. This immensely important bill was
"necessary," we are told, because some idiot guard told
a woman who was breast-feeding a child at the National
Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., to
leave one day because "no food or drink are allowed on
the premises."
Groan. Well, let's look at this.
Suppose this bill passes -- and it looks like it will --
what are we to conclude? There is no other legislation
currently being considered by Congress that is more
important? American women have to have the
permission of the federal government to breast-feed
their kids -- on property they pay taxes to support?
That this legislation is needed because museum guards
have an average IQ of 30? There are no good answers
here.
In the second story Capitol Hill Blue reported that
although the department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) has decided not to sue gun
makers, that doesn't mean other federal agencies won't
jump on the gun lawsuit bandwagon with a number of
American cities and the NAACP. Gee -- that's good
news.
A few Republicans on the committee hearing testimony
about this issue were rightfully indignant and confused
because they, like millions of us, don't understand what
gives the federal government the right to sue people who
are allowed to sell their products legally. They also
didn't understand why gun makers should be held
responsible by the government for the actions of a few
kooks who acquire their guns in a manner not feasibly
controllable by the gun manufacturers.
But Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., whom we've come
to expect to be the leader of the absurd, had a different
take on this.
"To be in a fury over the fact that HUD may be thinking
of something some of them don't like is certainly a
strange notion," Waxman said. "The Republican
leadership is willing to jump to defend their friends ...
even though some of their friends make products that
kill. It's perfectly appropriate for HUD to explore any
idea that improves the safety of public housing residents
and reduces the money the federal government must
spend on security."
Aside from the stupidity of the "jump to defend their gun
buddies" statement, the rest of Waxman's diatribe
deserves some serious scrutiny. First of all, based on his
comments, Americans are to assume that the federal
government is ultimately responsible for our safety, even
though no one -- not one agency, one police
department, one bureaucrat or one congressman -- can
guarantee the safety of any American. This is especially
true, considering the war zone that is Washington, D.C.
Secondly, Waxman's got it all wrong -- we didn't hire
these congressmen to spend our tax money suing lawful
makers of legal products, nor did we hire them to create
a zillion ways to spend our tax money so they don't have
to give it back to us. HUD is an agency that perpetuates
-- not alleviates -- poverty in this country because its
very existence represents the government's guarantee
that as long as a core group of people have public
assistance they don't have to expend any effort to eke
out a living on their own.
Furthermore, this attitude that Americans cannot survive
without guys like Waxman and gals like Maloney in
government is asinine. We didn't hire these people to
baby-sit us, feed us, cloth us, protect us, and "allow" us
permission to breast-feed our own children in public.
Sheesh.
Watching Congress these days is like watching Theater
of the Absurd. Every day is a step closer to the abyss
for these people it seems. Worse, no matter how logical
or factual the argument against some of the lunacy
Congress is advocating, nobody out here in the
Hinterland can seem to penetrate the zone of brain death
that surrounds Capitol Hill. All we want to do is drag
these people back from the brink of insanity.
It's like they don't live in the same world we live in.
Maybe that's because Washington is a place unto itself.
In many ways it is the most self-perpetuated city on the
face of the planet, filled with some of the most
self-righteous, self-indulgent authoritarians known to
man.
Well, gee whiz. The fact is American mothers don't need
the federal government telling them when and where
they can breast-feed their children. We certainly don't
need a special law "allowing" it. Americans also don't
need government agencies and Justice Department
lawyers engaging in agenda-driven lawsuits borne of
politically correct notions of Utopia, either. If there are
to be lawsuits against the gun industry -- no matter how
stupid the "logic" used to initiate the suits -- the federal
government, "defender" and "holder" of the Second
Amendment, has no business joining the fray. That's
worse than hypocritical.
Again, the power to stop this madness rests with a
Congress not affiliated with the special interests. It rests
with a Congress filled with constitutional scholars, not
slick lawyers. It rests with a Congress filled with people
who understand the very limited role the federal
government is supposed to play in our lives.
You know -- just the sort of people Congress seems to
be lacking these days.
We didn't hire these people, through our votes, to be
our nannies, to be our protectors, to be our lawyers and
to let us know when to feed our children. In fact,
constitutionally speaking, we didn't hire these people to
do much of anything for us because we're supposed to
be doing for ourselves. That was, you may recall, the
reason this country was founded in the first place.
Freedom and liberty cannot survive this kind of socialist,
'Third Way' micromanagement -- it's just as simple as
that. My votes in 2000 will be for principled individuals
who will know that I don't expect very much from them
when I send them to Washington -- because the
Constitution doesn't expect them to do much either.
Special Note: "Welcome back from enemy territory
Joe -- I was worried about you!" -- Jon Dougherty
Jon E. Dougherty is a senior writer and columnist
for WorldNetDaily, as well as a morning co-host of
Daybreak America.
© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"