Courtesy Fun Spot America
For a moment let’s step back from left or right finger pointing. We all know people in power, politicians, people with influence, who seem untouchable. Maybe there’s an overall point here that goes beyond partisanship? -KWC
Who does this serve? It serves protecting the power they have; because for all the noise locking anyone up is even less likely than unlikely. It protects corruption. It protects their desire to take the power of the vote away. It protects their attempts to limit or deny rights.
We may disagree which rights, but disagreement is natural. It’s also a natural way to divide us and protect those who consider themselves the privileged class. Especially because they know they may never be prosecuted for crimes they otherwise would have been been held responsible for if they were you or me.
Displeasing such people is a huge risk for us. For those at the top truly do have the power to pee down upon the peons, or far worse.
Dear Readers, I present to you the broke down, upside down, Ferris wheel of Justice.
Rule of law be damned.
There have been many famous quotes that display how bad this has become: some apocryphal; some accurate, where the person says they could kill another and get away with it: often attributed to a president. And it’s not as if this is new. Perhaps one more dangerous, too often forgotten, quote was that if the president does something that makes it legal (Nixon) And when the Supreme Court rules, “Now let them enforce it.” (Jackson)
Should we be finding ways to eject pols like the Brits have? Maybe. But how do we keep them from distracting us by angering us, pitting us against each other? It’s all so Vlad the Impaler-ish, a 14th Century tyrant who impaled Catholics and Protestants face to face and watch them try to scratch each other’s eyes out while they died. Usually while laughing and eating a sumptuous meal.
How do we get people to see through the partisan v. partisan pap?
It’s a conundrum.
Without due process for the most powerful, the most influential, there’s only due process for peons. And too often not even that. Who cares about us; especially with clogged courts? Courts streamlined with plea deals, paying prisoners to testify who are offered an obvious reason to tell tales, to fudge the facts, to lie. Streamlined with lawyers who get charges dismissed by having the accused pay for a chrome bumper to replace non-chrome, when a smear on the side of the truck and hit and run was the claim. Or trade for a lower fine or sentence rather than risking a life sentence or execution.
Actual guilt or innocence is lost in a pay for system of injustice for all. Such a system serves the greedy, those looking for anything to feather their caps on the way to more power, more influence. What, actual guilt or innocence is NOT as much a concern as portrayed on TV crimes shows? Apparently not.
Thus we have the tippity top of the broken Ferris wheel where the denizens get to throw stuff down on others while planning crimes. Example: it’s pretty obvious: no matter what party, impeachment is close to useless. Why even have it in the Constitution? The whole “lock em up” attituded is pretty much an unfunny, absurd, laugh-less, year long daily April Fools joke where we are the fools. We are told justice will be served when it bloody well never is. I’m including Supreme Court justices in this commentary because the appointments have become far too politically-based.
No matter what party, what status, wouldn’t it be better that the more power or influence one has the more responsible one should be, the easier it should be to eject the rotten rutabagas? Maybe trickle down might work here. If Joe Dirt finds out the majority leader in Congress is more likely to be hauled away in handcuffs they might think twice about committing similar crime. Auditing the rich, the powerful, the influential more intimidating.
”Hey, if even they’re not immune maybe I’d better not take the risk.”
Any president should be on notice: step out of line you very well could get ejected.
Members of Congress: cross that line you get evicted.
Law enforcement, justices? Catch them then catapult them into prison. The more powerful, the more highly placed, the more greased the wheels of justice should be? I can hear the criticism of this in my head…
”No one would want the job.”
Correction: no one with a lack of good intent, morals, ethics would want the job.
Still we have the obvious conundrum. How do we do this in a highly divided nation where so many leaders intentionally turn us against each other?
We have a business model in this country that pays incredibly stupid money to talking heads and political operatives so they keep us at each others throats. They draw the fake tunnel on the cliff that kills the good, not some cartoon coyote.
The kind of change that could assure we attract those to positions of responsibility who are more responsible.
Let’s get the Ferris wheel moving; help inform those with more they too must behave. No matter what party, what base, they serve. I promise it will make all behave more responsibly. And those with bad intentions less likely to reach for power.
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years, first published in fall of 1972. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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