Power as defined by Webster; possession, authority or influence over others. In today’s contemporary political world, this too is the definition of successful politician.
Power is the opium that inflicts
Washington D.C., engulfing, controlling and suffocating those that reside inside the realms of the nation’s capital. It has taken away the purpose of the political process so well defined by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and George Washington.
Today’s political arena is a den of death for the naïve politician, who so gleefully enters hoping to do right. They soon learn that all actions, words, thoughts and people are focused on power, getting it, building and maintaining power engulfs their every awaking moment; it is there tonic of life and it is the tonic the Founding Fathers so desperately hoped to keep out of the American political process.
In their wisdom and understanding of the addiction of power our Founding Fathers established the checks and balance process, spoke obsessively of ensuring there was no real center of power, but instead an equal distribution of power to the states. This would ensure the American people were able to control their government by controlling the state or local government.
But today the tonic flows freely through
Washington, like ale in a
Boston pub, making drunkards of our politicians and clouding their every thought, turning from the logical thought process crucial to the thinking human, to the irrational thirst of searching for ways of injecting more.
This addiction is hidden from the American people, by yet another irrational drug; fear, distributed to the masses by the political parties.
Politicians cloud the ability of the voters to see such addiction with the injection of fear and the tool used are the parties. Declarations are made and received of baby murderers and cross burning racists. Such fear mongering keeps the people from understanding the real stalker of our American system; power. As the politician secures their standing in the capital with each electoral victory, they gain power and become the dangerous creature the Founding Fathers sought to avoid; the politician high on power, unable by a voting block engulfed with fear.
If we the people refuse the drug of fear, than perhaps someday the tonic of power will be taken away from the politician and the saving process of logic will regain control. Until that day happens, the American process will continue to be mired in the mud of corruption, producing with each passing election nothing more than the eventually destruction of the American system so wonderfully crafted all those years ago.
