Following are some stray tidbits from my less-than-drive-by encounter with today’s Tea Party Summit in Hickory:
Since 2010 is a Census year, state governments will be engaging in redistricting. In North Carolina, redistricting is the privilege of the majority party in the General Assembly. Parties have a history of gerrymandering districts to increase representation from their party, by more than 20% in some instances. Democrats have reportedly been working on optimizing outcomes for some time now.
One major uphill battle Tea Partiers face is they wish to play by the rules, but they’re playing against an entity that has no regard for the law. The president shared today it is his self-appointed responsibility to control the economy and make people safe by making up rules to choose winners and losers. When a majority doesn’t want to play fair, the rules become a punishment for the good people. Speakers seemed to be of the opinion the best way to get rid of unrestrained lawlessness in government is to vote the violators out of office.
The worst part of the uphill struggle is people have addicted themselves to government. They’ve taken the bait. Most are content to parrot talking points. Most don’t want to work to be free. Working class people can’t organize because they’re trying to feed their family and a family on welfare. Trust babies and persons on the dole have all day long to “organize communities.” It is disheartening for us who love the Republic to fight to give it to people who neither want it nor know what to do with it.
Think tanks distill information for the general public’s consumption. However, in these days of the internet, it might be more helpful for them to elaborate. We can read bills online, but we don’t know when a certain clause is really a kickback, etc. Personally, I’m interested in computational methods used to calculate the costs of legislation. Can somebody refer me to a good book?
