I GOT PLENTY OF TAXATION. WHERE'S THE REPRESENTATION?

For those of you who may have attended one of the indoctrination centers that pass for public schools in this country, there was once a very important dead white guy named Thomas Jefferson who helped found our nation. He wrote a document called the Declaration of Independence. This document was signed on July 4, 1776, resulting in the modern holiday in which children tentatively light off ash-producing pellets called "snakes" because everything else has been outlawed and the male adults drink copious amounts of beer and severely sunburn their bellies while out on the lake in needlessly large and overly powerful boats purchased on credit.

This is how we honor the Declaration of Independence, a document that enumerated the abuses that the English crown, through the governmental authorities of the time, forced upon the citizens of the American Colonies. We were already at war with Great Britain when the Declaration was signed; it merely listed the grievances that had caused us to go to war.

One of the most famous objections against the ruling English monarchy and Parliament way back then was: "For imposing taxes on us without our Consent." Today, if it is ever mentioned, it is more commonly phrased "Taxation without representation". In 1775, such was enough cause to grab your trusty flintlock and go out to shoot some Redcoats.

In these enlightened times, when one actually works for the government from January to June when all the taxes, big and small, levied upon us are totalled, we are told that such taxes are fine and dandy because we have "representation", This representation consist of being able to periodically vote for some greasy eel-like shyster, hand-picked and spoon-fed to us by the ruling elite of Corrupt Socialist Party A or Corrupt Socialist Party B and a televised system of Yellow Journalism.

Here in Fly-Over Country, aka the Heartland, while we certainly are well-taxed (as is everyone fortunate enough to even have a job anymore) we are certainly not well-represented. Or represented at all in some cases.

Very big thorns in the sides of many Westerners are the numerous Federal land grabs foisted upon the Rocky Mountain West by East Coast elitist weenies whose feet have never been ff pavement, except maybe on a golf course, in their lives.

The latest of these assaults was the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, which was sponsored by timber, agriculture, outdoor recreation, and mining experts Carolyn Maloney (D) of New York and Republikrat Christopher Shays of Connecticut. These two clueless yet self-righteous meddlers decided to steal another 23 million acres of land in five Western states...Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington...away from any kind of local or State control. It was authored and passed by "representatives" that certainly did not represent the people or the interests of the states affected.

This was also known as the Omnibus Bill. The root word "Omni" comes from the Greek, and is short for "omnipotent", which the Federal government considers itself to be. "Bus" is something the government likes to throw the citizens of the U.S. and the Supreme Law of the Land under.

At any rate, if a person living in the affected states actually had the arrogance to email or write one of the east coast "representatives" authoring and foisting the bill upon them, that person would get back from said representative a politely worded STFU letter. "Since you do not reside in Congresscritter so-and-so's district, he/she/it doesn't really give a crap what you think about these issues affecting your life and livelihood and doesn't want to hear from you no more. Bugger off, peasant."

In a tiny smidgen of actual representation, Wyoming's lone representative Barbara Cubin said, "This is an absolutely offensive attempt by East Coast liberals to create sweeping, over-reaching laws for Western public lands without any public input from the folks living in Wyoming who would be heavily impacted by this legislation." Carolyn Maloney then produced a maniacal laugh and spit on Cubin.

Even when you are allowed to express your concerns to your own "representative", it doesn't mean anything. Take the original "stimulus" bill. Congresscritters were being bombarded and told by their constituents that they were completely and overwhelmingly (85% was the most commonly quoted figure) AGAINST the boondoggle. The Congresscritters then told their constituents STFU; your opinion means nothing, we know what's best for you peons. Their numerous scandals, less-than-stellar track record, and bankrupting of everything they come in contact with would argue against their wisdom, but it matters not since they got away with it and will continue to do so.

Then we have the judiciary, aka "Men in Black". They have been legislating from the bench for decades now. Even the latest Supreme Court nominee says it's SOP. In California, every time the citizens rise up and band together and vote and cry out for their voice to be heard by getting an an amendment to the state constitution passed, some wacko leftist judge immediately rules the amendment unconstituional. Since amending the constituion is the official, legal, constituional way to change it, these rulings are akin to the courts saying "The constituion is unconstitutional!" Once more, John Q Public has no representation or voice or redress.

Congress is bad enough, but with our afore-mentioned "representation" in voting for which dirtbag screws us, occassionally during a tight election one pol or another will drop the public a bone or scrap of grsitle. Where representation is almost completely absent is in the slew of mandates, dictates, ordinances, statutes, rules, and regulations forced down our throats by the hordes of Federal governmental agencies, the vast majority of which have absolutely no Constitutional basis...EPA, DHS, HUD, OSHA, IRS, BATFE, ad nauseam.

I couldn't even find a source that would openly admit to how many of these agencies even exist, perhaps because no one even knows the actual number, or perhaps because that number would horrify even the sheeple. Something as seemingly benign as the Department of Agriculture has 18 different agencies under its overall umbrella, at last count now employing an even dozen government drones and hacks for every surviving farmer and rancher left in these United States. The Department of Education lists some 43 sub-agencies, even though it is impossible to find any mention whatsoever in the Constitution that the Federal government has any business running education anyway, and wastes billions doing the job poorly.

Although many of the mindless swarms of rules and regulations inflicted upon the public by the mindless swarms of government agencies are mandated by a supposedly "representative" Congress, others originate within the agencies themselves. Somewhere down a long brightly-lit hallway in some government labyrinth, some fat-assed, chair-borne, bean-counting bureaucrat suffering from a mid-life crisis and desperately seeking to somehow justify his meaningless existence and needless, redundant job, pens some new regulation.

Voila! This regulation instantly carries the force of law. Where does John Q. Public get any say in the matter? Or even know it is coming? Or knows the bloody thing even exists at all until he or she is charged for some petty infraction of it?

As that famous 80's star Clara Peller said in the Wendy's commercial, "Where's the beef?" Sez I, "Where's the representation?"