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In The Satires, VI, Juvenal poses a question of great importance, “Who will watch the watchmen?” As more and more dirt on a host of politicians comes to the fore, as China expands its heinous reach in the Pacific Ocean, threatening trade and disrupting lives, as the Russia/Ukraine crisis grows, we, the citizens, are left asking this question. There is only one answer, we, the citizens of representative governments, are charged with watching the watchmen. A more critical and cogent point has not presented itself in these writings.
Regularly I write about the findings of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG). As a disabled veteran, a person falsely arrested, injured by VA Police Officers, and flagged fallaciously as a “behavioral problem,” I am a watcher of the watchmen and report on the findings. Unfortunately, the VA has turned both a blind eye and a deaf ear to the VA-OIG and my summarizations of the VA-OIG’s conclusions. You, the taxpayer, need to know what the government is doing in your name and with your tax dollars. We, are the watchmen tasked with watching the watcher (elected political officials), who were hired (elected) to scrutinize the government. Is our role in the direct representative government of this constitutional republic clear?
Did you know your neighbors sued the Baltimore Public School system for breach of public trust? For more than 40 years, the Baltimore Public School system has intellectually abused children and misappropriated public funds through forced taxation. The unelected school district has done this while tax revenues drop precipitously, students cannot read (yet still pass high school graduation), and the neighborhoods in Baltimore become more unsafe. Illiteracy is directly tied to crime rates, poverty, and helplessness; yet, the school board in Baltimore cannot even be bothered to allow parents the right of school choice. What is the role of citizens in Baltimore, the same as it is everywhere else; protect children, scrutinize government, elect different leaders, and watch more closely those elected to protect the rights of all citizens. “Who will watch the watchmen;” you are the watchers of the watchmen, and you are being lulled to sleep!
In our constitutional republic, we have three co-equal branches of government, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. President Biden is reported to be in full swing of destroying the power of the judicial. Recently the world watched aghast while a wholly unqualified person was measured for a position with the Supreme Court, the court of last resort in American Jurisprudence. President Biden is on record claiming he would nominate the first black woman to the supreme court; after ensuring that two other more qualified women of color were refused nomination earlier in his career. Do you sense a hypocrite, liar, and charlatan? The judge nominated cannot tell the difference between a man and a woman, allows sexual predators to have lighter sentences as she legislated from the bench. Yet, we, the watchers, are expected to believe she is remarkably qualified and uniquely capable of sitting on the Supreme Court. I have serious reservations, not because she is a woman or a person of color. My reservations rest solely upon her record as a judge, which I find detestable at best.
Everyone is aware, COVID-19 has plagued the world since late 2019, originating in China, and the costs have been exorbitant and extreme. Only until the Russia/Ukraine crisis came along did the global media find a new story for wall-to-wall, 24/7 coverage like feckless beasts fighting for a bone. Repeating only for emphasis, “Where has the opposition party been during COVID-19?” The watchers, every single one, from the mayor to the US House and Senate, went to sleep and allowed bureaucrats to overcome law and common sense to the detriment of every single citizen. Where did the watchers go, and why did they leave the citizenry to the incautious, ineffectual, inefficacious, and abortive bureaucrats who fired professionals, broke the law without regard, and still are running free? Liberties, rights, freedoms, were stolen without consideration, and the opposition party was nowhere to be found. Indeed, “Who will watch the watchmen?”
On the topic of China, why is Marco Rubio the only member of the US Congress willing to say aloud what the citizenry is wondering? 2020 closed with China owning $1.9 BILLION or roughly 192,000 acres of prime American farmland. Want to know where those crops grown on American soil go; I bet you can guess they aren’t traveling to US Supermarkets. China is still buying prime farmland, and nobody in the US House or Senate is willing to listen to farmers, ranchers, and dairymen about how their land is being purchased by China and they run out of business. Rep. Dan Newhouse was quoted regarding farmland ownership by Chinese investors as a national security issue. “The current trend in the United States is leading us toward the creation of a Chinese-owned agricultural land monopoly. There are currently no federal safeguards against the creation of this monopoly.” In response to Rep. Dan Newhouse, Rep Grace Meng proclaimed, “Can we honestly say that this Amendment, which singles out one country, won’t have repercussions on Asian-Americans across our country? Let’s include all of our adversaries.”
“Who will watch the watchmen?” An honest and fair question. I agree that no enemy of America should be allowed to own land inside America. Not that Saudi Arabia is an enemy to America, but it is important to note not just China is purchasing farms and ranchland in America. Worse, fresh water in California is regularly purchased to grow alfalfa for shipping to the Saudi Kingdom. California keeps declaring they are in a drought. The water crisis continues with or without Saudi purchases through the government’s mismanagement of resources, the need for liquid capital to keep the debt wolves away from the door, and the silly environmental laws. “Who will watch the watchmen; is apt and very important when discussing national security issues, the acquisitions of foreign entities inside America, and the need to meet citizen needs before foreign markets.
On the topic of Biden, specifically the Hunter Biden laptop and the shady deals with China, one has to ask about the timing of China’s massive land purchases ramping up. At the same time, Joey was Vice President, and Hunter was slipping the “Big Man” money. The Hunter Biden laptop story has been closely followed since October 2020, and the revelations released in the various news outlets on this story leave me appalled, alarmed, and amazed. I keep asking myself about the timing, why Joey was so valuable an investment, and the answer lies in his access to Obama. One of the media pundits discussed how Obama and Clinton are tied into the sale of access by Joey, and not all of the financial analysis is completed even now. Leaves me asking who got paid and why during the Obama presidency? A careful records review shows China going on a land purchasing spree simultaneously, and more questions for Secretary of State Clinton need to be addressed immediately! “Who will watch the watchmen?”
The US Constitution, in the 10th Amendment, provides all the authority any citizen needs to demand the watchers scrutinize the government and, if required, replace the watchers.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
We, the citizens, own the direct representative government in America, and it is time for those elected to fear the citizenry. Not because we have become violent, but because we are firing them, electing new representatives, and holding those removed from office accountable for their mismanagement while in elected office. Our country is being sold out from under our feet by those elected to office, and it is time they are held accountable before the bar of justice. Our national security is a hiss and an insult to them, all while they become enriched, and their children funnel money, and I am sick to death of seeing this nepotism. We, the watchers of the watchmen, deserve answers from transparent and speedy investigations that conclude with people wearing distinctive clothing and permanently disgraced.
How have the watchmen become millionaires while holding public office? This single question should be the watch cry of every single citizen in America until they are all held accountable and disgraced. You deserve better watchers. Our children deserve better watchers. The world deserves better representatives of the people, by the people, and for the people. Remember this in November!
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
I wonder if maybe affirmative action is not just dead but ready for the waste pits of history. Cohen (1996) acknowledged that federal hiring has a set of laws, with exceptions for every rule, to justify not hiring individuals. I have personally witnessed this in Albuquerque, NM., for the better part of three years. At the V.A. Hospital and Social Security Offices, the hiring managers refuse to hire veterans, and multiple other hiring paths to keep “undesired people” from being hired.”
Now that Affirmative Action has pampered more than two generations, we have more women and minorities in the workplace with the same skills as white males, and the same problem exists in deferential hiring, differential treatment based upon race, gender, and other politically acceptable groups. People who want to work, start early, work hard, and prepare for better jobs through education, experience, and single-minded determinedness. Those who do not wish to work create excuses, live off the government dole, and remain entrenched in ignorance, causing poverty, loss of self-esteem, ruined families, and a host of social problems that those who are working have to deal with and pay taxes to the government, who started the problem in the first place. These same workers have to fight affirmative action and diversity policies for new jobs, promotions, pay increases, etc., including all the issues associated with a minimum wage and associated costs (Harasztosi, & Lindner, 2015; Hawkins & Sowell, 2011).
I wonder if maybe affirmative action is not just dead but ready for the waste pits of history. I was refused a schedule at a McDonald’s in a small Utah town after being hired and trained. Why; because a local workforce specialist pointed out to the franchise owner they had no mentally challenged people in their workforce. Thus, in a time of depression, where college-degreed people competed for entry-level jobs, I and ten others were “bumped” from the schedule to accommodate affirmative action.
At the V.A. Hospital, the Forestry Service, Social Security Offices, and so many more local, state, and federal government offices, the hiring managers refuse to hire veterans. Using every trick, legal loophole, and multiple other hiring paths to keep “undesired people” from being hired. “Undesired people” includes people with handicaps. Even though through Schedule A hiring, Federal Policy claims they have top priority in government hiring and veterans, spouses, and dependents with specific federal benefits, minorities (including men, people of color of all shades, American Indians, etc.). All the best jobs, positions, and perks are awarded through nepotism and the court of public opinion. The hiring system is structured in such a way as to remain in legal compliance to affirmative action while denying those for whom the law was supposed to help. Thus, affirmative action is a shield protecting lousy behavior instead of as a tool to improve workforce hiring.
Harasztosi and Lindner (2015) discussed how the minimum wages cost jobs and excluded the neediest citizens from employment. I contend that affirmative action has negatively impacted minorities, men and women, disabled people, etc., most significantly using the principles and logic of Harasztosi and Lindner (2015). Rules demanding social behavior always most significantly and negatively impact those designed in the law to enjoy the most benefit. It seems to me the following from John Adams applies, the U.S. Constitution “… was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Hence, the path forward is not more laws to avoid, but less. The way forward is the societal education in morals as governed through a religious society; atheism is a religious society, and the belief structure fits well in the path ahead.
Sykes (1995) defined affirmative action as “… [T]he set of public policies and initiatives designed to help eliminate past and present discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” As promising as this sounds, affirmative action remains the biggest farce crammed down the business community’s throats since the Federal Income Tax. By focusing, as this definition states on “eliminating discrimination past and present,” the entire country forgets the wise words from Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift; that is why it is called the present.” By focusing on the past, we project the same problems of the past into the future, ruining both the present and the future.
Now that Affirmative Action has pampered more than two generations, we have more women and minorities in the workplace with the same skills as white males, and the same problem exists in deferential hiring, differential treatment based upon race, gender, and other politically acceptable groups. People who want to work, start early, work hard, and prepare for better jobs through education, experience, and single-minded determinedness. Those who do not wish to work create excuses, live off the government dole, and remain entrenched in ignorance, causing poverty, loss of self-esteem, ruined families, and a host of social problems that those who are working have to deal with and pay taxes to the government who started the problem in the first place. All the while, these same workers have to fight affirmative action and diversity policies for new jobs, promotions, pay increases, etc., including all the issues associated with a minimum wage and associated costs (Harasztosi, & Lindner, 2015; Hawkins & Sowell, 2011).
These are my thoughts, and I welcome your comments on this topic. A “Liberty FIRST Culture” allows for disagreements in opinions as a means to improving a situation. I have listed my sources for the views shared. I have listed my experience with affirmative action. Feel free to disagree and comment accordingly.
DNC-Consulting 