A World of Absolutes

"Signing Away the Right to Govern"

Grover Norquist, with pledge in hand, has been around for over a quarter of a century. It is not that pledge itself, or the many others referenced in your editorial, that threaten the fabric of our government. It is the people who now attach themselves to this rhetoric that is the root cause of the conflagration of the Constitution.

They came to power in 2010 not from the strength of their collective intellect but from a collective unhappiness of a portion of the population who saw their lives still upended, 2 years into the Obama administration, by Bush era mistakes with unfunded wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, rampant deregulation and pharmaceutical company handouts. But these freshmen Republican Congressmen came armed not with a passion and a calling to fix what was wrong, for in doing so they would necessarily be denouncing their own errors. Instead they would hide the mistakes of their predecessor by changing the message of what was ailing America.

And so, the Tea Party extremists, who could win elections but had no concept of how to govern, now attempted to create policy. Since there was nothing of substance to support their positions, they latched on to pledges and mandates. It is a world of absolutes, where logic and oaths of office have no place. And thus, we have been introduced to a universe of 'never' and 'no'. And the American people and the Constitution suffer at the hands of those who have neither the aptitude or the will to do the hard job of governing.