We have heard “drain the swamp” from our new president, but what is the swamp? It all started with the new Constitution and when our Founders decided to build a capital city in a swampy area outside of any of the thirteen states. That swamp was eventually drained but a new one was started almost immediately, namely a political swamp. Jefferson and Adams had a disagreement about the presidency, and it started there. Adams had wanted the head of state to follow the English model and have a monarch who ruled for life, whereas Jefferson wanted what we ended up getting. It was either government by the elite for the common man or government by the same people being governed.
One of the first controversies was the establishment of a national bank by Hamilton and the opposition by Jefferson because it was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled in Jefferson’s favor many years later but at the time was hard fought on both sides. The bank did actually allow the new government to pay its war debt and establish a monetary system but the swamp had been started. We can cite similar events throughout history, but let’s look at the present. When Bill Clinton came into the White House he immediately fired all of the federal prosecutors and replaced many. Later, when Bush tried to replace a few of the Clinton prosecutors he was sued by the Democrats and accused of being political. Most of the judges appointed by Clinton were by ideology first, before ability and merit. Bush did the same, but the fix was already in with the justice system. We all witnessed the justice system under Obama and Holder when they refused to follow the Constitution and obey the laws pertaining to immigration and welfare. In fact many cases were just overlooked and pushed aside. More prosecutors and judges were appointed with ideology being the first prerequisite. After sixteen years of Democratic control, the swamp was quite full of ideology and not much ability and merit. The ideology became like a religion and ruled over common sense as we see now with the Russian investigation and the lack of Hillary investigation. We have an FBI that protected Hillary from prosecution for egregious mishandling of government documents and at the same time was trying to create and succeed in an investigation of the new president for purely ideological reasons even when there was evidence that it was Hillary who colluded with foreign governments through third parties to change an American election.
When Abraham Lincoln was elected, he defeated a Democrat who wanted to keep slavery in the US. The Democrats continued their fight against African Americans into the sixties and refused to vote for the Civil Rights Act under Pres. Johnson. It was not until recently that the Democrats decided to be the Party for African Americans and somehow through the welfare systems has made it stick. Of course, at the same time, the welfare system has re-enslaved the poor by removing them from the working public. When you get paid not to work, there is very little incentive to become educated so the literacy rate is very low in this population and nobody seems to care. Most children who are not completing high school are illiterate and about 20% of high school graduates are functionally illiterate.
The old argument between Adams and Jefferson, that the people who govern us should be the elite or the common man, is still with us—with the liberals running the educational institutions and considering themselves as the learned elite and the common man doing most of the real work of feeding and providing for a nation built to allow all to achieve the highest of offices in our government. Most of the arguments being told are what is good for us and that only government can take care of us or use your common sense and take care of ourselves. Big government tells us that our neighbor working for the government can handle our money better than we can or make our decisions better for us. Small government or the Jefferson model tells us to go to work and learn to take care of ourselves without constant supervision by government. The ideology that started the swamp has turned to a religion that lets politicians start with a conclusion and spin the facts leading to that conclusion to support it. We find that the media are a product of our liberal colleges and universities and take this into their work with reporting only that which supports their beliefs.
There are large numbers of liberal leaning government workers because they have been protected by both the civil service and unionization. The unions donate to the Democratic Party, which in turn protects the government workers. We have seen the result in the VA scandals where derelict employees keep their jobs and the status quo remains the routine. It has taken a great effort and public outcry to effect any change. The IRS just settled a suit and admitted to giving non-profit tax status on the basis of political beliefs with liberal groups being granted tax-free status and conservative groups being denied or held up indefinitely. Bias by government workers should cause termination, but no IRS employees left and the justice system protected them.
The old wish of something for nothing is still with us and the idea of redistribution of wealth sounds good to those who are not wealthy. But if you notice, most of the redistribution has not benefitted the poor but the politician. The more we try to be Robin Hood, the more the poor get poorer and the politicians get richer. There is a cry now with the looming tax overhaul that the rich are getting a tax break and it is not helping the lower income groups. The liberal establishment has been trying to make success in business a crime or sinful, but most of the leaders are themselves quite well off. It has been revealed that Democratic representatives in the West have prevented the criminal prosecution of a large drug distributor by the DEA for not complying with regulations and aiding the opiate problem. A few years ago a Republican senator gave the determining vote to grant a British drug company an extra year of patent protection, which cost the American people two billion dollars. Power has replaced ideology and, as long as large amounts of money can be given by nonvoters to reelection campaigns, this will continue. We are fortunate to live in a country where all can be successful with hard work and education. Having a political party and educational institutions frown on success and work harder for lobbyist money is preventing this to happen for a lot of Americans. It is a swamp that is difficult to swim through. If only Jefferson and Adams could see us now.
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