Dennis Campbell
Democrats acting like kids deprived of candy
By Dennis Campbell
Watching Democrats loot the country with their trillion-dollar "stimulus" plan reminds me of something from my days in basic training at rickety old Ft. Ord in Monterey, California.
(Incidentally, to put a trillion bucks into perspective, courtesy of Sen. Mitch McConnell, if we had begun spending one million dollars per day since the day of Christ's birth, we would not even be close to a trillion dollars today).
During the Army's basic training, recruits were deprived of candy. A few enterprising souls, seeing an opportunity for profit, began a short-lived smuggling operation. Like all enterprises formed to provide people with something they want and cannot have, it was largely successful, although the penalties for getting caught could be severe.
One unfortunate fellow was forced to consume his entire stash, drink a quart of warm water and do vigorous calisthenics. The effect on his digestive system was significant.
Each recruit had a white strip of tape on his shirt with his name written on it, fondly called a maggot tag. We, of course, were known as maggots.
The smugglers covered the tag with a strip of olive green tape, sneaked out of our three-story barracks late at night, and headed to the post exchange, where they bought large quantities of candy to be sold at a handsome profit.
Recruits literally gorged themselves on Baby Ruths, Milk Duds and Snickers bars. It was conclusive proof that sugar is a drug.
The behavior of Democrats, for years denied their desperate urges to gorge themselves on the wealth of America and use it to fund their bridges to nowhere and assorted other pork barrel projects, is just like those recruits satisfying their sugar cravings.
Of course, we already are seeing the result of liberal fiscal irresponsibility, oppressive taxation and the overzealous government regulation of private enterprise as business after business closes shop or lays off thousands of workers. The wicked genius of the Left is its ability to portray itself as something it is not, in this case an advocate for the working person. In fact, liberal policies always mean grief for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
The mystery is why so many people are so incapable of recognizing this. I suppose that those who depend on government largesse for their survival are only too happy to continue to vote these crooks into office, and a sizeable portion of the populace, thanks to our train wreck of a public education system, is terminally ignorant of the political, economic and social principles which traditionally have undergirded our constitutional republic.
In fact, I doubt that many of them even know what a constitutional republic is. So, they are content to go along with a "stimulus" plan that spends billions of dollars on pork barrel projects that stimulate nothing more than the bank accounts of those who have managed to curry the favor of Democrats.
The candy incident provides an additional appropriate metaphor for what we are witnessing from out-of-control Democrats.
As those Army recruits devoured their forbidden goodies, they had to dispose of the evidence, in this case candy wrappers. Try to imagine the volume of paper generated by 250 young men stuffing themselves with candy bars.
The obvious solution: Flush the wrappers down the toilet. The problem was that Ft. Ord, built by the Army back in 1917, simply did not have a plumbing system adequate to handle the burden.
Of course, there was a plumbing backup, but in just a single toilet. As fate would have it, that toilet was in the personal latrine of the company commander's office.
Eventually, his toilet began gushing gallons of water, filled with candy wrappers and, well, other unpleasant things. The water poured out of his office and literally flooded the entire ground floor of our barracks.
It took many hours of mopping by many dozens of recruits to clean up the mess, and believe me it was a mess.
And just as it took the election of Ronald Reagan to clean up the economic mess left by Jimmy Carter, it likely will take the election of a like-minded Republican to clean up the mess created by Barack Obama and his happy band of looters.
Yes, it's always up to conservatives to clean up the messes left by liberals who remain in a perpetual state of arrested adolescence, indulging their whims and paying tribute to the special interests who finance their election campaigns, with nary a thought as to the consequences of their irresponsible behavior.
© Dennis Campbell
February 3, 2009
Watching Democrats loot the country with their trillion-dollar "stimulus" plan reminds me of something from my days in basic training at rickety old Ft. Ord in Monterey, California.
(Incidentally, to put a trillion bucks into perspective, courtesy of Sen. Mitch McConnell, if we had begun spending one million dollars per day since the day of Christ's birth, we would not even be close to a trillion dollars today).
During the Army's basic training, recruits were deprived of candy. A few enterprising souls, seeing an opportunity for profit, began a short-lived smuggling operation. Like all enterprises formed to provide people with something they want and cannot have, it was largely successful, although the penalties for getting caught could be severe.
One unfortunate fellow was forced to consume his entire stash, drink a quart of warm water and do vigorous calisthenics. The effect on his digestive system was significant.
Each recruit had a white strip of tape on his shirt with his name written on it, fondly called a maggot tag. We, of course, were known as maggots.
The smugglers covered the tag with a strip of olive green tape, sneaked out of our three-story barracks late at night, and headed to the post exchange, where they bought large quantities of candy to be sold at a handsome profit.
Recruits literally gorged themselves on Baby Ruths, Milk Duds and Snickers bars. It was conclusive proof that sugar is a drug.
The behavior of Democrats, for years denied their desperate urges to gorge themselves on the wealth of America and use it to fund their bridges to nowhere and assorted other pork barrel projects, is just like those recruits satisfying their sugar cravings.
Of course, we already are seeing the result of liberal fiscal irresponsibility, oppressive taxation and the overzealous government regulation of private enterprise as business after business closes shop or lays off thousands of workers. The wicked genius of the Left is its ability to portray itself as something it is not, in this case an advocate for the working person. In fact, liberal policies always mean grief for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
The mystery is why so many people are so incapable of recognizing this. I suppose that those who depend on government largesse for their survival are only too happy to continue to vote these crooks into office, and a sizeable portion of the populace, thanks to our train wreck of a public education system, is terminally ignorant of the political, economic and social principles which traditionally have undergirded our constitutional republic.
In fact, I doubt that many of them even know what a constitutional republic is. So, they are content to go along with a "stimulus" plan that spends billions of dollars on pork barrel projects that stimulate nothing more than the bank accounts of those who have managed to curry the favor of Democrats.
The candy incident provides an additional appropriate metaphor for what we are witnessing from out-of-control Democrats.
As those Army recruits devoured their forbidden goodies, they had to dispose of the evidence, in this case candy wrappers. Try to imagine the volume of paper generated by 250 young men stuffing themselves with candy bars.
The obvious solution: Flush the wrappers down the toilet. The problem was that Ft. Ord, built by the Army back in 1917, simply did not have a plumbing system adequate to handle the burden.
Of course, there was a plumbing backup, but in just a single toilet. As fate would have it, that toilet was in the personal latrine of the company commander's office.
Eventually, his toilet began gushing gallons of water, filled with candy wrappers and, well, other unpleasant things. The water poured out of his office and literally flooded the entire ground floor of our barracks.
It took many hours of mopping by many dozens of recruits to clean up the mess, and believe me it was a mess.
And just as it took the election of Ronald Reagan to clean up the economic mess left by Jimmy Carter, it likely will take the election of a like-minded Republican to clean up the mess created by Barack Obama and his happy band of looters.
Yes, it's always up to conservatives to clean up the messes left by liberals who remain in a perpetual state of arrested adolescence, indulging their whims and paying tribute to the special interests who finance their election campaigns, with nary a thought as to the consequences of their irresponsible behavior.
© Dennis Campbell
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