Our Political Class is Upset Over Losing Power

(Mark Noonan) – This from the Nevada Appeal just astounds me: “Even if every incumbent running wins re-election to the Nevada Legislature this year, nearly half the Senate and Assembly will be newcomers when the 2011 session begins in February.

And some observers say the arrival of term limits — the reason most of those incumbents are gone — couldn’t come at a worse time…

…’Term limits were a bad idea to start with and we’re just starting to figure that out,’ said former Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, who resigned for business reasons last year.

‘We’re losing some of the best minds in the place,’ he said…”

Can you believe that? Some times people say things which are just so infuriating that you want to explode. The best minds in the place?

Are these the same minds which ran us up on the budget rocks, twice? The same minds which have given us a horrible public school system? The minds which worked out ways to violate our State constitution and raise taxes without a super majority?

If these are the best minds in the place, then I volunteer trained monkeys to replace them. We couldn’t do any worse with that.

The best minds would be minds that understand taxes are destructive. That spending should only be on crucial needs. That government exists to secure liberties, not nursemaid us through life. These are alien ideas to the political class, and that is why we approved term limits – to get rid of them.

We’ll just have to endure the horrors of a legislature which hasn’t learned all the ropes. They might not know how to dress up naked desire as concern for the people. Won’t have figured out that if you call tax increases “fees” you might get away with it. It’ll be a while before they develop an arrogant sense of entitlement to power.

We can’t get rid of these cretins fast enough. And we need to revisit term limits – the ancient Romans had it that once you served in office, you had to wait five years before you could serve again. This idea commends itself more and more to my mind.

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