Patterico's Pontifications

3/22/2010

Watching the Sausage Makers

Filed under: General — Jack Dunphy @ 11:31 pm



[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]

Everyone has heard the old saw about people who like sausage and respect the law should never watch either of them being made. I’ve never had occasion to observe the sausage-making process, but as it happens two of my siblings long ago had summer jobs at a slaughterhouse here in the Los Angeles area. For as long as they held those jobs I was regaled almost daily with tales from the “kill floor” and other aspects of the operation that saw livestock go in one end of the building and packaged meat products come out the other. It was those tales, together with the peculiar aroma that seemed stubbornly to cling to my brother and sister even after their after-work showers, that often had me feeling less than at my ease when sitting down to find my plate decked out with pork products.

But none of the tales I heard from my brother and sister, of people slipping about on hogs’ entrails, and of “no part of the animal going to waste,” if you dare to imagine what that might mean, none of it even begins to compare with the gory spectacle we observed this week in Washington. Indeed, if the sausage-making process were revealed to be anywhere near as gruesome as that which produced what has been labeled “health care reform,” demand for sausages would cease overnight.

The health care debate has brought a level of attention to Congress that has seldom been seen, and the light that now shines on our elected representatives is in most cases not a flattering one. Before this circus began, how many Americans would have recognized Nancy Pelosi if she stood up in their soup? Not one in a hundred, I suspect, but now lots and lots of people have had the chance to observe and form conclusions about the Speaker’s demeanor, and my guess is that few of these newly introduced Americans are comforted in the knowledge that Mrs. Pelosi is second in the line of succession to the presidency.

And as for the lesser lights of Congress, it should now be clear to those who heretofore had paid little attention to the goings-on of Washington that a disturbing number of Members are neither especially bright nor especially principled. That so many of them could be threatened, bribed, or cajoled into voting for this monstrosity over the clearly expressed will of the American people is, quite literally, frightening.

It took some time, but I did come to enjoy sausages again. It will be much, much longer before I can respect Congress.

–Jack Dunphy

6 Responses to “Watching the Sausage Makers”

  1. Sausage is yummy, especially the Verde Politico de Soylent.

    AD - RtR/OS! (d02306)

  2. > It took some time, but I did come to enjoy sausages again. It will be much, much longer before I can respect Congress.

    January 21, 2013, at the earliest. I’m sure.

    IgotBupkis (79d71d)

  3. Gives you a whole new level of respect for haggis, now, doesn’t it ? (grin)

    Me, I hope ot have new respect for Congress in January of 2011, thankyouverymuch !

    It’ll be 2013, most likely, before I can again respect the Presidency …

    Alasdair (205079)

  4. people who like sausage and respect the law should never watch either of them being made

    Respect for Congress is one thing; the adage has to do with respect for the law.

    The damage Congress has done isn’t limited to just their own image. Just as the Democrats see the Constitution as an obstacle that needs to be evaded in order ot implement their plans, a large no. of people will now be forced to acknowledge the fact that the laws they pass are obstacles that need to be evaded if they are just to live their lives.

    If you want an example of what I’m talking about, look at Europe. When people hear that Obama wants to turn us into a Euro social welfare state, don’t think France or Germany. Think Italy or Greece.

    Confiscatory taxation, draconian punishments, entrepreneurship-killing regulation, etc., just create underground economies and a huge amount of disrespect for the law. And those who enforce it.

    What effect does anyone think this is going to have? A vastly enlarged IRS will increase the number of audits they perform every year. In order to paw through people’s lives to see if their healthcare coverage ever, at any point during the year, fell out of compliance. If you get it through your employer, you can’t even control that. Your employer and your insurer might make some sort of change. But you’ll be fined for it.

    Steve (7d8b00)

  5. Just like sausage, I prefer to have my laws free of sh*t. If the socalled health reform bill was sausage, and you ate it, you would die from trichinosis.

    tmac (5559f7)

  6. From Steve at 11:31am …create underground economies and a huge amount of disrespect for the law.

    Jack, in order to enforce the confiscatory taxation and regulation, the bureaucrats need law enforcement to do their bidding.

    I sincerely hope that each one of us is concentrating and focusing on what we are willing to do and not do when the inevitable push comes to shove. There are groups out there who are beginning to examine what relationship exists between the regular citizens and law enforcement/military and the government who employs them. Maybe these ‘oath keepers’ are groups of yahoos, maybe not.

    Either way, we all need to remember that a pitched battle between the populace and law enforcement would create exactly the kind of ‘crisis’ that the bureaucrats would love to exploit for an ever greater accumulation of power.

    It’s imperative that those who recognize true corruption stay on the same page.

    Apogee (e2dc9b)


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