The Crazy Factor

Don't Forget to Pack Your Gun

Gail Collins recently offered a salient insight into American politics: There has always been and likely always will be a significant crazy factor among the men and women who offer themselves and their beliefs for "public service." So every Congress, every state legislature has some really certifiable members, but the rest of the group simply ignores and tolerates them. The problem becomes when the critical mass of crazy gets big enough to actually change the direction of the legislative process.

She was commenting on the current kerfuffle in Texas about the plans of the United States Army for war games in Texas, Utah and other arid states where there is desert which might resemble places the Army may find itself fighting soon.   But the Republican lunatic fringe (now more than a fringe) saw more nefarious things afoot--like the North Koreans, who always see war games as a prelude to actual war, they saw these "exercises" as transparent ruses for an actual invasion by Obamamen aimed at stripping Texans of their guns, liberty and maybe even part of the plan to unleash those Hispanic Muslims who have been dying to charge across the Rio Grande and rape white Christian women, who Texas has plenty of, and which we all know have been tempting those H.M.'s for some time now. 

Says Obama is Hitler Redux 

Sees Hispanic Muslim Rapists Massing on the Southern Border

If Democracy is designed to represent "The People" then it will represent the crazy members of society as well as the sane. 

But this has also meant Adolph Hitler was elected with a majority vote, not because people did not know what he thought--he had written Mein Kampf and made no secret of his beliefs.  Somehow though, when a politician says something really, really crazy many of the people who vote for him may say, "Well, that's just hyperbole. He's just making a point." 

The other issue is who has the time and the inclination to seek political power: For many Congressmen a seat in the House of Representatives with the nearly $200,000 pay package is the best paying job by several orders of magnitude they can ever hope to get. This is not true for the state of New Hampshire, which virtually does not pay its state legislators, so one might ask, who would sign up for that job?

Really? Just Look at the Man

Retired, unemployable or simply crazy people with a lot of time on their hands perhaps. 

We have a Hampton rep who claims that building a motorway along the abandoned railroad path from Hamton to Portsmouth,  rather than a bicycle path, would be a greener option;he argues  a roadway would improve air quality more than a bicycle path. That would be Fred Rice. 

Clean Air/Build Roads

We have Warren Groen, who looks at grade school kids trying to get the Red Tail Hawk named a state bird and he links that to killing babies at Planned Parenthood clinics.  

Vicious Birds Remind Him of Abortions

We have a group, or maybe it qualifies as a movement, called the Free Staters who want to move enough lunatics to New Hampshire to establish a libertarian utopia where every child will carry a gun and no government will exert its will to restrain the energies of The People. 

My current favorite is Kyle Tasker, who once dropped one of his two guns on the floor during a hearing. He was not disturbed, because he had the other gun secured, in case anyone was thinking of acting on the opportunity.  He also opposed his own bill about mental health on the grounds that "crazy people ought to know they face consequences."  Mr. Tasker, far as I can tell does not actually fit into the "Crazy" box. He just sounds like it. He fits snugly in the "stupid" box.  Who actually voted for this yo-yo?

Mr. Tasker Doing the People's Work

Over time, the crazies just seem to wash up in one place and collect, and fertilize each other and eventually who knows what will grow in that miasma?

In Concord, we are approaching the time when the lunatics will be running the asylum.