Ralph Kramden And The Constitution

Originally published on LonelyConservative.com

The following is a guest post by Richard Lowery.

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Last spring, when I asked my Trump supporting friends why they thought that it was a good idea to nominate Donald Trump for president, the conversation usually went something like this:

My Friend: He is rich. He will able to do things because he doesn’t owe anyone anything.
Me: You are correct. After the four bankruptcies he should be pretty free and clear on his bills.
My Friend: You don’t understand. He is an outsider and has never held public office.
Me: OK, but the presidency is not an entry level position. Maybe he could get elected to that Assistant Trustee opening out in the Hamptons? See how that goes first?
My Friend: No way man. No time for that. We can’t trust the GOP establishment. Trump needs to start making great deals right away because he knows how Washington works and he can fix it.
Me: Does that means he is an insider?
My Friend: Not really. He is just an outsider who knows how the inside works.

Ergo, this makes Mr. Trump an inside outsider, which bring up a fascinating question: Who is more well connected? An outside insider or an inside outsider?

Yes, yes, yes. Everyone hates the GOP establishment, but what I want to know is this: Does the GOP establishment have secret weekly meetings? Because if they do, then I want in. The meetings will be attended by Mitt Romney, the Koch brothers, Thurston Howell III, 22 members of the Bush family, Ebenezer Scrooge prior to Christmas Eve of 1843, Snidely Whiplash and a neo-Marxist UAW union steward named Bert. Wait – how did that last guy make the cut? First order of business is to smoke cigars and throw darts at pictures of orphans. Then, plan the upcoming week’s sinister activities which could include using drones equipped with vacuum cleaners to suck the funds out of middle class people’s IRA accounts during the night. The meeting is concluded by everyone going into a secret vault, taking off their clothes and rolling around in piles of money.

The two things that the America Founders feared most was running out of rum and demagogues. During the 1787 Philadelphia constitutional convention – which was held behind closed doors – legend has it that anyone who behaved like a bully during the break out sessions had his powdered wig taken away and was told to go stand on one foot in the corner until the next hot cider break, which by 18th century standards was a severe punishment because most of them had the gout. So they published an anti-demagogue instruction manual called the Constitution which was designed to prevent presidents from running amuck just doing things – even if many people believed that these things were good things. Our Founders conjectured that the long term rotten impact of bad laws frequently outweighed the benefits of the good laws; hence the arcane three headed arrangement of the executive, legislative and judicial branches with the double whammy of a bicameral legislature. They deliberately built a pain in the neck structure to prevent creating laws at the speed of light so that if Ralph Kramden ever did get elected president, then it would be hard for him to implement his hair-brained schemes.

President Ralph Kramden: Hey Norton! Whaddya say we spend $3 billion taxpayer dollars on converting man hole covers on one way streets to transistor radios so anyone walking by can get the weather report?
Vice President Ed Norton: Great idea! Way to go there Ralphie ol’ boy!

The concept was that change should be gradual and ameliorative both in terms of doing things and undoing things. If enough of the gang wants something for a long enough period of time, then eventually we will get around to doing it. The downside is that it takes a while to accomplish the good stuff. So when the GOP House passes legislation (such as repealing Obamacare) and sends it via interoffice mail over to the Senate, then Harry Reed is constitutionally empowered to channel the Wicked Witch of the West by making cackling sounds, turning green, crumpling up the bill into a ball and tossing it over his shoulder into a moldering garbage pile in a corner of his office which is where he also keeps his handbook on ethics. But the upside is that it prevents President Obama from unilaterally moving the U.S. capital to Havana, Cuba.

Three things that the Founders had a hard time preventing were 1) Chinese menus where you have a difficult time telling what you really ordered 2) The accumulation of crappy laws that build up over time which is like plaque building up on your teeth. 3) The problem of when one party, interest group or faction briefly takes over the control room and jams dumb laws down our throats that are then hard to get rid of. To wit: The Great Society (1960’s), Health Care Legislation (2010) and lousy tasting low sodium canned soup (1990’s). Unfortunately, 18th century technology was not advanced enough to allow the Founders to get into time machines to visit and check in on us. So they were kind of hoping that we would all keep our heads and not vote for big loud barking alpha dogs (Mr. Trump: 2016) or give one side too much power (the swarm of bug eyed liberal Democrats: 2008).

President Hillary Clinton: Hey Kaine! Whaddya say we spend $3 squad-zillion taxpayer dollars on converting health care coverage to a single payer East German style system so anyone walking by can just get it?
Vice President Tim Kaine: Great idea! Way to go there Hillary ol’ girl! (1)

Adhering to our constitutional processes can be slow to action. It can be annoying. But with the Trump Presidential Campaign jalopy sputtering, smoking, catching fire and blundering off the cliff into bumbling defeat we will be glad that our powder wigged founders erected constitutional bulwarks – today known as gridlock – to help prevent the Clintonista Regime next year from unilaterally imposing all their secularism and central planning nonsense upon us.

Frightfully Yours,
Richard J. Lowery Jr.

(1) Our post- modern sophisticated sensibilities may not approve of the term, “Hillary-ole girl” due to its gender bias; hence, I have provided several gender neutral options that are more post-modern and more sophisticated.
a. “Way to go there Hillary – ol’ humanoid”
b. “Way to go there Hillary – ol’ goy” (merge boy and girl)
c. “Way to go there Hillary – ol’ collection of molecular structures that have evolved randomly over time through accidental mutations to form your present configuration which is inconsequential and quite meaningless as opposed to the superstitious Judeo-Christion tradition which holds that God intended for your existence and that you are intrinsically valuable.”

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