"They pick corn in Iowa," said Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman from the Granite State, dismissing his anticipated single-digit performance in Iowa's caucus on Tuesday, "and pick presidents here in New Hampshire."
Iowans may take that bon mot as an insult, but it's really a compliment of the highest order.
From Iowa's 92,600 farms (according to the US Department of Agriculture) springs forth 19% of America's corn, 17% of its soybeans, 30% of its pork, and 14% of its eggs.
Laid alongside such bounty, of what conceivable worth are the political aspirations of a sniveling little grifter like Jon Huntsman?
He's spent his entire life, apart from seven years holding down a sinecure in his family's corporation to burnish his image as a "businessman," in politics. While Iowans keep themselves busy producing 19% of America's corn, Huntsman's life revolves around schemes to seize and dispose of 19% -- or more -- of everything those Iowans, and other Americans, create or earn.
They say politics is a dirty business. They're wrong. It's dirty, but it's not a business. At least not a legitimate one, like picking corn.
They say politics is a blood sport, but that's not true either (unless you consider professional "wrestling" a sport). Huntsman's really no different than the other presidential candidates glad-handing their way across Iowa and New Hampshire this week. Every one of them thinks exactly the same way as Huntsman about the yokels in "fly-over country." They just won't say it, because they're not at 2% in the Iowa presidential polls.
Politics is a scheme, a scam, a con, a fraud. It's the mechanism through which men like Jon Huntsman hope to convince you that they can handle your affairs for you better than you can handle those affairs yourself -- for a price, which they'll extract at gunpoint and spend on chains to wrap around you, the better to keep you locked into that rotten deal forever after.
As we find ourselves engulfed in yet another quadrennial presidential contest, keep a couple of things in mind:
Every cab driver, every janitor, every burger-flipper, every corn or cotton picker across the fruited plain does more, every day, to make the lives of everyone around them better, happier, more rewarding than the whole raft of politicians hectoring them for their votes will do in a thousand lifetimes.
Every creator, every investor, every entrepreneur, every businessman who actually makes the things we need and offers the services we use -- as opposed to those sorry specimens who plot with politicians to get over through government privilege instead of honest effort -- is a walking rebuke to the Jon Huntsmans of the world.
Think about that while you watch the 10-month "wrestling" match to come. Ask yourself if watching these scoundrels work each other with folding chairs and spit fake blood all over each other for most of another year is really worth the price of the ticket.
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