Hodgkinson's Disease: how House members 'progressed' into larger targets

Congressional shooter James T. Hodgkinson most reproduced quote (linked to a Change.org petition) asserted, “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” Fascinating how many this past decade sincerely asserted Obama and now Trump have somehow single-handedly accomplished such great damage. Extremists of this sort refuse to understand we were not designed to be a democracy; those who’ve shilled loudest for democracy have ‘progressed’ us into oligarchy. We were in fact designed to be a representative republic of sovereign States. Given the success of traitors (as per Article 3, Section 3 in our Constitution, not Hodgkinson’s and other extremists’ definitions) long before Messrs. Obama and Trump, we’re now a forced coalition of states suffering increasingly less representation under the unconstitutional 435 limit.

A brief overview of Article 1, Section 2 (30,000 rule) offers some insight on why our current House of Representatives no longer lives up to its Constitutional nomenclature. When the document was under construction during the federal Convention of 1787, the only request made by George Washington was the ratio of representation be set at 1 representative for every 30,000 inhabitants. The rule under consideration at the moment was 1 for every 40,000. Some States did not want all population counted to redistribute power in their favour which helped set the stage for the ‘Trail of Tears’ and later war between the States. On June 18, 1929, Congress capped the size of the HoR to 435 members. As population grows, real representation decreases - or as my friend James Hines explains, “produces a fuzzier picture with fewer pixels.” Legislation which successfully passes a Constitutionally correct Congress would more likely be representative of the population instead of the gerrymandered and logrolled oligarchical result we currently observe.

The Constitution specifies, "The number of Representatives shall not exceed one per thirty thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative;..." In any given State, there would be one representative for the first 59,999 people. At 60,000 people, the State is apportioned a second member (two representatives for 59,999 would violate the constitutional provision cited above) and so forth. This illegal action formalized Congress' de facto violation of the Constitution, as the 30,000 ratio had been exceeded throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, we are approaching 800,000 to 1. Some find it impossible to believe our esteemed, ethical members of Congress would do anything unconstitutional; regrettably it happens on a regular basis. I’m sure it doesn’t escape some readers a 1929 House more comfortable in their ability to hold onto office and enjoy even greater political benefit from gerrymandering passed one of the most protectionist tariffs in US history triggering the Great Contraction/Depression.

Text in Federalist Numbers 55-58 conveys the founding fathers’ concern of having too many/too few representatives since the uniting States were being structured as a representative republic, NOT a democracy. Capping the size of the HoR continually increases the power of each House member making them larger targets as they’re 1/435th of a vote over 325 million (and growing) instead of the more diluted 1/10,000th of a vote in a Constitutionally correct result envisioned by Washington. Some may recall another nut, Jared L. Loughner, shooting Gabby Giffords (AZ - 8th Congressional District) at her 2011 “Congress on the Corner” event in Tucson. I found Congresswoman Giffords a good person with sound intuition something was fundamentally wrong as implied by the event’s title. It is irrational to think any Congressperson can effectively represent hundreds of thousands of citizens. My guess is she’s never been taught to understand the structure of the document she took an oath to uphold. Worse still, most look to poorly trained so-called “Constitutional scholars” like President Obama or Justice Roy Moore instead of actually reading the text of the document well enough to understand the originalists’ intent as Scalia stressed.

James Hodgkinson is more a symptom; the disease is a bi-polar political process producing ever more addicted and demanding parasites dependent upon redistributive government to get their ‘fix’ as they destroy themselves and our posterity. One block (evidenced by the 25% of eligible voters who went Trump) are champions of the more deleterious corporate welfare recipients. The other seemingly more pervasive block (evidenced by the 25% of eligible voters who went Clinton) champion social welfare recipients like Hodgkinson’s rant for more wealth redistribution in his favor. Easy to imagine voluntary charity orgs would not subsidize a person of this sort, clearly wealthy enough to donate to campaigns, post his vitriol, purchase guns and ammo, etc. Hard to imagine Clintons doing as well in a competitive environment outside of the political world, little different from Trump who shown himself such a poor businessman even with eminent domain abuse, subsidies and other tax breaks in his favor which would be less objectionable if given voluntarily.

This deleterious spirit is easily found at the more micro level as poor businesspeople who are politically connected are ‘enabled’ to stay in business with redistributive ‘fixes’ taking jobs from otherwise productive, successful entrepreneurs. We then waste even more effort, money, time and Spirit removing felons (like Hubbard last year) taking even more out of our economy. The nation’s productive citizens hosting these parasites grow weary and retreat from the economy, making it even more difficult to feed the addicts, so their discourse gets more vituperative and deadly. A one in ten thousand Congressperson is less likely to attract a nut’s attention - it certainly wouldn’t enjoy anywhere near the same amount of media attention. When does shooting a county commissioner (who may be of similar character and integrity as a median Congress-person) who represents about 30,000 make national news?

The irony is a Constitutionally correct HoR would fill a small sized baseball stadium instead of fielding a game between duopoly parties. The reality is, if we followed the document (esp. if Congress only addressed those few things authorized to the federal govt.) our incidences of political addiction to wealth redistribution would not be as profound as we observe today. The HoR was purposefully designed to make it difficult for special interests to get their legislation through a representative body charged with promoting the general welfare.

I’ve also written in the past how the 435 limit impacts the electoral college. ‘Small’ (low population) states must have a minimum of three electors, distorting the result from the original intent. For example Montana has ONE House member (instead of about 30) to make national headlines for attacking a reporter yet ALL one million+ Montanans must endure being represented by this one member from their state instead of his being an embarrassment to only one of Montana’s thirty (if Constitutionally correct) House districts. There’s plenty of incivility to go around and nothing new under the sun. Brutal beatings in Congress instead of allowing peaceful, voluntary exit as designed put us on a path of great death and destruction - I see little evidence to suggest we will not observe a similar result under our current hegemonic structure.

I don’t think the average citizen can see the problem any more than my poorly trained Congressman who wouldn’t be (esp. with reduced ability to gerrymander under the 30,000+ population constraint) my HoR member under a Constitutionally correct result living 75 miles away. He’s shown himself a very willing sycophant promoting more transfers to addicts if the money is right; it was effortless to support Pres. Trump after berating candidate Trump, as long as he gets a cut. Congressman Rogers has made it very clear he doesn’t care about interacting with his non-paying constituents. I find it reassuring when someone of his character and integrity thinks poorly of me for pointing out text of this sort he’s taken an oath to uphold. Don’t hold your breath expecting my Congressman to introduce legislation to abolish the 435 limit and restore representation toward the designed result - the Spirit of George Washington is not in this piece of carbon nor most of his fellow members. It is revealing Mr. Rogers WILL make the trip to Auburn to shill on behalf of Felon Hubbard before sentencing; don’t waste your breath asking him to attend a ‘town hall’ meeting. Some may remember how Hubbard reacted to a shooting scare on Goat Hill… it is clear he knew how much he was stealing from his actions in office - please pray for these lost souls who preyed upon us.

As a lowly citizen I publically request moving forward to a part-time, constitutionally correct Congress as promised where House members each represent just over 30,000 people with no more staff than a general secretary who serves several members at the same time. No big paychecks, nor separate retirements to avoid the SSA Ponzi scheme they’ve created, no skirting the government health insurance they mandate, etc. No doubt a 10,800 member HoR will have the extremists babbling. Feel free to join them as long as you don’t mind the results of the ‘fuzzy picture’ as James Hines would say. More importantly, this will make campaign money disappear as individuals and specific groups will not be willing to pay much to HoR candidates for wealth transfers in their favour, when each member’s vote will have such a small net impact.

Some are touting the $40 million in spending on the special election for the House seat in Georgia as the most in US history. Although I’d like to see it in inflation adjusted terms, it is still a third more than the next highest nominal dollar amount. We would not observe such great spending if the seat was 1/10,000th and it would be impossible to identify an individual [or small group of] House member(s) who would make a difference on the margin to be bought. I laugh at those calling this special election a ‘bell weather’ or will signal a major ‘sea-change’ if the Democrat wins… a change between the blue poison or red poison is of little solace to those trying to live well. One political pundit (among those who predicted the Clinton victory so well) said it is the canary in the coal mine… WOW, how many dead canaries does it take before you see all the dead workers around you? Please no nasty e-mails about our BCA Canary who is similarly blind but still breathing.

Would a HoR which adjusts to population in this fashion mean little would ‘get done’ in DC? YES!!! The few bills which make it through a 30,000 rule body for the Executive to consider would be truly representative of the people - again this is the worst nightmare of the extremists who’ve so long benefitted from the unrepresentative results. The median, productive citizen would be amazed at how much their lives (i.e., general welfare) would improve if the federal government moved forward to only do those few things enumerated really well and left the rest to more competitive State and local governments to accomplish.

In closing, I can think of no other city in history a greater failure living up to their namesake than Washington, DC. Ironically, the country he fought valiantly to break from has a much more representative government than our federal government with the capitol which bears his name. How ashamed Gen. Washington would be; I am ashamed on his behalf. If these shadows go unaltered, no doubt ‘Hodgkinson’s disease’ will continue to metastasize, Washington’s only request (to reduce the 40,000 to 1 down to 30,000) is the cure for this spreading cancer. Some of our corrupt politicians will find it difficult to survive ‘chemotherapy’ of the sort this wise general prescribed 230 years ago. When our now forced coalition of once sovereign States meets the usual fate of all command economies, it will be the failure to meet this sage request by George Washington I’ll find most haunting.

Postscript: Our Congressman Mo Brooks made the news as one enumerated on Hodgkinson’s list. Much like the brave few who stood against Felon Hubbard on Goat Hill, Congressman Brooks stood against ‘Trumpcare’ (to be vilified by the president and his fellow corporate welfare queens) as an effective advocate for liberty over the big govt. addicts on the left and right. Little wonder Brooks would be targeted by extremists and (unlike Speaker Hubbard) showed courage under actual fire. I was surprised Brooks threw in for the August 15th special election after the Republican Super-PAC to protect incumbent Senators (in what universe is a Senator installed by corrupt governor who made a resignation deal to avoid prosecution an incumbent?) credibly threatened anyone who ran against their “Big Money/Bunny” establishment ‘incumbent’ installed without an election. Taking on the powerful tyranny of Mitch McConnell and “Cash Register” Shelby shows political courage. It will be interesting to see how low turnout is for this summer date and even more interesting timing for Sen. Whatley's duopoly party legislation recently enacted.

This special election will be our first without "free"/open voting in primaries/run-offs. Some voters who may want to weigh in if Moore is in a likely run-off will be blocked. Will big govt. establishment (corporate welfare advocates) voters blocked in a Moore runoff help the ousted Chief Justice win the Senate seat over recently installed Sen. StrangeLuvGov? Not allowing taxpayers to vote in the primary/run-off of their choice is wrong... time for the duopoly parties to pay for their own (oft low turn-out) primaries and run-offs and have ALL candidates (regardless of party, independent, etc.) pay the marginal cost to be placed on general election ballots the State IS obliged to provide. Primaries have become more about fundraisers for our duopoly parties than communicating voter preferences. Lack of cross-over voting will shepherd Alabama to even more polarized results. Most folks a couple scores ago said they’d eat dirt and die before voting Republican, now say the same about voting Democrat. Instead of replacing the corrupt modern Democratic Party, Alabama let the known corrupt Republican Party back into our state to give us the usual/easily predicted result. The Republicans are now doing the same protection of the duopoly to become like many other backward, uncompetitive states. Last I checked, two more states gave up straight ticket voting (a smaller problem than our oppressive ballot access laws) for Alabama to now be one of only eight states [Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Michigan, South Carolina, Utah] still allowing this despicable practice. So, when Alabama voters get fed up with the corrupt Republican super-majority, they’ll bounce back to the equally corrupt modern Democrats and nothing will change except the monikers on the Dial to Shelby political types. There will be more symptomatic violence and vitriol as voting communicates little information with only two corrupt choices, but no politician will have the courage to address the disease of failed representation, lack of political competition and tyranny. The only noticeable difference will be which addicts/parasites receive their ‘fix’ at the moment; to hosts like myself it really doesn’t matter if I’m being sucked dry by a blue tick or a red tick.