Tree Down and a Yard To Go...

  Mom and Dad sold the farm they had lived on for 54 years and moved to town about 7 years ago. Sort of. Their new place is sort of in town and sort of not. It's at the edge of town and it has about an acre of woods right in the middle of it, with a yard around the woods. You can tell where the yard ends and the woods starts because of where Dad stops mowing.

  Sometimes seeds fall out of the woods, and trees start growing in the yard, and Dad has to mow over them. And sometimes trees fall over in the woods and land in the yard:

                                                  
  When that happens, we go over with a chainsaw and cut up the tree and throw it back over in the woods where it belongs.It usually doesn't take up much yard when it happens, and I suppose we could just mow around the new trees, or mow around the old trees that fall over in the yard, but if we did, before too long the woods would take over and Mom and Dad wouldn't have any yard left. A woods is like that, you know.

  I feel the same way everytime the government comes up with some new law or regulation that crosses the line of what a government ought to do, which is protect its citizens from force and fraud. It's crossed that line so many times, and grown so large, that most people today can't name 3 things that our government doesn't tax or regulate.

  The good news is that we have an election coming up in a few weeks, and there are a lot of limited government Libertarians on the ballot that we can vote for to help re-establish that line that we have lost.

  And it doesn't even require a chainsaw.

  Yet.

Out of the cold....

  My old buddy, Stinky Wilmont, was fond of telling stories back when we were attending Millville Grade School. I remember one particular story he told one recess concerning his younger brother, Luther. No one had ever heard Luther speak, and since the Wilmonts didn't do a lot of doctoring, everybody just assumed that he was unable to do so.

  One morning, while the family was gathered around the breakfast table, Luther shocked them all when he blurted out, "The eggs are cold." When Mrs. Wilmont regained her composure, she asked the question the whole family was wondering. "Luther," she said, "you're almost 7 years old, and you've never spoken a word until now. Why is that?".  "Well",  he replied, "everything had been okay up until this morning."

  I suppose we all have different tolerance levels for different things, but I imagine most of us found something to complain about before we were 7 years old. Most of us have known someone who seems to complain about everything, and we've probably known a few people who seem capable of quietly taking about anything in stride.

  I think most of us fit in somewhere in between. We might complain about the cost of gasoline and groceries, but we seem to get over it and continue to buy both. Once in awhile we complain about our jobs, but we still go to work about every day. Believe it or not,  I've even heard some people complain about their spouses from time to time.

  A lot of people complain about the weather, but as Charles Dudley Warner pointed out long ago, "nobody ever does anything about it."

  A lot of people also complain about the government. Being a Libertarian, and therefore favoring a limited government, I probably complain about it more than the average person, although I do believe we're hearing more complaints from the rank and file of the other two parties of late.  Just about everybody thinks the government is doing too much of something at some level, and the bigger government gets, and the more it tries to do, the more likely it is that more people will find something to complain about. But, like the weather, most people don't really do anything about it.

   About 90% of voters vote the same way every election, with about half of them voting for the Republicans, and the other half voting for the Democrats. That leaves it up to the other 10%, along with the occasionally excitable occasional voters, to decide on the outcome of the elections.

  I have been encouraged lately, however,  by a few opinion polls. It seems that only about 10% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Republicans and Democrats in Congress. (That puts them just a couple of approval points ahead of Charles Manson.) A Gallup Poll in USA Today recently reported that both the GOP and the Democratic Presidential candidates are held in lower esteem than they were 4 years ago. The favorable rating  for each has slipped to around the 50% neighborhood. 

  If you are one of the growing number of people who are unhappy with our federal government's spending and interference in your life, and if you understand that voting for one of the old parties is pretty much just a silent nod of approval, and you really want to do something about it, this might be an excellent year to speak up by voting for another party.

  Naturally, I'm hoping you will choose to speak up by voting for the Libertarians.

  We've been complaining that the eggs have been cold for years.