What Does Ron Jeremy Have To Do With Ron Paul? Or... Politics And Porn Stars...
The day before yesterday, I left our house in my sister’s old Saturn- which Mum bought from her a few years back and which I now use as the good-gas-mileage go-kart it truly is for trips into town and trips into California- and I broke it badly.
I had already broken the seat- which is OK because now I just let it lay against the seat behind (it is a two door with two ridiculously small rear seats) making it now almost bearable for me to sit in- but otherwise I was taking pretty good care of it until I pulled out of the driveway without noticing that the “check water levels” light was on. I got about a thousand feet down the road, right along the lake, and I finally noticed that the light was on. I looked at my temperature gauge, and it suddenly started to spike quickly, so I turned it around and headed home. About six hundred feet from the house the temperature gauge pegged red. I thought to myself “Thank goodness I didn’t get further down the road”. At about a hundred feet from my house there was the predictable plume of steam coming out from under the hood and at ten feet from my gate, the valves started clacking and I smelled oil.
Crap.
Stupid me cracked the head.
For those of you who don’t know cars. THAT’S NOT GOOD.
I was supposed to have been on the road yesterday back to California to help my sister with some more stuff. I had to call her and tell her I broke the first car she ever bought new.
A 93 Saturn isn’t worth much, and the cost of repairing this (unless I do it myself) is about 1500 bucks. I decided to spend the money and rebuild the top end of this car, hope like hell the bottom ends is still tight, and use it like I have been using it, as a commuter-gas-sipper-go-kart.
I tell you this because of Ron Jeremy, the porn star, and Ron Paul, the Republican candidate for president of the United States.
Sometimes disparate and strange coincidences and occurrences collude to bring wisdom into one’s cranium.
Sometimes, a sentence is so good, someone should just write it down.
Sometimes disparate and strange coincidences and occurrences collude to bring wisdom into one’s cranium. 
Google that sentence and you’ll end up right back where you started from…
Now where was I?
Oh yeah… Ron Jeremy’s ginormous sausage penis, and Ron Paul, the man who spent years and years looking into vaginas, and thinking about politics.
Yeah. That’s where I was headed.
I had my Saturn towed to a local garage. There, I was reacquainted with Gary, the owner and lead mechanic, and as so often happens when two guys get together in the middle of a garage with the hood open on a car and staring at an engine, we started to shoot the shit.
We were both California transplants, and that led to California stories. We both had a love of dirt bikes, and that led to crash stories. Then Gary started telling me about meeting Ron Jeremy, the Porn Star, surrounded by a small harem of pretty girls, and I let him have the floor.
It seems Gary, the mechanic, had owned and operated a SMOG STATION in a small town in California near Sacramento. This meant that if he had beefs with the regulations that governed smogging vehicles and such, he could drive into Sacramento and have a direct word with the men and women who wrote these laws and regulations, and give them an ear-full.
And according to Gary, he did this often. He once walked into an office where he interrupted a State Senator tooting a line of coke… He drank with the State Senators at a local drinking hole and had their ear. When he was at the state capital one day, Ron Jeremy was there to protest the State’s new proposals to demand tax from prostitutes. Imagine that. Taxing an enterprise you have already ruled was illegal…
Gary told me he got pictures of himself taken with all of the girls. His wife nodded. She too, was proud of her husband’s political forays.
While my Saturn sat quiet and still with the hood up in his shop, dripping the last bit of oil it contained onto the cement floor, Gary- a stout and greasy-creased man- spoke to me in surprisingly articulate detail and friendly candor about his adventures in Sacramento. I learned all about the California Legislators while Wilson was the governor. I learned about Gray Davis as he stepped into office. Gary told me that after years and years of harassing the State government, they got tired of hearing from this guy who actually knew a thing or two about cars and smog and small businesses and all of that. They blackballed him from the local radio talk shows. Darkly painted vehicles with dark windows started cruising the parking lot of his shop in a small California town.
Gary got scared and moved to Oregon.
This didn’t seem like a man that got scared of much of anything.
Ron Jeremy stood in the Capital and protested the idea that prostitution was illegal and that it should pay taxes. I mean, the notion was ludicrous and irrational and… well… par for the governmental course.
Then it hit me like a Ron Jeremy salami across the face. Just then and there. Talking to Gary in that shop, imagining Ron Jeremy and his entourage of pretty hookers…
The government was an institution that told you what you could NOT DO, all the while, telling you what you had to pay, in order for it to tell you WHAT YOU COULD NOT DO.
You can’t be a prostitute, but give me a percentage of all the money you make being a prostitute.
Holy Moly!
Can it get any clearer than that?
I’ve always been a bit of a liberal. I’ve always believed that collectively, we can solve many problems that can’t be solved when we all act alone. I’ve always believed that the collective arrangements we make was what we call “government“.
If we gather our funds, we can have libraries and fire stations and police for our neighborhoods.
I’ve always thought this was a good thing.
“We The People”= Government.
We vote. We get representation. Government acts to deal with those issues that we can’t deal with as individuals.
Makes sense, right?
Watching the federal debates, and the federal government hopefuls in action made me realize something in conjunction with this conversation I had with Gary in his mechanics shop.
My problems are far too localized for anybody in the federal government to either care about or have any knowledge of. We look to these people to solve issues that they have no clue about. Not only that, we are FORCED to give them money to do this, as well. If we don’t give them 1/3 of our income, they send “agents” to our houses and our banks and maybe we have to go sit in a cell and think about how bad we were for denying them their ability to do for us like they aren’t even able…
A light bulb didn’t go off in my head. A bomb did.
As an American, I was under the thumb of people in a far-away land, and, as in the case of Bush and his imbeciles… not getting anything in return near what I was being forced- by threat of jail- to pay.
The Federal government had done nothing for me, and taken much away.
Lately, I’ve been rereading the Constitution. From there, I’ve been looking at what has become of the “liberty” that the Constitution promises us. I started thinking back to when I had just got back from over- seas, and I discovered that my Mum and her husband (who had just had a rough financial time caused by Richard losing his job and my Mum shattering her leg) were both under duress because the Internal Money Scamming Service said they owed money. Bank accounts were frozen. Nasty letters were sent that upset my Mum to no end. The issue was eventually resolved with much fanfare and trauma and stress and threats and nervous nights shaking and crying and hoping that it would all turn out ok.
At the time, I gave them some money as I earned it, and didn’t think too much about the process. Those people were the government. They had the power. They said so, so it was so…
I wrote about Margaret. A girl who worked seven days a week and died of a brain aneurism from stress, (I believe.) When I met her, the IR fucking S were garnishing her wages, because they said they found a mistake- she had over-claimed her expenses, or some such thing. It turns out, that they were wrong, after an attorney was purchased and a brief battle occurred. This didn’t stop her from her sleepless nights. This didn’t erase the stress they put her under.
My point is, government that was established by the people and for the people has now become something we all really don’t recognize. It isn’t for “us” anymore. It is a self-perpetuating monstrosity. We no longer grant the government the power to perform functions on our behalf. They assume that power. They demand it under threat and the power to ruin and/or incarcerate.
That is not “freedom”, people. That is not liberty.
Going back to Ron Jeremy, walking through the halls of Sacramento with his entourage of girls. At least he got to walk the halls. At least he had a fair chance of knowing who to talk to if he had a beef with what was being done in his name, for his own good, by others on his behalf. He could walk the halls and get his girls to flash a little flesh, and things could get resolved.
My mechanic Gary, the greasy mechanic from a small American town, could drive into the Capital and have a word with some of the people who made his business such a hard-to-run enterprise. He could open doors and catch his representatives snorting coke. He could rub elbows and more in the halls with porn stars. He could still place a greasy and well-scarred hand on the levers of power, albeit with some fear and trembling. But he could see a legislator and get a bill written, just by being persistent.
The closer to your own community government resides, the more an individual has the ability to participate in government.
This whole usurpation of our communities by the federal government has become an outrageous farce.
Watch the debates. Listen to the candidates. How could they know what your community’s problems are? That’s insane. Each candidate gives his or her best opinion on generic grievances, while real problems in real communities persist.
And they vary by community.
Ron Paul is not a great leader. He is an OK speaker. His ideas are simple and his heart is in the right place. He is the only candidate on the national stage that is NOT telling me what he is going to DO FOR ME. He is the one, telling me that he wants to remove the impediments of the federal government, get them out of my life and my finances and my mind, and allow my local community government to re-establish itself and flourish the way the Constitution had intended.
I am done watching the federal clowns acting on the federal stage. I want government to resemble me in some shape or form.
There is not a single candidate that can know what that means to me. Even Ron Paul can’t. But at least he wants to send the power back to an arena that can.
I am voting for Ron Paul as the Republican candidate for President. I will then vote for him in the general election, if he gets there.
No longer will I allow a federal government employee the power to tell me what to do locally.
Not after watching the Bush administration demonstrate just how inept that government can actually be.
Power to the people.
Right on...
19 comments:
"hope like hell the bottom ends is still tight"
Don't we all!
but a liberal voting republican? That would be like me voting Tory.
I've decided that it means so much less who I choose to vote for for president because of the 'removal factor'. I'm putting my money on my local government and teaching my kids that peace starts at home and forgetting about the stuff that's so big we can't control it. We can only hope that by doing right in our own patch of America the ripples will reach out to others and encourage them to do the same.
Sorry about the car. Hope your sister is still doing okay...
Dismantling what, exactly? Without Federal funding, many of the nonprofits and social service agencies that operate locally could not exist.
I'm just sayinig -- at some level, in some areas, you still need a strong Federal govt system. This system has just gotten disorganized and bloated after operating for so many years. Yes, it could use an overhaul, but how to you gain consensus on what that overhaul should be?
All best,
Dial Up Gal (some day I will watch him on YouTube so I see what you are actually talking about)
PS Thanks for the PSA about how quickly I need to pull over if my temp gauge starts to go up.
carol- It is amazing the preconceptions we derive simply out of habit.
The Republican policy "used to be" smaller central govrnment, ore power to the states, making Ron Paul a throwback from an older bygone era. During World War Two, there were about 200 people who worked for the White House. Now there are 20,000. Ron Paul is forced to run as a republican because of the two party system. He is a pariah in his own party, and openly laughed at during debates by contemptuous men who think they know better than the rest of us.
kario- imagine the levers available to you if your taxes went directly to your local government instead of making the long flight to Washington and then begged to return? You may actually know the man or woman you are giving your money to to fund your clinics and libraries and bridges etc...
amusing- You too have fallen for the big falsehood.
Federal funding only occurs because the federal government takes its share first. It then doles it out in a process in Washington you can watch on C-Span. If the taxes from businesses and individuals and cigarettes sold and gas sold etc... went to your local governments instead of off to Washngton, there would be more available for your pet non-profit projects, and a better understanding (since locals would be dispensing the money) of why your particular project had merit.
There would not be an end to financing of such organizations, there would just be more local input and oversight.
Why should the federal government require an Oregonian, after riffling through all of their personal finances and maintaining a thumb on their personal business, take money from my community by threat of jail and give it to some enterprise that wants to study inner city decay on the east coast?
How about having those who live in those cities decide whether that is what they want to do with their communal funds? Don't you think they might know better?
I certainly can't argue with what you say, Scott, but what Ron Paul proposes just isn't going to happen any time soon. Voting for him only throws your vote away. That's the sad truth. Just like those who voted for Ralph Nader helped put Bush into the White House. We can only try to sift through those from both major parties and hope that those chosen will listen to what we have to say about what we want this country to do. Whoever wins is going to have to clean up the budget mess, and then figure out what to do about the war in Iraq, all of which has been created by Bush, before they can even begin to address the way we want our government to work. All of us will have to become more involved and bombard our representives in the House and Senate to make them aware that we go along with much of what Ron Paul believes in, and we insist that change must begin with them. As an "older" American I have watched in horror as big money lobbyists have taken control and influenced where our tax money is spent. It's you and I who must step up to the plate and insist that it's our voices they have to listen to and we want an overhaul of our system.
As much as I believe in most of what Ron Paul is saying, I can't vote for him because I don't want to throw my vote away. I need to try to select the person from the front runners in both parties who will be the one most likely to listen to me and understand that change must occur. Ron Paul is speaking a lot of truth, but what he says he would do is nothing more than a wonderful fairy tale that most of us would like to believe, but it just couldn't happen under the present circumstances. Sad but true.
Snott you fat hog you broke mums car!
Hey Tom! I see you managed to pull your head out and look around...
Shirley- Nader ran as an independent. Paul is in the thick of the republican primaries.
Whether he wins or not,at least a strong message gets sent. I am betting his following is far larger than you imagine.
As for utopian ideas, I think we've all allowed mission creep in the federal government, and removing what they have usurped is not a fantasy, but a necessary thing, if liberty is imporant to you.
As I said, I really agree with what you are saying, Scott. I stand corrected on Nader vs Paul, by the way. The point I'm trying to make is that even if Ron Paul got elected as President, there is still no way he could do what he wants to do. That's the fairy tale part. That's because he still would have to deal with the current reality of congressmen and senators who would fight him tooth and nail. He would end up as a President who could accomplish nothing. What we have to do is to start chipping away at the root of the problems, namely the aforementioned congressmen and senators, and get them to pay attention to the values being verbalized by Ron Paul. That's the only way this big mess is going to get cleaned up. At least that's the way I see it.
Anyway, I love you Big Guy! Keep up the interesting and stimulating posts.
Now off to walk my new pup, Friday.
Well Shirley, if the American people elected Ron Paul because of what he stated he wanted to do, and then he was fought toothe and nail, in two years there is another election and those who fought him tooth and nail would have to campaign in their own districts and explain why they are fighting him tooth and nail. That is the intention and the beauty of this system, as I see it.
Ah, I couldn't agree more. When I had my own business in London, I frequently button-holed my local Member of Parliment for what I perceived as rough-shod laws that penalised small business owners. He was as slippery as an eel, and I may as well have been talking to the wall.
Where I live now, we have a population of 70,00, with our own government. I can't tell you have wonderfully accountable it is. When governments grow so large as in the UK, or especially in the US, individual people appear to have less and less sway over those who may make an enourmous impact over their lives.
So how would the Red Cross work then? And Big Brothers, Big Sisters? And the Environmental Defense Fund? I'm just asking. Cuz they are national orgs; how would local money work that way? Would Oregon send its local Red Cross funding to New Orleans in the case of an emergency, or claim it needed it at home in case hippie girls decided they needed razors?
And your friend the mechanic -- wasn't he schmoozing the local pols and getting to know them and having his voice heard? And didn't you say that he got run out of town? In fact, out of state, when the scary looking cars started driving by his place of business too often?
If the money all came to my locale, we'd be even more screwed than we already are. We have one of the slickest, most corrupt local governments around and a larger cash inflow would just encourage further corruption and insider dealing.
Taxing prostitution - that's priceless! They should tax the drug dealers too...
I don't have aq problem with National Organizations, amusing. After-all, I am not a Libertarian by nature or temperament.
The Red Cross is fueled mostly by donations outside of the federal government, as I understand it. If I do not donate to them, there is no federal crimes unit knocking on my door...
Big brother and Big Sister are the same.
To the extent that they require funds beyond donations, they would go to the state government in the area they need the funds, explain why they need them, etc...
The Environmental Defense Fund, I can't say, I don't know hardly anything about it (perhaps due to the fact that it has almost nothing to do with Oregon in its activities??)
As for my mechanic,he was challenging federal regulations at the time... so it is indeed hard to say who were laying on the heat... If it were the state guys, well then, at least he knew their names and knew something about them. Remember too, that that group got voted out and the next leader (governor) was yanked mid-term by unhappy voters, and is now a new group led by Arnold.
Which leads to the easy answer to your third objection. If your local government had more money and power over your own personal services, you would be more likely to keep a closer eye on them and Vote out the slick Willies and replace them with people you grew up with.
Heyya,
Thanks for visiting. Remove that story from your blog, pronto! Most zines count blogs as published. Crapometer should be ok since she doesn't list archives.
Good luck.
You are assuming local elections work honestly. That's a mistaken assumption.
Oh, god, don't make me go dig out my notes from my public policy class on nonprofit leadership and management.... blah blah blah, Federal monies count for some vast percent of funding blah blah blah .. .. I will, if forced. That or arm wrestle...
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