PrintOctober 19, 2007
Congress needs an intervention
What in the name of heaven is going on in our Congress? As I sit down here in Georgia, every now and then taking a C-SPAN glimpse at the United States Congress in action, I have to remind myself that I’m indeed watching live, the procedures of the most prestigious law-making body in the history of civilization and not one of my grandmother’s renowned, fake hissy-fits. Or indeed one of my own.
For those of you who might not be familiar with the female hissy-fit, I will attempt to define it. As a Southern female, descended from a long line of Southern belles and femmes fatales, I was myself perfectly schooled in this necessary tactic in the War Between the Sexes. It’s deceitful; it’s underhanded. It’s definitely a below-the-belt kind of weapon. But, as it was explained to me early in life, it was a most necessary ploy in a world where the male enemy held a significant power advantage in terms of authority and money. It was therefore perfectly acceptable.
It works like this: any time you are not getting your way by using facts and legitimate, reasoned argument, you must overwhelm your male opponent with unassailable emotional turmoil, i.e. a hissy-fit. In other words, take the argument to a level that your male adversary does not comprehend: pure emotion, unencumbered by rational thought. By purposely becoming irrational, and accusing your opponent of being “vicious,” “mean,” “unreasonable,” “vile,” “cruel,” “a bully,” et cetera, et cetera into lingual infinity, you effectively disarm your utterly reasonable opponent and ride the emotional wave of perfected guile to victory. In other words, you get your own way in the matter.
This is precisely the tactic being employed now on a regular basis in our United States Congress. Much to my dismay, many of the current Congressional Hissy-Fits are being thrown by men. Whenever a new or expanded entitlement program is proposed, or there is a debate about the War, or a new grievance or “hate crime” comes about, we witness a nationally televised, media-hyped, Democratic Party-endorsed hissy-fit.
Reason and rational thought are thereby derailed, and emotional deceit again carries the day -- or at least serves to get a vast number of the populace held firmer in the grip of emotional blackmail. So, even if the hissy-fit doesn’t work to override the President’s veto on the expansion of the SCHIP program today, it still serves to increase the emotional capital stored up in American hearts for the next inevitable battle.
Some Democrats may imagine that one of their heroes, Saul Alinsky, was the originator of this revolutionary tactic. He does describe it reasonably well in his socialist-revolution handbook, Rules for Radicals.
Here it is, right on page 127:
Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.
This is precisely what wily females have known practically since time began. By taking an argument to the purely emotional realm, we understand that we are going “outside the experience” of males, who nearly always, temper emotion with dispassionate reason. The actual originator of this tactic, as Alinsky himself notes on the very first page, is the Deceiver-in-Chief: Lucifer. The first Radical. The first ends-justify-the-means Revolutionary. And the first Hissy-Fit Thrower.
In the context of Congress, the “enemy” is any member who does not agree with you. In the current battle over SCHIP expansion, with Nancy Pelosi in charge, the enemies are specifically those of the opposition Party and the President of the United States, who has risen above the Hissy-fit tactic, and steadfastly refused to become confused and fearful. He has stood his ground on reason, and vetoed the Bill. He has not retreated. Good for him.
Perhaps he recognizes the tactic from former confrontations with his perfectly charming, Southern-bred wife, Laura. How he learned to recognize the age-old Luciferian trick is beside the point. He sets a good example for the rest of us in refusing to throw reason upon the false altar of emotional deceit. Gullibility has never been, nor should it ever be, an admirable trait.
When the leaders of Congress wish to propose a socialist encroachment upon another segment of the private economy, it would serve them well to abandon the tactics of emotionalism and deceit. If they are the stalwart proponents of the free-will, free-thought democracy that they incessantly claim to be, then there should never be just cause for the kind of emotional trickery demonstrated by a parade of the victims of American “injustice.” A straightforward argument based upon sound reason is what a free people should demand from her leaders. In every instance.
So please, dear Congress, drop the Hissy-Fit charade, and get back to business. Every minute you waste with your infernal, female antics is costing us – the taxpayers – a bundle of our hard-earned dollars.
