The talk shows are full of it.  Television lives on it.  Newspapers feature it.  Bumper stickers proclaim it.  Neighbors argue about it.  And candidates spew it—incessantly and voluminously.  Look out!  It’s alive!  Run for it! 

The nasty is here.

The lazy days of summer gave way not to leaf-watching and fall football, but instead to another of those gawdawful, interminable, mud-slinging, truth-trampling, intelligence-insulting marathons we call campaign season.  Whereas autumns are fondly remembered for their brilliant displays of foliage colors, crisp nights, and cool rains, campaign seasons are anticipated with loathing, endured with cynicism, and notable only for the increasing intensity of nastiness embraced by dueling campaigns.

No sane person can stand it.  Liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, seasoned citizens and Generation Xers alike, we’re all disgusted.  Most of us still haven’t recovered from 2004—MoveOn.org vs. SwiftBoat Vets; Bush-haters and Kerry-bashers—and they’re already lining up to duke it out in ‘08.  Last time we even went into extra innings in an unprecedented and unparalleled transformation of our democracy into some kind of perverse street brawl.  Is anybody not cringing?

What has happened to our genteel society, our respectful disagreements, and our traditional encouragement of diverse opinions? 

The goal of our Founding Fathers was “to secure our blessings for ourselves and our posterity” so they created a Constitution that established America as a nation which would be governed by the “rule of law” and not the rule of men, providing a lasting security for our rights and liberty not subject to the vagaries and avarice of individual personalities.

However, the Constitution has gradually been interpreted in such an expansive and imaginative way that there are no restraints on what our elected representatives may do.  It has been transformed into a historical whimsy.

Accordingly, there is an ever-increasing percentage of the population who seek—and expect—benefits from the government in the form of such things as tax breaks, contracts, competitive protection, subsidies, retirement income, healthcare, job training, housing, cash, and all manner of other goodies. 

As a result we have fostered highly-divisive conflicts among us:  Class wars, racial wars, gender wars, culture wars, and generational wars.  We now resemble a very unsophisticated democracy:  Two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for lunch. 

Instead of the envisioned nobility of a representational republic we are today ruled by executive order, public opinion polls, focus groups, and special interests.  With the power completely in the hands of elected officials, and no controls on how that power is used, elections become prizes of unimaginable magnitude for each side.  Hence, the terrible campaign battles we now must endure to see who gets the prize. 

The voting record of our populace is schizophrenic as it careens from one extreme to the other in search of the most satisfying benefactors.  As a result, the economy bounces up and down as businesses and investors are unable to rely on a stable set of rules.  We cannot let society be at the anarchistic mercy of every individual, but unbridled majority rule is incapable of safeguarding the rights of the minority.  The proper balance can only be found in a strict interpretation of the Constitution. 

Peace and prosperity are best achieved through personal liberty and the voluntary associations and interchange that we call the free market and civil society.  We need a government, therefore, that will provide a secure environment for our individual “pursuit of happiness” and safeguard the integrity of the marketplace.  Beyond that citizens must resume taking responsibility for their own lives and be accountable for their own actions.  When they do, our elected representatives need only be good caretakers of the contract.  Personalities become less relevant; elections become less important. 

The wolves are in a frenzy, and as long as they have the power to impose their will on the sheep, the sheep is destined for a messy end.