white with foam

Over the years, I’ve become a law-and-order kind of guy. Well, order, anyway. The rules we live by are not as strong as their enforcement; they’re as strong as the degree to which we tolerate their intent. That’s why I look sideways at terrorists, my former neighbor who refused to leash his dog, and our state’s Attorney General. They share a common arrogance, an assumption that their needs supercede all others, and behave accordingly. McKenna may well say that the individual mandate provision represents an unjust burden on you and me (and absent any public option, I tend to agree with him). How convenient that striking it down would also please his insurance-company pals. I suspect he wouldn’t bray the tenth amendment quite so loudly if Washington were to join the chorus of states claiming their governors have the right to recall National Guard troops from overseas deployments.

It’s a pattern of “working” the law in the sense you work a ref. The common wealth has taken quite a beating from people who claim to speak on behalf of the commonwealth. Their increasingly manic stance conflates patching the safety net with some kind of mandatory enforcement, targeted at your grandmother and policed by brownshirts. Victims’ rights! Think of the children! The lexical word here, the one by which the whole fiction lives or dies, is mandatory. You don’t have to kneel before any god but your favorite. You don’t have to get your generic equivalents at the Bernie Sanders Free Clinic and Daycare. You don’t even have to put your damn dog on a leash.* More to the point, though, you don’t need to take a flop over every single objection. The refs get weary of that.

Now, before you go and point my own gun at me, let me save you the trouble. This week, I’ve been trying to put political issues into terms my dog can understand. The species may have a strong pack bond, but the world of dogs also retains a bright individualist streak: vide the beagle. Similarly, teh terrierz has they own subset of canine specialties that value, say, vigilance over obedience. So this somewhat random mental exercise consists of trying to distill terrier wisdom and try to get Chauncey’s opinions on the major stories. Of course, she simply lives by these precepts (and others), and leaves it to the humans to abstract them.

This is the very engine of her bullshit detector. I find her wisdom as useful as but more direct than the I Ching, which I have not often consulted regarding House legislation. Apply as directed.

1. Stay alert and be patient.
2. Eat with gusto. Pork fat or raw carrot, it’s still food.
3. Run whenever possible. Jump, and throw your whole self into it. Sleep, and throw your whole self into it.
4. Make your boundaries clear. There are different levels of ‘no.’
5. Go along for the ride.
6. Dig a little. The best stuff is rarely on the surface.
7. Stay in the moment, and don’t get ahead of yourself.
8. The warmest spot is between two people.
9. Dispense with your enemies with a firm roughing-up and a toss over the shoulder.
10. Eye contact is key to good communication.
11. Have no shame. You are what you is.
12. Get excited for what you’ve done a thousand times.

* My occasional co-blogger David Virden and I stand on opposite sides of the leashed/unleashed divide. Just to show you how fair and balanced we are here at WWF.

Tags:   health care · leash law · Rob McKenna1 Comment