Re: The LAST of many things.
From: VAPROTO@aol.com
Re: <<
So. This is the ONLY Bicentennial Celebration………ever. This is the LAST BALL———-ever.
Is this the last Confederate program inside the historic building where Jefferson Davis took the oath? Most likely.>>>
Chuck,
I must have missed it! When did the State Finance Director of Alabama become King? Gee, I would like to have seen that! Even if he’s only King of Alabama, it must have been quite a coup taking over everything from the People and their duly elected representatives and running things according to his own personal light!
You know, these "pronouncements" from the lips of folks who probably would have trouble holding a job in the real world outside government really frost me. As my mother used to say, "Who died and left you King?!" And why do decent, law abiding, gentlefolk like Ms. Williams simply accept this bumbling bureaucrat’s decrees as if they emanated from Mt. Sinai? Has the State Capitol become the private property of the State Finance Director? Does he own it – or is it "owned" by the People of Alabama to be used according to their determinations?
We have all, alas, become like sheep accepting dumb decrees and pompous pronouncements from people who have no right to make them but who realize full well that ordinary citizens will probably accept them without question because they have done so for so long. Isn’t it time that we stopped accepting and started questioning?! Our governments – local, state and federal – no longer represent We the People. Rather, we are given slates of candidates chosen in back rooms by party hacks most of whom represent the agendas of special interest groups. The will of the People is ignored and even countermanded when the interests of these groups are in opposition to that will – and still we continue to act as if some sort of legitimacy is conferred upon a politician upon taking the "oath of office". No, "taking the oath" doesn’t confer legitimacy. Living up to that oath does. If a representative in good conscience believes that the will of the people who elected him is not served by a particular course of action, that is a perfectly legitimate viewpoint. However, that representative must be prepared to defend his or her actions at the next election cycle or be turned out. What we have today are folks who promise the moon to get elected and then once in office – or, worse, appointed to some cushy bureaucratic position – begin making the sort of "pronouncements" we see here.
If the People of Alabama have the guts and the will, there is no reason why this is going to be the last year that the State Capitol hosts an affair honoring their heritage in general and Jefferson Davis in particular. But it is up to the citizens of Alabama to rise up and take back their government from the likes of the present State Finance Director and his tyrannous ilk.
Valerie Protopapas
Huntington Station, New York
