Here in America, we seem to have forgotten one simple fact: our elected officials work for us, not the other way around. They answer to us. They deserve no special privileges or indulgences, and they are just as accountable to the law (if not more so) as any of us.
Come on, why do I even have to remind people of this? Do they even teach government in the schools anymore?
Case in point: Cynthia McKinney’s recent assault on a Capitol Hill police officer. Let’s make sure we have the facts straight here, shall we? She walked around the metal detector at the entrance of a Federal building, failed to display credentials, and when an officer told her three times to stop, she refused. When he grabbed her arm, she responded by striking him.
It’s unknown whether she’ll be arrested or charged yet. Rather than show contrition or admit she was wrong, she tried to claim that she was important enough that she didn’t have to go through the checkpoints like the little people. When that failed, she did what she did best: she got shrill and started race-baiting.
Almost immediately, the phrase “racial profiling” crawled out of her mouth, and it was downhill from there. She told the Atlanta Journal that, “The whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me-a female, black congresswoman.”
This is typical of McKinney, an 11-term representative of Atlanta’s 4th disctrict. In case you’re not familiar with it, the 4th district covers the northeast side (Avondale, Decatur), which has more bail-bond buildings than churches and hosts more slums than the rest of the city combined. I have worked in the area, and in a three-month period, I was witness to one shooting and within a block of two others when they happened. Get the idea?
McKinney has stayed in office by telling people what they want to hear: your life sucks because the white man’s trying to keep you down. Forget individual responsibility; blame someone else and claim you’re entitled to some sort of compensation. It goes without saying that she was one of the most ardent supporters of modern-day reparations when the issue came up in 2001.
McKinney has spent taxpayer money and time to investigate the “conspiracy” behind Tupac Shakur’s death (she claims he’s a role-model to kids. Really.) and she’s used Congressional money to fly celebrities like Isaac Hayes and Danny Glover to her press events.
Of course, Ms. McKinney’s more than happy to practice what she preaches. Read her statements following the incident on Wednesday, and notice that she never refers to herself as a woman, but as a black woman, and that she always refers to the officer (who was just doing his job) as a white officer. She claims that the officer failed to recognize her because she had changed her hairstyle, and asked, “do I have to contact the police every time I change my hairstyle? How do we account for the fact that when I wore my braids every day for 11 years, I still faced this problem, primarily from certain white police officers?”
She fails to mention that this is certainly not the way I’d expect a person who passes laws to present themselves:
Of course, if this had been me, I’d be sitting in a holding-cell right now. That is, if I hadn’t taken a bullet in the back first. Oh, and Ms. McKinney, I’m white. Just like those horrible police officers who persecute you mercilessly because you can’t be troubled to follow the law.
This is what the Left is teaching us: our elected officials are infallible people who can’t be troubled with the laws designed to keep us little people (previously called citizens) in line. Should one of them assault an officer, drive their car off a bridge and kill someone, or simply accept sexual favors from a subordinate in the Oval Office, they don’t have to be held accountable, because they’re better than us.
…and when that doesn’t work, scream racism.
In a just society, Ms. McKinney would be arrested and charged with felony assault and removed from public office. Sad that it just doesn’t seem to work that way any more. This is the slow slide into statism. Sooner or later, people like McKinney will be the ones who decide that maybe we’re not smart enough or good enough to manage our own destinies (something the Left has been pushing for awhile now), and that maybe certain Constitutional liberties aren’t really all that essential after all.
If we’re willing to let set the goverment above the people, this country is finished. They will convince a large part of the public to accept “security” and comfort in exchange for “outmoded” civil rights, and by the time anyone realizes it, the people will no longer have the authority or means to change it.
2 thoughts on “Cynthia McKinney and all that’s wrong with us.”
hey there.
I discovered your blog while reading up on the Rio karma, and was fascinated by all this stuff. Although I personally fall somewhat the the left, I agree with a lot of what you have to say and respect all of it. But let me just take issue with that one little accusation: “This is what the left is teaching us.”
Please don’t polarize things like that. You and I both know it isn’t nearly that simple. This issue here is not that the left or right alone is pushing a crazy agenda and using underhanded methods to do so, but that they both are and furthermore that this country is largely populated by idiots who allow themselves to be manipulated.
Both the left and the right in this country attempt travesties like this all the time. The only real difference is that, at the moment, the right seems to be better at pulling it off.
I, as a member of the political left, agree with you that this woman, and this whole situation, are ridiculous. Don’t try to pin it on me, just as I wouldn’t try to pin Tom DeLay on you.
Agreed. I’m not a member of either party. I despise the Right just as much for their tacit approval of the Patriot Act and their attempts to force the narrow-minded views of the “Christian Right” into law.
Most people fail to realize that there are other parties out there, and that both the Republicans and Democrats seem to have forgotten the Constitution.
In the media, the “left” means Democrats and the “right” means Republicans, which is where the general perception of polarization is fostered. It’s easy to break things into black/white that way when they only have 30 seconds to make a point, I guess.
Thing is, neither party really represents anything but a canned platform of self-serving issues. The Democrats claim to serve the idealism of the Left, but underneath, it’s all self-serving and empty rhetoric.
It’s hard to fault idealism (which is itself admirable), but it must be tempered with an eye on practicality, and we must be very wary when people of privilege and power claim to be acting on it.