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Let me say up front that I enjoy living in Iowa. My family and I moved to the state in 1985 and to our present community in 1987. It has been a nice place to live, to raise a family and to have a business. Not being from here originally, I can accept the fact that it is not paradise. Biblically speaking, paradise has a very specific meaning and (as far as I can tell) it does not include large scale hog confinement facilities let alone rendering plants...but I digress. I enjoy living in Iowa.
But...you just knew there was a “but” coming. Every four years we enter “presidential primary season” and you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a politician, pollster or pundit. (Go ahead and say it...”Politicians, pollsters and pundits, oh my!”).
The mania starts in the summer approximately 15 months before the election as we get ready for the Ames Straw Poll and it ends with the Iowa Caucus (aka the “Hawkeye Caucaii”). ..oops I meant to say the “first in the nation Iowa Caucus”. We are pretty proud of being first in the nation and I want to make sure that you all know that we are first in the nation.
The straw poll, as far as I can tell, is mostly effective in telling us who we can pretty much ignore. I must admit that I haven’t taken direction from the straw poll results on this point – haven’t needed to. Over the years I have pretty much ignored them all. But I suppose that having a straw poll helps in this way.
The caucus is another matter of course. In the months leading up to the caucus, we expect to be able to meet and greet the candidates face to face. It is retail politics in full display. In one sense, you have to feel a bit sorry for the candidates. They may make an early morning stop in a small cafe to shake hands and be greeted by a guy in overalls and a seed-cap who wants to discuss farm price subsidies (and do so intelligently I might add). The candidate then turns to another table to find a nice grandmother who is totally up to speed on foreign affairs and especially on the mid-east. All before breakfast! That continues all day.
Finally the night of the caucus arrives. It’s not like voting in a primary which may take a few minutes out of your day. The caucuses are an evening event held usually when it is about 30 degrees below 0 and snowing. This keeps the less than committed (me) from showing up. You can expect to be there for hours, deciding on rules, listening to your neighbors extol the virtues of the favorite candidate, enjoying home-made baked goods, etc. Then, when your candidate has almost no support you get to be lured by the supporters of other candidates to join with them.
We’re just getting started on all of this right now. In the last 24 hours I have had phone calls from 4 candidates (thankfully I have caller ID). About every 10 minutes or so there will be a stream of ads on radio or tv. My plan is to sit it out again this year. Oh, I will vote, but the straw poll, the caucus, meeting the candidates...I am going to pass on all that. Several months from now it will all be over and I will still be enjoying living in Iowa.
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Mike and Lisa
I am working on a series of essays, poems, and brief stories, titled The Conservative poet. This piece is the next piece that is after the poem.
Blessings
Government is and always has been How man deals with man, and how he is directed to deal with man. The many and varied forms are simply ways in which man evoked his will over another through force, ideal, race, or creed. The trash heap of history attest to these failures. Where man’s self-determination, is allowed to bloom, the most fruitful society emerges. If we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, certainly the first response to these rights, is the recognition of our Creator, and not as is the case with some, who demand these rights without the recognition of the Creator. Further, they do their best to restrict those who would recognize such. Your accord with how you choose to recognize your Creator, is your individual right. It should never be a demand of civil authority, no should there be an impediment to such liberties. While the old world, the flat world was discovering the first truths, of the round world, it was in the new world where Jefferson’s brief phrase, ……”That all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”………… was laying the groundwork, for the first truth of civil society. In the old world freedom’s were conditional grants, in the new world they are irrevocable rights. In the old world very few ever changed the station to which they were born, in the new world there is only one station. Every man counts for one, and no man counts for more than one.
DRAW NEAR, LISTEN CLEAR
"Draw near, listen clear,"
Says the man man to he.
"No," says the candidate, "It is you who should listen to me."
"Draw near, listen clear," again the man spoke to he.
"Before you can build a platfromr on which to gloat,
There are some matters whcich must be made elf-evidently clear."
"But I represent the parties, the platform is in your best interest,
These are the best policies yet!"
"Hold your tongue," says the man.
"Let me tell you, who I am"
I am, WE, the people you are hoping to govern someday,
So draw near, listen clear,
You govern by consent, not by constraint.
You are bound by Constitution, and Declaration, and if you will not be bound
By your sacred honor, we have no need of YOUR political dreams.
You govern, by humility, never subjecting WE.
For you are our servants, and WE are not thee's
You would do good to understand our history of self-determination,
Not State internvention.
You are but a trustee, of the endowment our Creator sa seen fit to bestow
'THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL"
That government's great duty is this;
No man is beter served, and no man is poorer placed.
Draw near, listen clear
a poem by Mike Prahm from the Conservative Poet