Cooper City – Common Crooks & Petty Tyrants by Larry Warrick
Common Crooks and Petty Tyrants
At the Cooper City Commission meeting last Tuesday night, Mayor Debbie Eisinger, in a vivid display of petty tyranny, threatened to have an elderly resident forcibly removed from the (public) meeting place for daring to oppose a proposal to raise the City millage rate. This is not the first time the Mayor has tried to stifle dissent by threatening the use of brute force, an authority she does not wield by personal fiat.
Corruption and petty tyranny are not limited to the ‘Someplace Special’ town of Cooper City. Broward County’s corruption epidemic makes a regular appearance in the local press and occasionally on the TV and radio news. When it’s especially egregious, like this story, where past and present chairmen of the Florida Ethics Committee see nothing wrong in ‘bending’ the rules (or changing them altogether) in their rush to cash in on the financial bonanza that is political power in South Florida, some wonder “who’s guarding the guards?”
From local, to State, and to federal government, the corruption of power extends its heady wine into every nook and cranny of our daily lives. This is not a systemic issue. The system of government our founders gave us includes many checks and balances of both power and its practical projection; some intrinsic and natural, such as the bicameral legislature, where the voices of the people (House) and the collective States (Senate) must agree for legislation to pass. Others are explicit and declaratory, as in the Bill of rights, a list of ‘thou shalt nots’ for government; and if there is any doubt, look to the 9th and 10th amendments for clarification.
No, the issue is in the personal qualities of those we elect to carry the ‘sacred trust’ in government of, by and for the people. Criminals will continue to break the law, even if the legislature makes it even more illegal to break it. The only commandment a crook will ever understand is the unwritten but implied commandment not to get caught. As long as voting Americans continue to reward corruption and criminality with continued public office and expanded powers to further plunder, such seats of power will attract and retain the worst and most unsavory kinds. The issue is also in us, for our failure to hold these lower forms of life accountable for their crimes against us. For not ‘guarding the guards’, who see our laws as more like ‘guidelines’.
Read more of the Examiner article here: http://www.examiner.com/x-53966-MiamiDade-County-Libertarian-Examiner~y2010m8d2-Common-crooks-and-petty-tyrants
For all of Larry Warrick’s articles on Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/x-53966-MiamiDade-County-Libertarian-Examiner
Larry’s older blog can be found here: http://www.nolanchart.com/author87.html