...WHO WRITES THE NATION'S LAWS

I’m told that humorist S.J. Perelman often gleaned his topics from articles or ads he’d read, taking off on the subject. One of his essays begins: "I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws.”

I’ll never be able to equal that inimitable style, but Perelman’s opening prompts me to do a piece of my own. Which part of that sentence do you suppose struck the note? Yep!: “I care not who writes the nation’s laws.”  Not to sound unpatriotic – I am a flag waver of the first order – but I really do “care not”. 

I’m sitting out here in retirement land viewing things from a seven decade perspective, and one thing I’ve learned is that elections and the hoopla leading up to them are strictly for the political enthusiasts among us. And as for our outdated system of primaries, caucuses, and conventions, I’d rather not start on that vast topic. My head is not stuck up there where the sun don’t shine: I do vote in the primaries, I do vote on election day, and I do take a modicum of interest in the passing political scene. It’s the intense media manipulation and speculation that jars me. One would think that some of these pundits had crystal balls as integral parts of their nether anatomy. 

I realize that the Presidency is “a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it”, and there have been smarter and wiser folks than I who have wondered why there is such a fierce and sometimes dirty competition to get to the White House next. The job is thankless, perilous, and relatively low paying.  And while we’re describing the job, let’s also add powerless.  All the pre-election promises mean nothing more than maybes – maybe the candidate, if elected, will be able to get his pet programs off and running.  Chances are slim because the power a President holds, with the exception, perhaps, of getting us into wars we’d be better off avoiding, is often no more than the celebrity power to awe.  Legislative proposals, vetoes, approvals: few of them are truly monumental or irreversible.

Chinese civilization is so old that they’ve been there, done that, and have a saying to prove it. “The heavens are high and the Emperor is far away.” I care not who writes the nations laws – or who is President – because it is all far away. It comes closer every four years and, love it or hate it, I’m made to think more about it. But what goes on in the ant hill that is Washington D.C., or any in any other legislative center, is truly far away and out of mind, and, happily unaware of all that, my own life goes on.