The degree to which some folk are capable of fooling themselves is simply stunning. In my field studies, as a natural born anthropologist, in our area, I’ve come to identify the politically self-deluded as “Kearbearians.” It’s the local flavor of what’s nationally known as Tea Party folk. To listen to the Kearbears of our town gripe about the president’s unwillingness to compromise really makes you wonder where they’ve been since 2010 when the Republican Party (who anthropologically I refer to, anymore, as Reckpublic-cons) took control of the House of Representatives. Since then, House Speaker John Boehner has brought the legislative process to a grinding halt by continually employing the Denny Hastert Rule where he only brings to the floor of the House bills and resolutions he’s assured of how the majority of the majority House members (his Republicans) will vote.

This totalitarian Republican Party way of lawmaking first came into prominence back in 1996 under House Speaker Denny Hastert when the Republican Party, finally, gained control of the House after more than 40 years in the political wilderness. Today, in retrospect, it’s becoming ever more clearly abundant why they were relegated there.

Because of Speaker Boehner’s strict adherence to Denny Hastert’s man-handling way of doing things, lest the House Tea Party clique take his precious Speaker’s gavel from him, right from the very beginning of this legislative year, the Continuing Resolution to Fund the Government was never allowed by him to be hashed out in the House Appropriations Committee, where it should have been, and later to have been further hashed out on the House floor. That would have allowed for full debate and compromise and political horse trading to have taken place. 

Instead, after being trounced in the general election last fall, it was strategized by the Republican House leadership, in cahoots with the Koch Brothers to strong-arm their way into getting what they want, the repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act, by taking hostage the economic welfare of the country. Now that they’ve taken hostage operations of the government at a cost to us of more than $200 million a day these Kearbearians or Tea Party types have the audacity to argue they’ve done it for the sake of the national deficit and the unemployment situation. To think, the government shutdown is conjectured by some economist to shrink the gross domestic product by some 2 percent next month. Apparently language and numbers have no meaning to these Kearbearian-type folk. But on top of this havoc, the Kearbearians of the House are still hell-bent on taking the country into default by not increasing the debt ceiling if they can’t get what they want. By any measure, this is terrorism as impure and evil and warping as it gets.

Kearbearians of our community, isn’t it the policy of the nation, going back to Ronald Reagan’s day, we don’t negotiate with terrorists?

Anyway, I can only hope and pray House Speaker John Boehner relents and allows debate over these issues to take place on the House floor before it’s too late. Turn the key, Speaker Boehner, to turn the engine of democracy back on. 

Tim O’Leary