Behind the Mike

I once ran for the House of Representatives in 1980 when I lived in South Carolina and the voters made a decided choice for my opponent.  With that as a backdrop, I was thinking “What if?”

What if Congress never had tenure and they never had a fat pension waiting on them despite the length of service?  Would the politicians be lining up to line their pockets?

What if you told Congress that unless they ended the deficit, all of their benefits would end?  What if Congress didn’t get a paycheck until the budget was balanced?   What if you simply said to them if you don’t fix the deficit you can’t run for any elective office?

What if Congress was required to participate in Social Security and all the money sitting in the Congressional retirement fund were moved to the social security system immediately?  Couldn’t we begin to address the Social Security shortfall?  And what if you prevented Social Security from being used for anything other that Social Security?

What if Congress had to fund their own retirement plan like the rest of Americans?

What if Congress could not vote themselves a pay raise without voter approval?

What if all the perks that Congress is awarded each year were taxable as income to the sitting Congressmen?

What if you ditched Congress’ current health care system and required them to pay for and secure health care the same way the rest of Americans do?  What if they had to pay the same high deductibles and go through the same miserable process of qualifying for care that the rest of Americans do?

What if you made service in Congress the honor that it should be instead of the plumb it has become with benefits that transcend every honorable contract that the rest of us Americans live by?

What if all the freebies that come with being elected to Congress are suddenly taxable as income and are limited?

What if Congress had to actually live by the same laws they have passed for the rest of us and the same penalties that breaking those laws calls for?

What if Congress had just one shot at getting it right, only one term and only one opportunity to fix the problems?  Would they take their task more seriously?

What if the same laws that apply to Americans for theft applied to Congress as they stole from Peter to pay Paul?

What if the American people had to vote on and approve any new governmental body before its creation?

What if each Congressional district was filled in much the same way as a jury pool?  Each candidate would go through a training process and a proper “voir dire” to determine their qualifications?  You could actually have a nice pool of candidates from every Congressional district that could go forth and serve for one term at a time.   If jury selection is good enough to determine whether a person charged with a crime can live or die, wouldn’t it also be just as fair to let these folks determine cost of living increases and other issues?

What if Congressional members were required to serve for two years in the military of some equivalent position before qualifying to enter into the political pool?

What if Congress was required to start at bottom and work its way up to qualify to run for office, forcing members to know what it’s like to hold a minimum wage job and feed a family?

What if you eliminated the costs associated with re-election by eliminating re-election altogether and used those savings to address the government deficit?

What if all contracts with all vendors that do business with the government were suddenly voided and new contracts had to be renegotiated based on zero-based budgeting, i.e. they have to pay for themselves?

What if you had to go through a licensing process to earn the privilege of offering for a position in Congress?  Why is it tougher in some states to get a drivers license than it is to offer to run the country?

I guess this is why I was never elected to a political office.

The time has come for us to transition to a paid jury system.  I was recently called to serve as a juror in Osceola County, Florida, one of many invitations I have received over the years.

I’m now convinced, more than ever, that it’s time for us to have a pool of well-trained, paid jurors to serve. As the voir dire process unfolded, I was further convinced that the time has finally come to address this issue.

I’m not sure exactly how many people were called to the jury pool that particular day, but I was juror number 243 and I heard them call numbers into the 300’s so I have to assume several hundred people gave up that day or maybe several days for this duty.  Imagine the cost to employers and employees to give up time for this process.   In that room alone, it would have easily have been tens of thousands of dollars or more.

I get it.  The constitution calls for us to be tried by a jury of our peers. I don’t disagree with the constitution, but the thirty or so folks that gathered in the courtroom for a drug case for which we were called were not exactly a group of my peers.  No disrespect meant, but I’d far rather trust a group of people who were trained and paid to be there than to depend on the luck of this draw, yours truly included.

The voir dire process allows the prosecutor and the defense attorney to question the pool of jurors on their likes and dislikes as well as their prejudices.  Several people like me were turned down because of negative experiences we previously endured as jurors.

In my case, a domestic squabble between a man and his girlfriend was blown out of proportion and ended up with the accused being handed two life sentences because of “kidnapping” charges plus another twenty years for ancillary charges.  I was so ticked off that I wrote the Supreme Court after the fact and the charges were reduced.  The penalty didn’t fit the crime, so the good folks doing the voir dire decided I was not a good candidate for whatever the reasons.

When we were questioned about our previous experiences, I had to own up to this especially since I had written an article a couple a months ago titled “I’m Done Being a Juror!” where I slammed the process because of what amounted to prosecutorial overkill.  The penalty didn’t fit the crime.

This brings me back to my premise.  If we had professional jurors who were schooled in a fashion similar to the lawyers, they would be able to understand the consequence of their jury decisions.  I suspect that high profile cases like the Casey Anthony trial might have gone a different way with professional jurors.  Perhaps the prosecution and the lawyers themselves should have also undergone a voir dire process as well.  Sometimes when you ask for too much you get way too little.

Paid, trained jurors could save millions of dollars a year in lost wages alone. If you wanted to be a trained juror, you could schooled for it and undergo the necessary background check.  The voir dire process to eliminate conflicts of interest and prejudicial concerns would be much shorter.

The full day of questions and the largely moronic answers that many gave would not take nearly as long with paid, trained jurors.  Some of these folks, who barely spoke English, would wax eloquently for ten or fifteen minutes at a time on how bad things were in their native country.  Their comments had nothing to do with the questions the attorneys were posing to them, but they enjoyed hearing themselves talk.  They need to show up at my Toastmasters Club on Friday morning, not the jury room.

All the time, effort and money spent on teaching the jury pool proper courtroom etiquette could have been eliminated.  Even the time wasted on those few idiots that showed up like they were on their way to the beach with inappropriate dress would not have been necessary.  The guy who was called down for not taking off his sunglasses wouldn’t have been necessary.  And the court’s officers wouldn’t have to bully people so and threaten them with contempt if they broke any of the many rules.  Those rules would have been covered in their training.  Does this make too much sense?

I once had the responsibility of serving as a juror. If what I witnessed is during that trial is what the criminal process is supposed to be about, I must admit that I was sadly disappointed in the entire procedure.

The defendant was on trial for two counts of kidnapping and a whole slew of other charges that ranged from destroying property to assault and battery and grand theft. In retrospect, it was about very little of that, but rather a domestic squabble.

The defendant in this case was a man who worked two jobs, and by all accounts was a productive, taxpaying citizen. He got into an argument with his girlfriend and struck her in the face, producing the assault and battery charges. The couple decided to go for a ride in her car with her cousin to talk out the problem. Somehow, that was perceived by the prosecutors as kidnapping and since the cousin was there for a ride-along, it meant two counts of kidnapping.

When I think of kidnapping, I think first of all of someone taking a child, not a girlfriend whom he is trying to reconcile and her mouthy cousin. Obviously the car ride didn’t go as planned, so he pops her again and this time pulls over and shoves her in the trunk.

They ride around awhile, and he lets her out of the trunk and they begin talking again. This time the car runs hot; they pull over and the vehicle actually catches on fire, destroying the car. So now they have him for destruction of property as well as the grand theft charge of taking her car.

As a jury, we were charged with finding guilt in this case, which was easy because the facts were not in dispute. They admitted doing all these things. But was this kidnapping or a couple of lovers who were having a quarrel? Even after the fact, they affirmed the love by getting married while he was in jail.

Yes, he was guilty of being a bully and a brute and had no right to strike her, no matter how crazy she and her wacky cousin made him. He should have served some time for that as well as destroying her vehicle, but he ended up getting handled a couple of life sentences without possibility of parole plus some extra time for the ancillary charges. That’s what kidnapping called for under the state’s laws.

I realize this idiot rolled the dice and thought the jury would see through this nonsensical trial. We did, but we were unable to dismiss the charges because he admitted doing the things for which he was charged.

When we were sent to deliberate, it occurred to me that we should have known the consequences of this man’s actions. We repeatedly petitioned the judge asking what the penalty was for his crimes. We were told that ours was to find guilt or innocence, not to determine the penalty for his conduct.

That left us with no choice but to find the defendant guilty of all of the crimes for which he was charged. When I later found out that the consequence of our decision resulted in two life sentences plus 20 years for the secondary charges, I went ballistic.

Make no mistake I’m not a bleeding heart who wants to let people skate for bad conduct. However, I don’t want to hang someone over a domestic squabble that resulted in a fat lip.

This was not justice. The penalty didn’t fit the crime. He should have done some time for the assault and the damage done to the vehicle, but two counts of kidnapping? Are you serious?

The jury was stunned when we heard the judge hand down the sentence. We discussed this very possibility and would have never returned a guilty verdict had we known it would result in two life sentences.

After the fact, I was so upset over the issue that I wrote a letter on behalf of the defendant to the Supreme Court. That resulted in reduced charges. Had we known the consequence of our decision, we would have rendered a different verdict. And that’s why I have no interest in ever being on another jury.

I was sitting in a hotel room in passing time when a story appeared on the tube of an interview with 80 year old woman.

I guess the reporter thought she would make some points by shoving a microphone into the face of the woman who was busy hoeing her garden.

“What do you think about the current economic situation in America today?” inquired the reporter. The woman looked up and quickly replied, “It’s the greatest thing that has happened to our country in decades.”

Stunned, the reporter changed her question slightly and asked again, “Seriously, how has this economic environment impacted you?” Without missing a beat, the woman stopped her garden work, wiped her brow and reiterated her earlier observation. “This could be the best thing that has ever happened in my lifetime.”

Now visibly frustrated, the indignant reporter demanded to know why the little old lady felt like this. This time the old lady rose to her feet, walked up to the woman reporter, took the microphone from her hand and said “Because maybe it will wake Americans to the reality that they must begin to take responsibility for their dumb decisions. It is called accountability!”

How deep is our hole in America today? In short, not one single “official” baby boomer has drawn a nickel of their Social Security retirement benefits yet, and the government tells us that the system is already in a negative cash flow situation.

Social Security’s unfunded liabilities are currently estimated at around $19 trillion and counting and that isn’t the only entitlement program that is in trouble. It is estimated that Medicare has around $89 trillion of unfunded potential liabilities and that the hospital portion is already functionally bankrupt.

This is on my mind lately because I’m coming up on the bewitching hour. In 2014, yours truly will be 65 years old and ready to enjoy those wonderful benefits that I thought would be there for me.

The good news… we’re living longer. The bad news… we’re living longer. Shortly, there will be more people riding in the cart (like yours truly) and less people pulling the cart (like my three sons and their children).

The fact is, health care reform, according to all the experts, has reformed nothing. IRS.GOV reports that 50% of American people earn less than $30,000 per year, which by definition makes them poor. Some 66% of all American people earn less than $50,000 per year. It’s estimated that 47% of all New York City residents are already on Medicaid, a welfare benefit.

Health care reform, according to all the experts, is still in its embryo stage and is already a $1 trillion entitlement… and growing. The new language that the folks in Washington will be shoving down your throats will be masked. The costs of these programs will be passed along in a multitude of ways. We currently call them taxes, but they will be veiled in a herd of new Trojan horses called fees, levies, surcharges, tolls, tariffs and other challenging burdens… you name it.

Guess who is backing all this funny money? The federal government- that’s who! Guess who is the federal government’s banker? Answer: the American taxpayer of today, tomorrow and generations to come.

It has been estimated that by 2018 that some 67.3% of the American people will be financially dependent on the government. No, this is not the end of the world and I really do not mean to be all gloom and doom. These are just the facts.

The truth is, for the first time in America’s history, we may be passing along a lower standard of living to our children and their children and their children unless the mess is fixed.

I confess; I am guilty. I complain about government, but the fact is, I have never been involved in it. I did run for the House of Representatives once, but the voters, in their wisdom, decided I was dumber than the guys in office, so they sent me back home with a sound vote of “no confidence.”

Where do we go from here? Honestly, I do not have answers. All I know is this. I am about to retire in the next five years and I better find a new vocation. My new goal in life is to write trash novels. People seem to bury their brains in that kind of nonsense when the going gets tough. When the going gets tough, us chickens bury ourselves in fiction.

My wife says that most of what I write is fiction anyway. She uses the acronym B-S, but you get my drift. I may as well charge for it and try to make a buck or two. Or perhaps I’ll become a Wal-mart greeter. Now there is a profession that suits my grumpy personality. Boy, are we in big trouble or what?