The Banana in our Tailpipe

There's a scene in Beverly Hills Cop where Eddie Murphy's character, Axel Foley, sneaks out of his hotel, runs across a busy street, and sticks a couple of bananas in the tailpipe of the car occupied by Detectives Taggart and Rosewood, who were tailing Foley. When Foley drives off, Rosewood attempts to follow but the banana causes their car to stall out. Foley gets away and the meme "You fell for a banana in your tailpipe?" was born.

America has fallen for a banana in its tailpipe.

Just look around you. We once were a nation of norms and rules, where government was restrained by the will of the people. That's the idea embodied in the Declaration of Independence anyway: the idea that the people are in charge, have certain "inalienable" rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). When the Constitution was written is was designed to LIMIT the ability for the government to impinge on these rights.

The government is supposed to work for us.

Is that true today? I think not. We are increasingly a nation of "rules for thee but not for me." Petty dictators on the local, state and national level. Anyone who lived through California's COVID response -- the closing of some businesses and not others, the shutting down of schools for a year -- can attest to this. And though everyone talks about Trump's authoritarian streak, witness Joe Biden's summary dismissal of student loans as a continuation of what Barack Obama said about the presidency: "I have a pen and a phone" so who needs laws? Executive orders have taken the place of legislating.

It all smacks of dictatorship and not democracy.

And let's not forget the "law fare" that is running amok in our state and federal courts, all geared to keeping Donald Trump from becoming president again. These suits have been largely brought by partisan District Attorneys who campaigned on sending Trump to jail. It has all backfired spectacularly, because those who aren't blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome see it for what it is -- naked partisanship that is bad for our country because what is "good for the goose is good for the gander". Turnabout is fair play, as the saying goes. It won't be long before a Democratic presidential nominee is hauled into court by a partisan DA. Just wait. It's going to happen.

This is banana republic stuff, folks. The kind of thing that happens in Venezuela where the rule of law is whatever the prevailing power says it is.

But it's never been America. We always stood apart.

This is not a defense of Donald Trump; in fact, I'm not a fan. Rather, it's a defense of our system of governance which has deteriorated now to the point where nobody with a brain has confidence in it. We are now being ruled by an elite who live by different rules, and an unelected bureaucratic state that makes regulations with no accountability. 2.2 million people work for the Federal government and only 4,000 of them (.001%) are NOT covered by civil service protections. That means that 99.99% of the government can't be easily fired. They make and enforce rules that impact every facet of our lives, largely without accountability.

This is no way to run a country.

What's the solution? I don't know. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is talking about all the right things -- reigning in the unholy alliances between big pharma, big agriculture, big tech and our government.

That would be a good start.

Any ideas out there? I'm all ears.

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