Recently, I went on a road trip across America to the Great State of Texas where they have some of the best restaurants I have ever been to. My husband and I and our two kids frequented a certain buffet as we traveled from state to state, and something fascinating happened one Texas evening. There was the usual long line of families waiting to belly up to the buffet bar for delicious food at an unbelievably low price when I noticed that the workers behind this somewhat well-run establishment were sort of rude and were flexing their contempt toward the excited buffet eaters.
As the drooling eaters moved along the well-designed food line toward a grill cook turning tender sizzling steaks, he suddenly shouted, "Everyone has to wait!" Subtly making fun of the people who were waiting for the ribs and steaks, he sarcastically announced “You will get some—in two hours, hee hee!” I noticed that instead of the buffet eaters thinking there was something wrong with the out of control grill cook, drunk on the power of his long supper tongs, the drooling public stood quietly, perfectly in line, with eyes fixated on the prize of the slow cooking steak and ribs, as if they behaved the way the cook told them to, they would get the prize. I suddenly envisioned Nancy Pelosi standing there with those long supper tongs and her crazed smile, and I realized that the cook represented the politicians who keep us in line by always offering us something that they can make us wait quietly in line for.
Would you really trade your principles for a piece of meat? If only a single person would have stood up to the rude grill cook or walked out of the restaurant, he might have been put in his place, but the illusion of juicy steak for next to nothing price appealed to human greed and hypnotized this crowd of eaters giving power to the grill cook and feeding his contempt for them. The buffet eaters were putty in his hands, and like hungry animals, they obeyed his commands. In retrospect, I realized that he purchased his power over the eaters by first supplying something they thought they were getting for just about nothing and then by intimidating them into submission, threatening them and making them feel they might have to do without the steak.
That same morning, ironically, I was watching Nancy Pelosi as she explained to a news guy why she had to get the health care bill passed even though the polls show that 75% of Americans do not want government-run health care. Nancy Pelosi is holding a giant pair of tongs as her contempt for all Americans, especially the ones who want something from her, is starting to bud and peak its ugly head out. We Americans are beginning to realize that the ugly buffet grill cook is really high on power.
My thought that morning was, “Am I really hearing what I think I am hearing, the tong-wielding third person in line to the Presidency is telling 75% of the country that she is in control of the buffet line and that she knows what is best for us, and we Americans can just shut up and stand in line?!!”
Wow, where is the outrage when our pubic servant has the audacity to ignore us? We are the employers, and she is our employee! We voted in power-mad, tong-wielding grill cooks to run our country. We did it to ourselves, and as long as we stand in line instead of taking a stand against these over-paid grill cooks, we are not much different than the Jews in Nazi Germany standing in line for a shower.
