Egg-Sucking Hounds

I don’t know about you city folks but everyone here in Stump County knows about egg-sucking hounds. Don’t take my word for it. In 1941 there was a case called Hull v. Scruggs when Mr. Scruggs shot and killed Hull’s dog for killing chickens and sucking eggs. The supreme court of Mississippi ruled Scruggs was within his rights to kill the dog.

The brief on the case states, “It is a matter of common knowledge that dogs, even more so than human beings, will do again that which they are in the habit of doing. It is a matter of common knowledge that a dog who sucked eggs yesterday will suck eggs today and tomorrow and the next day, and so on. Likewise, a dog that has habitually howled will howl again, or a dog that chases guineas or turkeys will continue to do so.”

With the election coming up it is important to remember two things. One is the case related above. The other is Mark Twain’s statement, “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

We need to take a cold hard look at people who have become rich while serving the U. S. of A in elected office. It doesn’t matter if they are Republicons or Democraps. They get paid for serving (which is another kind of robbery) but some of them use their office and the information and contacts to make more money. This is known as a conflict of interest which is defined as “a situation in which a public official who, contrary to the obligation and absolute duty to act for the benefit of the public, exploits the relationship for personal benefit.”

It seems that when it is a Democrap only the Republicons complain and when it is a Republicon only the Democraps complain. Both sides defend their own saying, “everybody does it,” or by calling the complaints partisan.

Well folks, a crook is a crook and an egg-sucking dog is an egg-sucking dog and conflict of interest is conflict of interest and you can’t change them. As the Supreme Court in Mississippi ruled, there is only one way to stop egg-sucking dogs: shoot them. That not being an option all we need to do is look at their (not the dogs’) financial disclosure forms when they take office. First, everything they own should go into a blind trust when they are elected. Then they should have to live off their paychecks, which are a heck of a lot larger than ours. At the end of each term they should have to show total income from salary less living expenses. The rest should only be allowed to be invested in treasury bonds. That way they have a reason to protect the country instead of their personal finances.

Anyway you cut that cake an elected official whose personal income grows at a faster rate than the economy should be removed from office. It’s like this: if they know how to make wise personal investments and are not cheating and using inside information they should be doing the same thing for the rest of us.  After all, they are working for us and we’re paying them.

If their income gets larger while ours gets smaller we are dealing with the human equivalent of “egg-sucking dogs” and they need to go.