"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience [has] shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce [the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." —Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:429

We listened, with great anticipation, to President Obama’s Tuesday night speech to a joint session of congress and to the American people.

Our president was interrupted by the Democratic controlled congress 65 times with standing ovations and joyous hoots and hollers, especially when the blame for our economic mess was placed on the past administration.

One of the specific points the president made was that he and his administration were going to go line by line through spending bills and would cut out the pork added by our senators and representatives.

This particular point was cheered on by our elected officials with the greatest of enthusiasm.

The very next day these same cheering representatives, the protectors of our law and our national economy, presented a $410 billion Omnibus spending bill. It featured, among many other worthwhile projects, a $41.8 million bill to conduct "swine odor and manure management," $206,000 for wool research in Montana, $1.2 million to control cormorants in Michigan and $209, 000 to improve blueberry production in Georgia. The fearless leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, made sure the bill provided $1 million for spending projects in his home state of Nevada.

We, like President Obama, understand that gaining tax dollars for projects in their states and districts has always been a sure-fire reelection tool used by politicians.

Robert Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, has been so good at it that if anything ever happened to Washington, D.C., West Virginia, which is the home for a good deal of federal agencies now provided by Byrd’s leadership, could easily become the new capital of our country.

To continue life as it was, now when almost every tax payer in this country in one form or another is feeling the pain of a recession — a recession that is threatening to bring down everything that is dear to our beliefs in this country — is both disgraceful and inexcusable.

The quote at the top of this editorial by Thomas Jefferson suggests what to we can do when politicians have become out of control.

His suggestion is revolution — not with guns, but with votes.

The famous silent majority in this country needs to rise up, go to the polls and vote these scoundrels out of office. Until we can do that, we need to pray that God continues to keep his hand on our country because today we are truly at war — not with a foreign enemy, but one at home.