Congress despairs when slaves can read

H.Res. 554 was introduced on June 17 by Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash. It would require a 72-hour reading period for all nonemergency legislation before a vote by the House of Representatives. It is stuck in committee.

A motion, or discharge petition to force a House floor vote on the resolution was initiated by Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., on Sept. 23. It needs a simple majority of member signatures (218) to force a vote.

As of this writing, the petition has only 182 signatures.

We should not even have to petition Congress to read legislation before it takes a vote, nor should the public have to beg to see it for 72 hours. This is doubly insulting to the intelligence of the citizens of this country, and brazenly irresponsible on the part of the Democratic leaders in Congress.

But here's why the resolution is needed. The "stimulus bill" of 1,073 pages was voted on within 12 hours after it was made available to members of Congress. The 1,420-page "Cap & Trade & Tax & Kill" bill was passed in 16.5 hours. One version of the health-care deform legislation was passed out of committee in 14 hours.

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The next huge legislation will be the backroom consolidation of the five health-care Trojan horses voted out of committees, and Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats do not want us to know what's in the bill before they vote on it. Why?

In the early colonial history of this country, it was illegal to teach a slave or a "free person of color" to read and write. Slave owners believed if a slave was taught to read and write they would no longer listen and obey their master and would then be worthless. They also believed that the education of slaves could lead to revolts.

Well, informed voters might not like what's in the legislation if they have 72 hours to read it, and we might not listen to or obey our congressional masters.

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats would rather for us to remain in the dark, ignorant and stupid. I pray that someone will get the following message to Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat-led Congress:

We are not slaves. We can read, and this is our declaration.

We the People are fed up with being insulted, ignored and abused as taxpayers. We will not sit by and allow this blatant power grab by the president, the administration and Congress, using socialist-structured environmental and health-care legislation. We will not tolerate the endless tsunami spending on top of an already out-of-control national debt and exponentially growing annual national deficit, which is leading this country into bankruptcy.

Promoting class warfare with tax policy will fail, because even unemployed and low-income families are waking up to the class warfare deception. The short-term gratification of gimmicky government giveaways, such as Cash for Clunkers and $250 senior citizen bonuses, are losing their sizzle. And convenient race baiting by avid supporters of the president is becoming old and ineffective as a smoke screen for a lack of effective policy, real economic results and real leadership.

This is not a threat. It is a promise from the majority of Americans that you choose to ignore and marginalize. You may ignore our voices, but you will not be able to ignore our votes.

The revolt will be at the ballot box.

We can read, and we are not going to become a slave nation to the government.