lets hatch the hatch act!

i'm having one of those weekends of organizing, pondering, spiritual stuff, yoga, scriptures etc. as many of you know i'm trying to dig myself out of an illness that laid me flat for the last few months. as i was reviewing all of what's gone down, i wondered how i'd communicate what i've learned and its vast:

• problems and solutions to health care
• ending poverty in a generation
• lots of book ideas
• new ways to view yoga and movement and the body
• time and our/my relationship to it and how it impacts my relationship with others
• essential oils, herbs, teas, chinese medicine, physical therapy, medicine, acupuncture, etc

i realized much of it has political implications. i like politics and policy, so seems like a perfect fit. readers of might get sick of political rants, but other than that no harm no fowl right ... plus no one is really reading this anyway so who cares?

The Hatch Act cares.

The Hatch Act prohibits me from using my official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election. I honestly think this is the point of the act, which frankly makes good since. I just think they went bonkers executing. Classic government overreach, instead of keeping me from intimidating people they are keeping me from having to set my own personal boundaries within them. its like the honor code at BYU. (i mean not even step foot out of the living room???? over the top!)

They are trying to keep me from using the Federal Government to keep a certain party in power. Thank you. that would be a disaster if once a president took power he could order all the Federal workforce (all 6 million of us) to volunteer just 4 days a month doing political events for him. That would be bad. But if Federal employees wanted to do that, shouldn’t they be able to? If I want to take off of work with my firefighter dad and go picket in Wisconsin (our motherland tho i live here and he lives in AZ), shouldn’t that be ok? Walking a thin like & the line gets thinner. I can’t:

• use my official titles or positions while engaged in political activity.
• totally legit, should remain law
• invite subordinate employees to political events or otherwise suggest to subordinates that they attend political events or undertake any partisan political activity.
• this seems a bit over the top. i can’t tell give one of my interns a ticket to a dinner with the President because it’s a fundraiser? now i totally get if you are saying you must donate or you loose your job or even you must attend or loose your job. but so long as there is no coersion and there is no harm in inviting right? how is that any different than inviting someone to church? or for a happy hour? if you are a Mormon the happy hour is awkward but you feel like you have to be there or you are going to miss out on schmooze time. but when your boss goes to McClean Bible, then you better go there too? aren’t me making too much out of things? sometimes happy hour is happy hour. sometimes a political fundraiser is a political fundraiser. seems like it is up to the professional to draw their own boundary. is this government trying to manage peoples interpersonal relationships?
• solicit, accept or receive a donation or contribution for a partisan political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group. I can’t: host a political fundraiser; invite others to a political fundraiser; collect contributions or sell tickets to political fundraising functions,* or be candidates for public office in partisan political elections.

That’s right. Somehow in this nonchalant piece of legislations set up to protect the people from a tyrannical president, Congress has taken the right of over 2 million people to run for office or really participate in our democracy?

No surprise really, Orrin and the rest of the GOP don’t really want Americans to learn how smart our government is or how much good we do. They have tied our hands and made it impossible for us to have voice. So we write under aliases and hide our identities because we can’t associate our names with anything political or we stand to loose our jobs. No joke. You just get fired straightaway. They aren’t playing . . . you talk like all the other Americans you work for, and you loose your job … how in the world is this fair? democratic? honest? transparent?

if such a law existed in Iraq, would we reinvade?

* Soliciting, accepting, or receiving such donations or contributions may be done so long as the person being solicited is: 1) a member of the same federal labor organization as defined under section 7103(4) of this title or a federal employee organization which as of the date of enactment of the Hatch Act Reform Amendments of 1993 had a multicandidate political committee (as defined under section 315(a)(4) of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 441a(a)(4))); 2) not a subordinate employee; and 3) the solicitation is for a contribution to the multicandidate political committee (as defined under section 315(a)(4)of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 441a(a)(4))) of such federal labor organization as defined under section 7103(4) of this title or a federal employee organization which as of the date of the enactment of the Hatch Act Reform Amendments of 1993 had a multicandidate political committee (as defined under section 315(a)(4)of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2) U.S.C. 441a(a)(4)))