About a month ago I brought to your attention statements made by the West Virginia Speaker of the House of Delegates Tim Miley.  In an interview with MetroNews he intimated that the House is mostly bipartisan with regard to voting on and enacting legislation.  By implication he appeared to be saying that he himself approaches government in a bipartisan or even nonpartisan way.  I told you then that I wasn’t having any of it.  However, I never would have dreamed that Miley would have reinforced and proved my point so soon and so profoundly.  

I hope your New Year is off to a rousing start. In my last column I expressed a New Year’s wish that everyone reflect on what is the true purpose of government. I am of the view that individuals have unalienable rights and that the government’s primary purpose is to ensure that those rights are protected. I would call that the original mission statement of the founding fathers of our great republic. Unfortunately, since then we’ve witnessed a monumental example of mission creep.

The word “bipartisan” is bandied about quite a bit. According to Wikipedia, “bipartisanship is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system, in which opposing political parties find common ground through compromise, in theory”. In theory.

I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving is one of our most time honored American traditions. Traditions are important and evolve from moral values that are passed from generation to generation. The word tradition derives from the Latin verb “tradere”, meaning to transmit, to hand over, to give for safekeeping. Safekeeping has a warm and fuzzy sound to it.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I have much to be thankful for and I hope that you do too. This time of year reminds me of the song written by Irving Berlin that debuted in the 1954 film “White Christmas” called “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)”. As the song goes - “When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep. And I fall asleep counting my blessings”.

I had the pleasure of spending time with my uncle recently. He and I do not see eye to eye on most political or economic issues, but that isn’t a problem. Born in 1923, my uncle has seen a lot, including service to our country during WWII. We got to talking one evening and he asked me why I felt that government was too big. He felt that as the population increases it would be only natural for government to get bigger as well.