Clean Up Your Mess!

You remember when you were a child and you weren't allowed to leave the house until you cleaned up your mess? That was so unrealistic. That's not the consequences you will experience as an adult. As an adult, if you make a mess, someone is going to throw you out. Vomit on the bar? You're out! Three strikes? You're out! Cheat on the spouse? You're out! Take too many pain killers? You're out!

Maybe our mothers had the right idea. However, once we are old enough to define our defiance as other people's consequences, we reject the childhood consequences that actually made sense.

I think we should say to the duly elected representatives, "You're not allowed to leave the House until you clean up your mess!" The recently elected Republican representatives would have to get to work cleaning up their Republican doo-doo from before. To the president, "You're not allowed to leave the White House until you clean up your mess!" Yes, I realize if that had been implemented during the last presidency, we would be stuck with Bush until hell freezes over. Or maybe it would have gotten folks shoveling the ice cubes down south to Satan and the mess would have been cleaned up a lot sooner than it's going to take to clean up his mess now.

I think returning to the "You can't leave until..." consequences should become the law of the land. It might make politicians, bankers, stockbrokers, clergy and other screw-ups think more carefully about what they do.