AHRC News Services

Serving The American Homeowner

AUGUST 21, 2000

Let me take you back around this same time 224 years ago. To explain it in more simple terms lets just say it was the birth of a nation, not just any nation, but a nation of great potential. Our fore fathers arrived and settled the land and later fought and gave their lives to rid this new nation of a cancer that threatened its very existence.

This disease was named -"taxation without representation". Now taxation was needed and representation was good but the two without each other only meant big trouble. As time evolved, representation started to take on a whole new
look as all the attention was being diverted to a new player, named "specialinterest".

Now this special interest character was really special, I guess that's why his name was special interest, anyhow special interest would hang out at the finest watering holes in town, and many men in town would spend outrageous amounts of money to fund campaigns to hold a public seat just to have a glimpse at special interest.

These men hoped to be elected which surely guaranteed them the opportunity to frequent the same pubs and sit at the same table with special interest. You see special interest had a unique way of making friends, you know, the kind of friends that were big and important.

As the legend goes, it was told that holes in the suits worn by special interest allowed currency to fall out on the ground. The elected boys would scramble to grab it, catching every last bill and leaving no bill untouched, sort of like comparing a hungry prairie dog scrambling for food.

Meanwhile the fighting man, remember the fighting man from the beginning of this story? Well it seems these elected boys forgot all about the fighting man, you know, they were too busy on their knees cleaning up what could only be compared to leftover candy remnants from a broken piñata, so they didn't spend much time thinking about the fighting man, or anyone else for that matter, besides they were all busy nourishing their sweat tooth's.

Many years passed by and this new nation entered into a new millennium. The fighting men, now more than ever, were being forced to pay extreme sums of money commonly referred to as taxes, which were extracted from their weekly wages. Any resistance would expose oneself to the wrath of the elected boys.

You see, the elected boys recruited collectors, one such collector was named... you may recognize him as, well... I'm not going to mention any names but their initials are I.R.S., to perform the collection duties.

Now I.R.S. had proven himself to be an extremist and would stop at nothing to force open the pocketbooks of any of the fighters that resisted. All the while the elected boys took a few steps back to watch the mayhem but were still very focused on the contents of the ever-swinging piñata.

Now lets look back at representation, ah yes, representation, remember representation, you haven't heard much about him lately in this story. Well you see representation couldn't stand up to massive resources held by special interest and therefore was left discarded in the cold all alone and with no friends.

Shortly afterwards everybody including, the fighters, the elected boys, the I.R.S., and others had forgotten all about representation while they sulked in the wealth of special interest. Some even made damned sure representation would never show his defeated face again.

Then one day a scavenger named Homeowner was foraging through the charred remains of a burned out building. If I remember the story right, I believe Homeowner was a distant cousin of the Fighter who had evolved by now and went by the name college grad.

Anyhow, Homeowner had uncovered documents that spoke of forgotten representation. The scavenger intrigued at this point could not help but cry after reading the story about exiled, representation. So he set out on a journey with the hope of finding representation and to resurrect his spirit once again.

Meanwhile the elected boys, special interest and others caught wind of the growing numbers of homeowners searching for representation and started erecting fences around neighborhoods to control access and discourage any
further homeowner recruitment. Soon all the neighborhoods had iron gates and walls surrounding them to keep representation from getting in.

Subsequently more and more taxes were collected to fortify the newly constructed neighborhood bunkers. Sentries consisting of snakes of all various shapes and sizes were placed around the exterior neighborhood walls to guard against any attempted penetration by representation. These snakes were called attorneys, which typically preyed on everything and everyone.

As the story goes, the search for representation continues on, even today. A small contingent of searchers called troublemakers and hecklers continue to lift up rocks crawl through sewers in search of representation, only to find the elected boys, special interest, the I.R.S. and all the others have squatted those spaces, leaving no available vacancies where representation could hide.

It is a sad tale and nobody knows for sure what lies ahead. So in your travels should you happen to stumble across representation keep a steady eye on him because you may never live long enough to seize such opportunity again. If by chance you can actually get close enough to speak with him let him know the homeowners want him back.