It's springtime, Eastertide, Passover season.  Blossoms everywhere, and the air smells sweet.  The kids are back in school after their break, and summer vacation plans are in the works.  Unfortunately, since it's an even-numbered year, the biannual campaign season is getting underway.  It's time to grit up and prepare to endure cacophonous brawling, teeth-grinding embarrassment, and all the lies, lies, lies.  Politicians can say such stupid stuff.

Recently, the cringe during remarks made by the chief executive and his trusty sidekick was almost too much to bear.  There was Joe with nonsense words dribbling out of his mouth like "48% of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate vote with me 94% of the time" and "enhance our underlying effort to accommodate the Russian oligarchs."  We heard Kamala talking to some of our finest scientists and fiercest warfighters as though they were three-year-olds.  How disheartening!

Hunting for a different kind of political discourse, here's what I found on YouTube.  I just let these words from a wise national politician wash over me.

Image: YouTube screen grab.

~ Maybe one of the things that's been happening too much is that the federal government has been interfering where they haven't been invited in.

~ Law enforcement is pretty much local.

~ The federal government has an obligation to enforce the Constitution which means to protect the constitutional rights of all citizens.

~ The goal is world peace and, therefore, the United States cannot recklessly put itself in a position where the confrontation does take place.

~ I think one of the foolish things we've done going clear back to the Vietnamese War is telling potential enemies the things we would not do.  For example, when President Johnson repeated over and over again that, of course, we would never use nuclear weapons there.  I don't think we should have used nuclear weapons there.  But I think the North Vietnamese should have gone to sleep every night worrying about whether we would.

~ Since the government causes inflation, government's the only one that can stop inflation.  And the government should be doing that.

~ If we're going to have a capital gains tax, I think that tax should be computed in constant dollars.  You shouldn't have to pay a tax on inflation.

~ The only way we're going to make ourselves independent of [imported] oil is not by telling the people to drive less or keeping the farmers from getting enough diesel fuel to run their tractors and plant their fields.  It is to restore incentives for the energy industry to find the sources of energy we need here in this country.

~ Isn't it time for the government to recognize that it has created this crisis and the government can uncreate it?

~ I would prefer to see us go to work tending our own store, which is to restore the value of the dollar, ending inflation (which government can do), and taking care of our own energy problems.

~ The marketplace is the only answer.

~ [In response to how to turn the economy back toward fuller employment] We would start an immediate program of cutting the income tax rates across the board for everyone to provide incentive for individuals.  We would go after some of the punitive taxes and the tens of thousands of regulations which are keeping American industry from being as competitive as it could be in the world market.

~ Balancing the budget is a little bit like protecting your virtue.  You just have to learn to say no.

~ I think I can make a case that the decline in the quality of public education began when federal aid became federal interference.

~ I feel just fine.

It made me feel better.  I hope this year's crop of candidates can take the pitch from this guy and uplift our spirits rather than dashing our hopes with impossible promises and fruitless quarreling.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University for preserving and posting the January 14, 1980 Firing Line conversation between William F. Buckley and presidential hopeful Ronald Reagan, and for granting permission to use it in this article.

Anony Mee is the nom de blog of a retired public servant.