As if they haven’t shamed themselves enough already, our partisan, fractured and bickering government was at its very best Saturday. The ink on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death certificate wasn’t even dry yet and already Republicans and Democrats were yapping at each other.

The yapping concerned whether or not President Obama should nominate a replacement. This will surprise you, but Republicans tended to think Obama should leave it to the next president, who might well be a Republican, while Democrats, and this is a shocker, too, said Obama should nominate a successor immediately if not sooner.

This was, as the Chinese like to say, unseemly. Show some respect, for Pete’s sake, and at least wait until rigor mortis sets in before you start bickering at each other and tormenting our country with your mindless arguing about whether or not the current president should appoint a successor in an election year.

For the record, if I’m president and in this position I am probably nominating a successor. Political considerations aside, if it is left to a new president to nominate someone the new justice would not be confirmed until late April, 2017 at the earliest, more than a year from now. That is a long time to have a vacancy on the Supreme Court. If it was after the election and there was an opening, then perhaps I would wait. Or maybe I wouldn’t. If it was the interregnum between election and inauguration I might just nominate someone just for funsies and let the Senate worry about it.

Friends, we get the government we elect. Every single time. We have a petty, bickering fractured government because this is what we keep electing. We deserve better than this most recent display of disrespectful, mindless partisan contention.

We’ve complained about our government enough. It’s time for us to do something. The time has come for us to stop throwing rocks at the castle from across the moat. The time has come for us – you and me, we the people – to cross the moat, enter the castle and join the battle.

Friends, the next election will not be decided by incumbents, or the media or lobbyists. It will be decided by us, and the government we want is there, waiting for us on Election Day. All we need is the courage to go get it.

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As some might recall, Gaylon For United States Senate had a scandal as the 2014 campaign wound down.

It was a pretty good scandal, too, involving some robocalls an organization sent out on my behalf without my knowledge. This usually would not have been too big of a problem except for the fact they went out in the middle of the night. I hope it goes without saying I had nothing to do with them, except dealing with the aftermath.

I found out about the robocalls around 4am a couple of Sundays before the election. I had gotten up for my usual 4am constitutional and I heard my phone vibrating on my desk. I ignored it. It went off again almost immediately so, curious and making sure it wasn’t an emergency, I went and looked.

I didn’t recognize the number so I didn’t answer. I then noticed assorted notifications on my phone: Twitter, Facebook, emails from my contact page and even voicemail and texts because my number was on my campaign’s website.

That was my introduction to RoboGate. History will not record this as the equal of other –Gate scandals, but it was my first one so I dug in. I answered every tweet and email. I tried to return phone messages, but invariably there was so much rancor I stopped spinning my wheels.

Then it hit me this could result in a high level of publicity for Gaylon For US Senate. In another life I was a radio announcer and a newspaper reporter, so I had a working knowledge of what to do and it did result in some TV interviews and other exposure for the campaign.

The only bad part was it was impossible to quantify the impact it had the number of votes I got. I don’t think it dissuaded anyone from voting from me; there is no such thing as bad publicity unless it involves, as the old adage says, a dead woman or a live boy.

Eventually I heard the message and I found it interesting my name wasn’t mentioned until the very end. The general tone of the call was a message of peace. It lasted about 90 seconds or so and ended with “…Gaylon Kent is the only anti-war candidate on the ballot!”

True enough. This was interesting, however, because before this there had been no mention of my name which, of course, meant that people, annoyed at having been woken up in the middle of night actually stuck around to the very end. In retrospect this was probably so they could find out who to get mad at.

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Friends, today I’d like to talk about what I feel the biggest battle us Libertarians are fighting: human nature. I came to this conclusion as our United States Senate nominee in 2014. Time and time again I would talk to someone and they would say:

Hey, Gaylon, I like what you stand for. Too bad you have no chance to win.

Oh, good gravy. It’s was like getting the friends lecture in the bachelor days.

I heard it often enough that I concluded our problem wasn’t the issues because you can’t really argue with liberty; the liberty drum beats in every heart. Our problem is it is human nature to stick with the familiar even when it’s not serving us well.

As I tend to point out an awful lot, the 2014 midterm elections illustrated this perfectly: America reelected 96 percent of incumbents to a Congress that had an eleven percent approval rating, a splendid example of sticking with the familiar when it isn’t serving us well.

96 percent! To a House and Senate with an eleven percent approval rating!

After hearing I had no chance often enough I stopped talking about issues and started talking empowerment. I started telling people we will always get the government we elect and that the government we want is never farther away than the next election.

People liked this on a couple of levels.

One, non-Libertarians do not really like hearing us preach, no matter how right we might be, because sometimes we are the inconvenient truth no one wants to acknowledge and sometimes we talk about issues that might not interest them.

Two, people like being told they’re empowered. They like being told we do not need to accept what our government spoon feeds us. They like the message our government is in our hands because deep down they know it is. Our country is only a demanding and participating electorate away from the government we want.

We did pretty well with this message, too. We got 52,000 votes in 2014, 800,000 or so behind the winner, but also more votes than any other third party candidate had ever received in a Colorado US Senate election. People liked hearing they were empowered.

Of course, I will talk issues, among them a peaceful America, low taxes and free markets and an America that does not convict the innocent. But I am also going to talk empowerment. For our nation right now, it’s the most pressing issue.

Gaylon

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