Before I get into the obvious homeless guy on 3rd Street in Columbus who was standing on the corner a block south of the Statehouse, completely nude, with his ding dong and buttocks clear for all the world to see, as if he were getting ready to shower at a YMCA, I have to talk about the fantastic book I bought from the Statehouse gift shop that I have had my eye on for several years now, The Art and Artistry of the Ohio Statehouse by Dayna Jalkanen. Every time I go to the Statehouse, I think about getting it, but time is always short, so I never do. I love the Statehouse and the intentions of the work that is supposed to be done there, of republic-style representative government, and I had just told a story to similar people about my thoughts on Governor DeWine’s speech where I stood in the rotunda with DeWine giving out pictures with a lunch buffet set up in the middle of the room where senators, representatives, lawyers, lobbyists, cutthroats and even media personalities were at work saving the world from their perspective. Even the “Rooster” was there dressed in his backpack and poorly attired shorts, deliberately showing disrespect for the process as he runs a government blog checking the antics of the powerful with a kind of Marxist mentality of “bringing them all down. During this visit, I had a little more time to make it to the bookstore, where I was there with Jennifer Gross, the Ohio Representative from the 47th District, and her son, a brilliant young man. I explained to many people that DeWine’s speech this year was horrible, worse than usual, and uninspiring. And there was a thick blanket over the whole State of the State address as Columbus conspiracies were awash in speculation and scandal. But as I have said before, the Statehouse is there, grand and has deep roots in history. It intends to inspire people to greatness even if they fall short, as was apparent under this current flock of politicians. So, I wanted to get the book to remind myself of the worth of it all.
As I checked out the book at the counter and spoke to Jennifer about all the perils of progress during legislative proceedings, I reflected on what I had just said about DeWine’s speech and why it was so bad. Governor DeWine was clearly in a lame-duck stage of his term. He was on the outs with the Trump campaign over several controversies. But the biggest one is that DeWine isn’t a Republican, especially not a Trump Republican. He’s a product of FDR’s New Deal and some Johnson version of a Great Society where the government was there to do what parents couldn’t or wouldn’t. And that was the entirety of DeWine’s speech on the State of the State on 4.10.24. The whole thing was about how the state of Ohio could take care of children in ways their parents would fall short of, and everything he mentioned required more legislation and tax money spent without scrutiny on the next generation without any real expectation of success. As I had just said in the rotunda, everyone in that room thought they were doing the right things, including DeWine. They all had the best of intentions. Nobody thought of themselves as evil. Yet there was evil everywhere, and why? It’s a challenging game where you must go to Columbus to work with others to make things happen. You have to build relationships and get things done. But in compromising with other people to get things passed, most people find themselves changed forever in the process, and they aren’t the same people who were elected, and they don’t survive the meat grinder of politics intact.
Whenever I attend a State of the State speech, I always like to sit in the gallery where all the lawyers, aides, and lobbyists sit because I want to hear how they talk to each other. They all have some specific thing that concerns them most about the government. It might be renewable energy, social programs, or even Rob Portman’s retirement status, and how many boards he is sitting on for advice. I was sitting next to one of his former aides who went on and on about how much influence the former senator still had in the business world, which I had to snicker about. I’ve known Rob Portman for a long time, especially at the beginning of his political career when he was in his 20s. Rob Portman shouldn’t be advising businesses about anything; he doesn’t have the horsepower to understand the field or how it works. But in that gallery, I heard many stories about things those people wanted to impress upon each other as they were caught up in the moment. All dressed up to listen to the Governor give a speech about saving children from their parents. I explained it later by identifying the problem for what it is: all those people at the speech had the power of government at their fingertips, and they had to decide how to use it to help people. And that’s where the evil comes in: when people don’t have the right thoughts about things, how can they decide to use government the way it’s supposed to, not how their feeble minds interpret it? DeWine intended his speech well, as everyone listening did. But where can they apply government power to the right purposes? That’s what I wanted to think about as I bought that book and why I took a little extra time talking with Jennifer about those kinds of challenges this time.
But the answer to that question was at the corner of 3rd Street, just one block south of the Statehouse as I was leaving. There was security everywhere around the Statehouse because of the governor. I was leaving the Senate, and there were plenty of police. But then there was this 6’ 6 man of color standing there with his pants pulled down around his ankles, underwear, and all oblivious to the world around him. I don’t think he knew his ding dong was hanging out in full view to all the cars and pedestrians moving by him. I’ve seen homeless people all over the world, and they are caused by too much government destroying the personal initiative of individual people. And here was this guy, an apparent creation of a nanny state government rotting away in full view of everyone just a block from where all the rules of Ohio were made. And nobody was doing anything about it. He was violating public decency standards. He was probably violating many drug laws. But he was a person of color, and nobody wanted to be called a racist for pointing out his bad behavior. So, everyone just ignored him and went about their way. No doubt, several children that day had their lives ruined by seeing that naked guy on the street corner on a sunny April day in 2024. With all the grand ideas proposed by many governors over the years, the reality is that the quality of life for people only gets worse the more that the government tries to replace good personal conduct with more laws, which aren’t even enforced a block from where DeWine gave his speech. And all the people talking about big, fancy ideas in the gallery were already in their cars on their way home, driving past all the problems none had the guts to deal with. Which is how evil works in those kinds of gatherings. Well-intended people who use the power of government to do what they lack as people, and it migrated into society to show itself in that homeless guy so disconnected from reality he was nude on a street corner in the capital of Ohio, which should be a showpiece of excellence. The Statehouse certainly lives up to the lofty expectations. But the people in it, inhabiting it, don’t. And they hide their lack of courage behind procedures and fancy speeches. Yet they always fall short because their minds aren’t up to the task, and they don’t have the guts to increase their intellect where they can help people like that guy instead of making more of them by default.
Rich Hoffman
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