What rolls downhill

     Some call the game politics. Others know it's just King of the Hill.
     Most of us spend our lives as spectators.  We're at the bottom of the hill.
     We watch the players, representing political factions, scratch and claw and abuse the sensibilities of all to climb to the top of the hill. It's always a temporary victory, because the people at the bottom of the hill are almost always looking for a replay of the game, with a better outcome.
     This is why every election season, both sides promise change. The change is that some other people should take a turn being at the bottom of the hill, and we all get first hand knowledge of what rolls downhill.
     Plumbers already know it, and the rest of us find out, every two to four years.
     Folks have become impatient with this. As shown in the effort to recall Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, public employees objected strenuously to being thrown downhill by having their union agreements tossed out, so they wanted a mulligan.
     I hear that's a term used in golf, another game that involves going into the hole as quickly as you can. It means a do-over after you've had a bad result.
     It means the losers don't like the results of the election and want to do it over, now, not wait for the usual four years for another election.
     It's the same thing that Republicans all over America have been wanting since the election of President Obama.
     Allowing a mulligan in golf is not all that disruptive, but in politics, it can get chaotic, and expensive, and downright nasty.
     The teachers and other public employees lost, but those who pay taxes and, therefore, the wages and benefits of public employees, consider it a win. They can relate to the folks who -- for the moment -- hold the top of the hill.
     It's complicated. Taxpayers are also parents, and business owners, and users of public parks, emergency services and other things that we Americans consider our due.
     We have come to assume that public employees have an unfair edge, so we don't seem to mind too much when the retired school secretary,  who was counting on that retirement benefit, has it yanked away overnight.
     I heard one retired secretary say her insurance costs went up from under $100 a month to more than $800 with the new budget forced on the school board by the county commissioners.
     Same with a teacher, who took the job here not for the money as much as for job satisfaction, sweetened by a nice insurance package. He's still working, a long way from retirement, but his costs went up by almost $900 a month.
     But, hey, it's just a game of King of the Hill. They're at the bottom, probably always will be, while the Democrats and the Republicans change players every couple of years but never really lose, because they invented the game, and the rules.