Sparring with Potential Texas State Representative Peter Veeck
Attempting to Prevent the Failure of Justice and Equality in Grayson and Fannin Counties
Sitting in downtown Denison south of the Red River, Mr. Peter Veeck (pronounced as in wreck) talks about national, state, and local politics with ease and passion. He is in the process of running for State Representative in District 62, which covers Grayson and Fannin counties.
Mr. Veeck stated that he is “mad as hell” about most things in national, state, and local politics. He said, “What is the purpose of government? The government’s purpose has been the preservation of government. To government, citizens have become secondary.”
When asked to clarify, he said, “Today, we have a government by the government, of the government, and for the government. That is not how it was set up to be run.”
Even though Mr. Veeck does not know what lengthy formalities or excess funds will be necessary to run for State Representative of Texas in District 62, he already knows that the incumbent Republican candidate in his district is Mr. Larry Phillips.
Mr. Veeck intends to ask Representative Phillips “what money he received from Tom Delay’s laundryful.” Mr. Delay is a Republican who allegedly laundered corporate-money in Texas for campaign finance.
Mr. Veeck paraphrased Supreme Court Justice Brandise to express, “The government sets the laws and so the government is the example. When the government doesn’t follow the laws, then no body is going to follow the laws, and there is anarchy.”
When asked if he thought there was a trend of the government heading towards anarchy because there are too many law-breakers in government, he said, “I think there is anarchy already.”
When asked about what he thought about the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively, Mr. Veeck stated, “The Republican party is built from the top-down. The Democratic party is built from the bottom-up.”
When asked about which party he thought harbored more law-breakers, he said, “I don’t think there’s a dime’s worth of difference between them. The crooks use both parties to benefit themselves.”
Describing the government as a “bureaucracy”, Mr. Veeck asked, “Who gets blamed for everything? Even in the military, what happened with the torture at Abu Grahib? Who did they go after, and who did they get? The soldiers, not the higher-ups who knew about it.”
Mr. Veeck then made an analogy between military discipline and the legal-action against government officials when he said, “Okay, what happens in government? It’s the same thing. The people on the bottom get blamed for everything, not the supervisor or the next manager up the chain.” He described how “social responsibility” seems to dissolve as it rises through the chain-of-command.
In regards to a solution, Mr. Veeck said, “There cannot be this double-standard where the government expects more of the people than themselves. If they can’t even follow their own rules, then they cannot expect the people to follow them.”
When asked about how to purge those in government who break the law, Mr. Veeck replied with another analogy, “What happens when you wash beans? When you wash the beans, all the bad ones rise to the top. It’s the same way in politics – you have to flush out the bad ones.”
Mr. Veeck admitted that everyone in politics is not a crook, and he conceded, “The crooks probably did not become crooks because they got involved in government. They were crooks before they got into politics. They only ran to get ahead. Politics does not necessarily create crooks, but it is definitely a magnet for crooks. ” He related that basically the social status of elected officials keeps them out of trouble.
Mr. Veeck believes that local politics is a “microcosm” of state and national politics in which “crooks” rise in government “straight to the top”. When asked how, he replied, “Because elected officials become professionals who make a career out of what was conceived to be a temporary job, not a career – that’s why elected officials have term-limits.”
Mr. Veeck elaborated the privileges of elected officials when he said, “What other temporary job comes with benefits, medical insurance, and retirement? Not many. I don’t know of any – very few. Elected officials have become professionals with pensions – that was not the vision of the Founding Fathers.”
Mr. Veeck described how an elected office gave individuals professional security when the whole design of an elected office is temporary by nature, even when the government has to “throw the good ones out with the bad ones” because of term-limits.
Mr. Veeck recently attended a Democratic workshop sponsored by the State of Texas to find out some basic information about what it takes to run for State Representative in District 62. Mr. Veeck discovered that he needs 500 signatures, “not just from any ordinary citizens, but from registered voters in particular – or, I can pay them $750.”
Asking Mr. Veeck how he sees a political showdown, he said, “What do they do in politics? The candidates bring out all the skeletons in the opponent’s closet. Well, I don’t have any skeletons. What are they going to find? I went to jail, and that is why I am here.”
Begging for more details about his confession of incarceration, Mr. Veeck related that he began to show symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis 25 years ago, and he was arrested on July 2, 2005, for Public Intoxication even though he requested a breathalyzer or the blood-test to prove his innocence for the Sheriff’s deputy who arrested him.
Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the brain that literally means “multiple scarring”. The officer apparently confused the symptoms of MS with alcohol-intoxication, and he did not bother to give a definitive test to find out whether Mr. Veeck was intoxicated as he denied.
Instead of going home that night, Mr. Veeck was taken to the Grayson County Jail and booked for PI, where he stayed for three days without medication for MS, which he also requested. He said, “Without a definitive test to assess Public Intoxication, the procedure discriminates against people with neurological disorders,” and he claimed that it violates the American with Disabilities Act, which is a federal law.
Mr. Veeck’s trouble did not end with the deputy who arrested him. After being taken to the Grayson County Jail, he was henceforth deprived of medication for three days, and it is vital to his physical and mental functioning. He asked, “If I am a ward of the state, then I am entitled to medical attention and medication. What they did was unconstitutional, and I have suffered some damage.”
Mr. Veeck said that he was only “toying with political office” until the night of July 2nd. He said, “I feel like I have been treated like most people are treated, and it’s not properly. I’m not going to take it anymore.”
The Public Intoxication charge was dropped because there was no evidence of any crime – the breathalyzer or a blood-test would have told the officer what he needed to know either way. Mr. Veeck even had a witness to his sobriety that night, and he was in the process of getting into a car with the witness who was driving.
He asked, “Where is the evidence of my intoxication? There is none. There is no evidence of intoxication because the officer refused to test me, but then he arrested me for it. If he cannot charge me for a crime, then how can he arrest me for it? What did they do with the charge?”
Describing how he was arrested even though the local District Attorney’s office later dropped the charge because there was no case against him, Mr. Veeck stated, “That is a problem whether I am disabled or not.”
Through his experience at the hands of a local law-enforcement official and his three day stay in the county jail, Mr. Veeck said, “If somebody besides the county jail incarcerated me for any reason and deprived me of medication, then they would be guilty of a crime and the neglect of a disabled citizen.” Mr. Veeck said, “Those actions violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. The government treats retirees and the disabled as if they are worthless.”
Mr. Veeck said, “After those three days in jail, I no longer believed that July 4th is the most important day to celebrate freedom in America. Now, believe that election day is the most important day for freedom, because freedom is not about a party, it is about reasserting one’s rights as a citizen of this country, whether it is running for office or voting.”
One cannot help but to relate with the frustration of Mr. Veeck. He said, “I’ve been told on the arrest that I could file a suit against them if I had $25,000, so, it is obvious that I can’t solve the problem here. I figure I can solve the problem better in Austin.”
Mr. Veeck offered another example of one of the problems he sees. He asked, “What are the TABC officers supposed to do when they confiscate illicit beverages and give out Minor in Possession tickets to the young people?”
Mr. Veeck answered his own question by saying, “They are supposed to confiscate the wrapper and the container to hold as evidence of the crime, and then they are supposed to send three notices – one to the state, one to the individual receiving the ticket, and one to the officer.”
When asked about why he was scrutinizing the technicalities of law-enforcement and legal procedure so diligently, Mr. Veeck responded sharply, “Because they knit-pick everybody else on the rules, and if they can’t even follow them, then there is a double-standard that is unequal before the law because they expect people to follow the rules even though they don’t.”
Perhaps a good question regarding the injustice and neglect he claims to have suffered, Mr. Veeck asks, “Why is it that when the government breaks the law like they did with me, then no one will even investigate it, not even the Adult Protective Services? Why? Because that is just another branch of government.”
Mr. Veeck described a government on all levels that is overzealous in policing “John Q. Citizen” but incapable of policing themselves. He claimed that he is not the only person who has been treated in a way that is “not only preventable and irresponsible, but also unconstitutional, which is illegal.”
When asked what he wants, Mr. Veeck replied, “What most Americans want, which is for the consequences of breaking the law to be enforced on law breakers everywhere, whether they are in a uniform or an elected official”.
Mr. Veeck does not seem to budge on his principles and passion for justice and equality before the law. Always shrewdly and sometimes with distemper, he expressed that there can be no justice when individuals in the government are treated unequally from the rest of the people. He said, “It just will not work. That is what failed in Russia. There were two classes of people, the government and everybody else. We are heading in that direction and it will not work here either.”
Instead of considering his anger as a problem, Mr. Veeck confesses, “For me, it does the opposite – because of MS, I need as much brain-stimulation as possible. Anger stimulates my brain, and any brain-activity for people with MS is good. It’s like therapy for me.”
Vowing to “take lawbreakers off the street – whether they are in uniform, on the street, or in office,” Mr. Veeck said, “I don’t see any answers here, but I see lots of problems.”
Talking with him about his plans to run for political office is exciting, and although he is frustrated about the injustice and inequality he sees, whether because of race, gender, disability, or age, his intelligence seems to grow more fierce with his frustration. Among all the problems he sees, he is also quite harsh on non-voters.
He said, “Not voting is the same thing as a vote for the winner. So many people don’t vote – that is how all the crooks rise to the top. Government should not keep the people out and treat them differently – whether they are poor, a minority, or disabled – I want to see people to reclaim their government from the crooks.”
When asked why he was driven to run for political office, he said, “Well, I have tried voting, and the votes are supposed to count, but what really counts is who counts the votes.”
