To what standard do we hold our elected officials? Is it to hold the party line? To push back on the opposition party at every turn? To travel in packs and never show the slightest sign of breaking ranks? To follow party leaders without any independent thought? To let the public opinion polls decide how they vote on every issue?
Our government has important work to do. It is responsible for trying to solve our biggest problems, like climate change, unemployment, and abuses of the financial system that have led, and could lead again, to economic catastrophe. Whether the solutions favor a hands-off approach or a strong governmental hand through regulation, we send our elected representatives to Washington with the expectation that they will find and implement the solutions that best protect us, the people whom they serve.
In this extreme partisan era, the gap between the vision and the reality should disturb us. It should bother us when Harry Reid puts immigration ahead of a bipartisan climate change bill, allegedly because he sees an opportunity to attract votes in his close race for reelection. It should bother us when Republican Lindsey Graham withdraws his support of the climate change bill that he reportedly has worked on for months with Democratic Senator John Kerry and independent Joe Lieberman, apparently in reaction to Reid's sudden shift. If the reports of these events are accurate, they are just the most recent examples of how politicians shamelessly hold the interests of Americans hostage to their own self-interests and partisan politics.
On the other side of the spectrum are people like Bart Stupak, Democratic Representative from Michigan,who acted on principle in the healthcare debate, drew the ire of his anti-abortion supporters for doing so, and then announced his resignation from Congress. Equally noteworthy is Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who reportedly has begun to break ranks from his party in recognition that Senator Dodd's proposed financial reform bill is not a bailout, as Republican propagandists would have us believe. Whatever one believes about the positions these congressmen have taken, they stand out because unlike so much else that takes place in Washington, they appear to be acts of conscience, marked more by the desire to speak the truth and do what is right than by the all-powerful instincts for self-promotion and self-preservation.
It is time to hold our elected officials to this higher standard. We should elect people of conscience, who will consistently place America's interests ahead of their own, and who will exercise considered judgment and work together, collaboratively, towards the betterment of our society and the people who inhabit it. Whether such a standard will lead to decisions characterized as conservative or liberal is beside the point. What matters is that the people who make them make them honestly, intelligently and for the right reasons, and not to advance a personal or collective agenda that subordinates what is right for what is politically expedient.
If voters do not demand more, they will not receive it. It's as simple as that.
Our government has important work to do. It is responsible for trying to solve our biggest problems, like climate change, unemployment, and abuses of the financial system that have led, and could lead again, to economic catastrophe. Whether the solutions favor a hands-off approach or a strong governmental hand through regulation, we send our elected representatives to Washington with the expectation that they will find and implement the solutions that best protect us, the people whom they serve.
In this extreme partisan era, the gap between the vision and the reality should disturb us. It should bother us when Harry Reid puts immigration ahead of a bipartisan climate change bill, allegedly because he sees an opportunity to attract votes in his close race for reelection. It should bother us when Republican Lindsey Graham withdraws his support of the climate change bill that he reportedly has worked on for months with Democratic Senator John Kerry and independent Joe Lieberman, apparently in reaction to Reid's sudden shift. If the reports of these events are accurate, they are just the most recent examples of how politicians shamelessly hold the interests of Americans hostage to their own self-interests and partisan politics.
On the other side of the spectrum are people like Bart Stupak, Democratic Representative from Michigan,who acted on principle in the healthcare debate, drew the ire of his anti-abortion supporters for doing so, and then announced his resignation from Congress. Equally noteworthy is Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who reportedly has begun to break ranks from his party in recognition that Senator Dodd's proposed financial reform bill is not a bailout, as Republican propagandists would have us believe. Whatever one believes about the positions these congressmen have taken, they stand out because unlike so much else that takes place in Washington, they appear to be acts of conscience, marked more by the desire to speak the truth and do what is right than by the all-powerful instincts for self-promotion and self-preservation.
It is time to hold our elected officials to this higher standard. We should elect people of conscience, who will consistently place America's interests ahead of their own, and who will exercise considered judgment and work together, collaboratively, towards the betterment of our society and the people who inhabit it. Whether such a standard will lead to decisions characterized as conservative or liberal is beside the point. What matters is that the people who make them make them honestly, intelligently and for the right reasons, and not to advance a personal or collective agenda that subordinates what is right for what is politically expedient.
If voters do not demand more, they will not receive it. It's as simple as that.
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