2.21.07 Choosing Day: Congress or Progress?
(The following address has been slated to be given on the House floor ASAP. It is to be delivered in support of a binding resolution to take effect immediately. If only there is someone to give it.)
This sacred assembly has a dubious history of habitually venerating our so called long established principles. Each year we are reminded that the United States Congress is one of the most exemplary deliberative bodies in the world. Brandishing this sword, countless knights are emboldened to deliver their Holy Grail, their bills and resolutions to the floor of this body. Year after year these Don Quixote’s threaten to drown this assembly in democratic despotism. The health of a democracy is not measured by volume. That would result in a cacophonous kakistocracy. Unchecked power to the people would result in a tyranny of the majority antithetical to the very principle upon which our own democracy is based. It is time for this assembly to quit its love affair with seemingly endless trivia which not only keep us here late but far more damaging keep us from truly debating and deliberating over those issues which our entire nation is interested - namely securing a more perfect union.
Would we expect the American Medical Association to be debating homework policies at their convention?
Would we expect the AFL-CIO to be debating the merits of math and science exams given in other industrial countries?
Would we expect the Chamber of Commerce to be debating teachers’ salaries?
Yet how many non-germane bills and [non binding] resolutions must we wade through this year? The cynical side of me wonders if such practices are intentional. Endless streams of nonsense prevents this body from giving their undivided attention to the people’s real business such as securing our homeland not to mention budget accountability of which we debate very little here. Where did our common sense go? How long can we put off dealing with our real problems? Seemingly there is not time for this because of our partisan tirades and tricks.
James Madison once said, “The very success of democracy depends upon the knowledge and skills of its citizens.” It is time for this body to quit boasting about how many kooks we have in the kitchen and revel in its democratic aristocracy committed to truth and justice for all. This does not mean endless chatter, but meaningful and purposeful discussion on what truly matters most for all of us here...a nation committed to the basic truth “that all men are created equal.” A nation committed to democratic principles is something truly to boast about.
I move to suspend all non binding resolutions and begin to hold ourselves accountable to the people’s business which is of course to govern.
We are, after all, the government. Let us govern. Let us govern today.
posted by CitizenU @ 8:58 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
CitizenU, your devotion to the idea of more efficient government is admirable, but the logic in this piece confuses me. We should stop saying that we have a lot of people involved in the government, because that would be mob rule. The solution you propose to this problem it to get everybody to oversee the government? Either every citizen has a voice, or they don't. I agree that Congress should cease dealing in non-binding resolutions and trvial matters. I also agree that the people should continue to excercise the control we demonstrated in November 2006. I don;t understand your attack on "mob rule," for that is exactly what you propose at the end of your piece.
As I said, the people exerted their voice on last Election Day. A relatively high voter turnout and a near-complete sweeping of Congress is the most the American people could do within the law in order to fix the system. Unless you propose armed revolt, any more sweeping reforms will have to wait until 2008. If you can legally rally the American people into Congressional picketing and letter-writing campaigns before the next election, more power to you, but I think it is more likely that we can change the culture in Washington by ushering out the old and corrupt rather than pleading for them to listen to us.
A part of the real issue here is that, like the do-nothing 109th Congress, the 110th Congress will also be do-nothing. Both parties will engage in “gotcha” politics through the November 2008 election, then will further engage in in do-nothingness in the future 111th Congress until the mid-terms in 2010.
The Democrats are just as corrupt as the Republicans. Speaker Pelosi can praise herself for the House’s minimum wage proposal, but there was little press regarding the fact that she bowed to her special interest friends to exempt certain businesses within her district from raising the salaries of their employees.
The ever infamous porker Sen. Byrd believes that the appropriations process means sending federal dollars to his alma mater to fund a a special Robert Byrd Center as well to West Virginia. Both parties engage in pork spending that has increased the national debt to nearly ten trillion dollars.
Watch the dialogues on the Congressional floor. Members of Congress will spend more time discussing the naming of a post office rather the deliberating the merits of a national health care program first proposed by President Truman in the late 1940s.
The Congress will hound each other for days over Pelosi One (her jet) rather than deal in any significant way with the quagmire that is Iraq. Democrats patted themselves on the back over a meaningless non-binding resolution.
Sen. Harry Reid today bowed to the AFSMCE, indicating that the Democrats have never had a better ally than this interest group (is this the standard line to each interest group?). Republicans also state their appreciation to the special interests which support their causes.
But rarely will we the citizens witness our modern Congresses taking of the nation’s business the way that it should and must.
It is amazing that this nation has survived this long with the shenanigans taking place in D.C.
Are these people for real? Are they truly representing the interests of the nation as a whole?
If you want change, voters, we had better consider political alternatives to the Demopublicans and the Republicrats.
Of course, we could also invoke the second paragraph of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence: “. . . when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
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