"We the People."
That's the opening line for the National Charter, otherwise known as The United States Constitution.
"We the People."
If we do not like what we see in government, we have to look back at ourselves.
Do we expect someone else to pay our bills?
Do we hold ourselves accountable for our failures? More importantly, do we learn from them?
Do we see solutions in Washington as victories, or failures in the National Capitol as defeats?
The ongoing clashes of power and placement in the Nation's Capitol have raised the hoary cliché of "Throw the bums out!"
We have been throwing the bums out for the past two years for decades, and the spending problems have not ceased. The desire to cut government spending, but not my government spending, has not left us.
Our attitudes about government, about politics, about the proper role of the state, have to change, and We the People have to look at "We the People" in order to establish this.
The United States Senate just drafted a continuing resolution tied with raising the debt ceiling for a few more months.
Nothing which the American People wanted. They did not want a government shutdown, and they did not want Obamacare.
They government did shutdown, but We the People still have Obamacare.
What a waste of energy, the past three weeks has been.
Forgive me for writing this so blatantly, but what was the point of US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) standing on the US Senate floor for twenty-two hours if his colleagues refused to join him in blocking any motion for cloture on the House's first continuing resolution?
What was the point of the House majority to pass continuing resolutions here and there, if they Speaker of the House had not reached out and planned in advance what they would do since the Democrats would not deal? Were they really prepared to risk default?
Now here comes the rallying cry of voters disaffected and frustrated across the country:
"Throw the bums out!"
We have been throwing the bums out for the past two years for decades, and the spending problems have not ceased. The desire to cut government spending, but not my government spending, has not left us. We have not gotten rid of the gridlock in our nation's capital.
The failure of leadership still has not changed, and may never will. Representatives represent their districts, Senators represent their states, and President Obama has no inclination of representing anyone.
"Throw the bums out!"
How many times have the American People changed who was in Congress? Still, the back-and-forth of refusing to negotiate has not changed.
I hate to write this, but there seems no better way to put it:
We have met the "bum", ladies and gentlemen, and the bum is you and I, to the degree that we keep assuming that sending the right people to represent us will fix the problems inherent in a representative democracy.
The political culture has to change. Perhaps the mounting frustration with legislative dances and executive fiat will be enough for people to stop expecting lasting results from their government.
A kindly return to the simple words of Robert Nowak is in order:
"Always love your country. Never trust your government."
That goes for Tea Party conservatives as well as progressive radicals.