By now, you have probably seen this photo. It is the state legislature in Connecticut in session. To the right a gentleman is standing and speaking. No one is paying attention to him...we see two games of solitaire in progress, one baseball game and one screen looks a bit like Facebook. This is what political discourse has devolved to in our nation. These folks in Connecticut just happened to get caught. Most state legislatures that I have seen have a laptop issued when you take office, this could just as easily been Tennessee, Maryland or Utah. It could be Washington D.C., for that matter, but they generally a) don't take their laptops into session and b) barely know how to use them.
Part of the problem is the society we live in. The laptop, though it is a phenomenally powerful tool, has become another layer in many human relationships. Kids (and now adults) don't talk to each other, they text or Facebook or Twitter. The understanding and growth that happens when two people discuss a topic face to face does not occur. Seeing the nuance in a facial expression is lost. I see it in the classroom on both sides of the divide. Professors who have prepared lectures in PowerPoint years ago, no longer teach - they work their way through the PowerPoint. Students no longer sit in class and consider what the Professor is teaching, digest the material and write notes. At the college level and above and now many high schools, the students, armed with their laptops, are filling in the blank on the PowerPoint slides at best...at worst, they are acting like state legislatures. In this weird way, these legislators are acting, well, just like us.
But at the political level, we are dealing with an ossified party system and a set of people that, with few exceptions, no longer do this to serve the people...think Nancy Pelosi. Rather, to be elected in America today, is to join a class of people and begin the pre-set scrimmage of saying what your party leaders want you to say - the daily talking points...then go play solitaire on their laptops. The step-children of this mindset of apathy are ignorance and arrogance. Bear with me and watch Exhibit A:
Now, I know what you are thinking: "did he really just say that being greater in debt means you have a higher net worth?" That's the ignorance part. The arrogance part is when he goes on to suggest that his interlocutor didn't graduate from a decent enough university. (In the world of liberwocky, wouldn't that count for being anti-Hispanic? The university scoffingly maligned is the University of Puerto Rico.
What happened this past summer, the "Summer of Outrage," is that national sentiment, everyday Americans, boiled over. It was, on the whole, a mild summer (at least here in normally sweltering fever-swamp humid Tennessee), but tempers flared as years of putting up with it came pouring out. If you watch the videos of the various town hall meetings, some common threads emerge:
a) the citizens know much more about the subject matter than the Congresspeople.
b) the Congresspeople generally looked amazed - they have that look of surprise that a kid in a classroom might get when the Professor suddenly appears behind them and catches them playing solitaire on their laptop.
c) the citizenry is mad.
We are reaching a dangerous point in this country, where Congress had better be darned careful about pushing too hard. I say this apolitically too - people are just as mad at the 'Phants as they are at the Donks. I will say that our local Congresswoman, Marsha Blackburn, is a pretty big exception to the rule. I attended her town hall, and it was more of a love-fest - she is serving her constituency and listening to what they have to say. Unlike the vast majority of these folk who are NOT listening to their constituency and playing solitaire on their laptops. In it's arrogance, Congress has forgotten that they serve the people, not the other way around. And they have forgotten that they need the people. Not just for votes either, but for information. Some years ago, I used to lobby in Washington on an annual basis on behalf of the multi-family industry. I saw first hand the arrogance of an ossified legislator when we visited with Senator Jim Sasser (Remember him, Mr. "Deyafaceyet"? Face to face, he knew how to say the word in three syllables.) - in front of us, his chief of staff reviewed the contribution list. When it was apparent that the "Greater Nashville Apartment Association" wasn't on the list, Senator Sasser got up and walked out. No, he didn't say "got to run," or "see you later..." he said nothing, simply nodded, got up and walked out. I saw the apathy in numerous meetings with Senators and Congressmen who would sit in our short meetings and clean their nails....and don't get me started on the ignorance!
One particularly enlightening meeting took place with then Representative Van Hilleary. He had listened quite attentively as we ticked off our list of concerns. At one point, I apologized that it seemed we were "opposed to everything that was going on." He quickly stopped me and said "No apology necessary." He reached behind his desk and hoisted a stack of paper onto his desk that was about a foot and a half high. He then pulled a small stack of index cards from his shirt pocket - looked for a matching number then said: "You see this stack of paper? That's a bill. You see this index card? That's all I know about this bill. If you are not involved in the process, reading this stuff, God only knows what will get passed."
This is why we have to be engaged. Van Hilleary was only being honest. It would be physically impossible for any representative to read all the fine print in the bills, especially when they get marked up and hustled down to the floor minutes before a vote. If your Congressman or Senator tells you they have read the bill, they are probably lying. But they are arrogant enough to believe you will never call them on it. But they no longer serve you. Once they make it to Washington for the first time, many with the noblest of intentions, they become part of the system - a system, that sadly has become a machine for self aggrandizement and re-election. Play along with the system and the party doesn't run an opposing candidate in your district and you get lots of campaign cash to throw around...to say nothing of some nice fat slabs of bacon for your peeps back home. Be noble, try to rise above the fray and do what is right and you face destruction. The benefits of playing along lead to a rise in apathy. The longevity of this apathetic embrace of office lead to a shutdown of the brain, to ignorance and eventually to arrogance. They lead to Pete Stark telling a reporter with a reasonable question to "get the f**k out of my office."
Echoing Tolstoy, "what then must we do?" I offer the following five part program for returning our system of governance to its noble purpose:
1. Term limits - Thomas Jefferson famously said that the "tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots." Term limits is a non-violent means of achieving that infusion of fresh blood. We, no they, have lost what it means to serve - this can only be restored when the job becomes something you do at a point in your life, not a career. There are groups out there, like U.S. Term Limits, that are actively advocating term limits - get involved!
2. Engagement - Obama keeps issuing these calls to service...here's one. Serve your country by being engaged in the political process. Most of what our Congress sees is available on line. Be a citizen - read the bills and educate your neighbors about it. Then educate your Congressperson and Senators. Write letters, e-mails, get to know the staff. The passion of the Summer of Outrage will fade, but this nation needs a core of engaged people of both political persuasions to stay on top of the legislation. Engage the local media too - they are just as apathetic, ignorant and arrogant as the folks in Washington...time for a wake up call!
3. Education - Start a program of civic education at home with your own children. What they teach in the schools is by and large rubbish. They are taught all about multi-culturalism and diversity while completely ignoring the great accomplishments that this nation has produced. They certainly learn nothing about basic economics...if they did, and they got a look at the national debt, our school children would weep for what we have done to them. Take the time to review your child's textbooks if you want to get a scary look at what is being taught.
4. Define the Debate - whether it is capitalism, climate change or healthcare, radicals are very good at declaring the crisis and presenting a solution before any consensus is even reached on what the problem is. I have written here and over at the Rumbler Report, numerous times that conservatives and independents need to do a better job of understanding our opponents and forcing them to slow down and define their terms. The so-called health care crisis, for example, can be pretty easily picked apart if you force them to prove their assertions about "48 million uninsured," or the doozies like Obama's assertions that physicians will ghoulishly "chop off a leg" or "extract a tonsil," just for profit. Liberals don't like debates, facts scare them.
5. Attitude - approach this task of taking back our nation with happiness. We are doing good works! Think about Ronald Reagan's cheery approach to the darkest of times and the reassurance he gave us that it was still "morning in America," and that our "best days were yet to come." That spirit of optimistic conservatism is contagious. Along with the spirit, we have to offer solutions when real problems are identified. Do it with gusto, whether it is the economic benefits of free markets, or the increase in revenues that occur when you cut taxes and generate job growth, have fun skewering statist radicals with the facts!
I am not going to kid you that our task is easy. These are dark times (oh Lord, will an Anonymous liberal commenter tag me for a racist, insensitive remark?) ; I, for one, do not believe in Pete Stark's philosophy that greater debt is better. I can show him very calmly in any copy of "Economics for Dummies," that such is not the case - we cannot spend our way to surplus. But in this winter, I believe, the seeds of a new beginning are being sown. I believe in our hardship, Americans are rediscovering simple virtues like family and frugality. Anecdotally, I am noticing more bodies in the pews of our church. I get the sense that America has come to the brink of the socialist abyss, stared into that dark pit and seen the ruins of the Canadian and British healthcare systems, the starry eyed cult children of North Korea and Nazi Germany and we are repulsed. Perhaps we are reconnecting with the notion that there is something exceptional about being Americans In the words of Reagan, concluding his first Inaugural Address:
"The crisis we are facing...does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which confront us. And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans."
Let's do this.
Rumble on!