First Political Blog

Open up the paper and what is it? Politicians acting stupid. This time its Democrats instead of Republicans, but a few years ago the roles were reversed. Every time a party gets in power these things arise. What is it with the people we elect that they get to Congress and lose all sense of responsibility, propriety, and ethics?

I think part of the issue is the artificiality to which we've grown accustomed. We play Wii sports instead of real sports, we eat McNuggets instead of real chicken. We elect empty suits and skirts instead of real people. Yeah, there's an issue of the culture of Washington, the insulation, the lack of real connection with real people, but there is more than that. Politics has become so ugly, despised, and viewed as ineffective that the best and the brightest don't want to be a part of it.

Politics used to be viewed as a public service; smart, effective people saw it as their duty to serve the country in elected office for a while then return to their lives. This is no longer the case, we have people coming straight out of law school (or whatever) and getting elected to something. They never hold real jobs, they never produce anything, they're just politicians. We need to reverse this trend.

To do this though we have to make politics less of a blood sport. Why would someone want to run for office knowing every minute indiscretion they (or their entire family) have made will be brought before the world? Its no longer enough just to disagree, we have to personally destroy those who disagree with us. THIS HAS TO STOP!! People can have legitimate disagreements on big issues without being vilifying each other.

Being Americans we want an easy fix. Many think term limits is the answer. On the face of it, this makes sense. My biggest issue is that its fundamentally undemocratic. Arbitrarily saying someone can no longer be in office isn't right. The real solution would be for individuals to take personal responsibility to be engaged, educated, and informed voters rather than just picking candidates by the letter after their name. I don't have a lot of faith this will happen. I hope I'm wrong.