On MightyHeaton.com, Kevin Halligen writes a brillant perspective of American democracy that deserves our attention in order to better under our political system.
“One of the interesting things about living in a democracy is that we actually get what we deserve. That’s the basic premise behind democracies. Yet if you speak with an average American voter, they talk as if a bunch of lawyers snuck into Congress one day and we need to hire exterminators to come in and gas them.
“Who exactly do they think elects these people?
“Careful research indicates that we do.
“Many people believe that in some golden era of American governance, politicians all selflessly made pilgrimages to Washington to frequently attend church and grow handlebar mustaches and fight communists. Until recently. Then they all turned into assholes, and such is why the Republic is flushing down the tubes. In essence, much of America believes that national decline is the direct result of moral atrophy.
“It’s not. There are specific, systemic problems with our government that have nothing to do with how morally upstanding the people running it are. These systemic issues won’t be fixed by kamikaze politicians careening into Washington to wage cultural wars and restore virtue. These systemic problems result largely because people lack the ability to understand them.
“Let’s acknowledge that stupid people do not like tinkering with abstract, complicated problems. They like blaming people. People are easier to get blustery over than concepts.
“We as Americans believe our government has failed us because of its decline in character. We do not think there are complex systemic problems, because we are too lazy to actually analyze them. So instead we crank out angry sloth logic and assume that the ills of our nation spring from a crop of wicked politicians. If we simply had grittier, more morally upstanding representatives, who pray more and philander less, then the debt would magically go away. Or so the logic goes.
“Voters continually lament the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, as if that’s something they actually wanted. Americans don’t want their representatives to be bipartisan, they want everyone else to be bipartisan. Their guy is supposed to go to Washington to lay down the law and restore sanity. This is problematic because no functional government can be composed of 535 Prophet Elijah’s all calling down plumes of fire on the heathens. Somebody actually has to get shit done.
“If you think Washington is falling apart because we keep sending up crummy politicians, I suggest you turn your focus to whoever is sending the alleged miscreants up here.“
http://www.mightyheaton.com/2012/06/14/i-dont-blame-congress-i-blame-you/
