We have racism, sexism, and anti-semitism. Now we have Congressism. Congressism is a dislike of Congress out of all proportion to reality. Commentators claim Congress is broken. Polls indicate that people are very dissatisfied with Congress but that they are satisfied with their own Representatives and Senators.
Wait a minute! Congress
is broken but people like their own Representatives and Senators. But Congress is made up of other people’s
Representatives and Senators. And those
other people are satisfied with their members of Congress. If all these Congress members are doing such
a good job according to the people who supposedly elected them, how can
Congress be broken?
“The Tea Party wins if we start hating our government. The solution is to
find ways to be informed and engaged in our democratic process all the time,
not just when there is a presidential election.” - Annabel Park, a
Coffee Party founder (see www.coffeepartyusa.org)
“Well, Doctor, what have we got – a Republic or a
Monarchy?” Doctor Ben Franklin replied,
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
If we don’t trust Congress, which is supposed to be most
representative of the three branches of our government, are we giving up on
keeping our republic?
So, let us not give up on our government. Let us count the ways we can improve it.
First, of course, is to show up at every election and
vote. This is especially true if you
live in a “gerrymandered” district. You
could contribute to an upset or you could reduce the margin of victory.
Also, don’t make any assumptions based on polls. Vote whether the candidate you support is
ahead or behind the polls. The polls
sample far fewer people than actually vote.
Remember also that polls can be very, very wrong. In 1998, the polls predicted Skip Humphrey,
Norm Coleman, and Jesse Ventura for governor in that order. The results were Ventura, Coleman, and
Humphrey. As far as big money in
politics, Ventura spent about one-tenth as much money per vote as either of his
opponents.
Second, write about government. Write letters to the editor. Write to your representatives. Write to the mayor, governor, or
president. You don’t need an essay. You can simply state your support or
opposition for some action. Personally,
I prefer writing directly to signing petitions.
One hundred persons writing about an issue probably has more influence
than one thousand people signing a petition.
Unless you have some compelling information for or against
an issue, a short letter is best.
Consider that the more people a politician represents, the greater the
volume of mail and the less the chance that the politician will even see your
letter. But his or her staff will
probably be counting them by subject and position.
One of the reasons Congress is “broken” is that few, if
any, members read every word of the bills they vote on. They depend on staff advice and often just
follow their party. I read that somebody
challenged Congress to read the Patriot Act before voting on it. Supposedly only one Congressman took up the
challenge and voted against it. I find
it a bit hard to believe because supposedly complete copies were not available
to Congress until twelve hours before the vote!
What’s this about the U.S. Senate being the greatest deliberative body
in the world? And people who are making
the most noise about limited government now voted for the Patriot Act then.
Maybe we should follow Grover Norquist’s example and get
Congress to sign a “Read the Bill Pledge”.
Maybe Warren Buffet or George Soros could fund this effort.
If all of these ideas seem to be getting nowhere, then
maybe a few brave souls would start a new third party. Say a few Republicans who don’t like the
theft of the Party of Lincoln by the Tea Party and Southern Conservatives and a
few Democrats who don’t care to jump whole-heartedly into every cause that some
in the party expect everybody to support unconditionally. Also, members of either party who feel that
large corporations have too much influence on a “government of the people, by
the people, for the people”.
The name I thought of was “Pragmatic Populists”. That is, the government should work for the
people as a whole with consideration that there will be conflicts of interests.
As usual, when I think I have a new and unique idea,
somebody has already thought of it. One
source I found is an analysis of Justice John Paul Stevens’ decisions with
regard to the First Amendment. Gregory
P. Magarian considers the balance that Justice Stevens sought in “The Pragmatic
Populism of Justice Stevens’ Free Speech Jurisprudence”. The abstract is at http://law.bepress.com/villanovalwps/art57/
and you can get the full text by clicking the “Download” button to the right of
the title.
I don’t know if I’ll ever finish all forty-some pages of
legal reasoning, but Magarian writes that Justice Stevens thought that the
purpose of the First Amendment was to ensure that all could participate in
political discourse, regardless of their background, status, or wealth. Justice Stevens was writing opinions in
support of this view, opposing his colleagues who interpreted the First
Amendment as protecting political speech from government interference. In other words, he didn’t think the First
Amendment protected those who had the most bucks from buying the biggest
microphones thereby overwhelming any speech of those who disagreed with them.
And the great irony is that John Paul Stevens is a
Republican appointed by a Richard Nixon, a Republican. The next irony is that Stevens seems to be
holding the ideal of protecting individual against state power and the other
conservatives seem to be favoring state or corporate power.
You can find an interesting biography of him in “TheDissenter, Justice John Paul Stevens, Majority of One”, Jeffrey Rosen, New York
Times, 2007-09-23.
"Congressism" was also published in the Reader Weekly, 2013-10-23 and can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/10/24/2305_party_of_one-2
