UNEXPRESSED POLITICAL FRUSTRATIONS

A troubling situation exists in this country. Let me explain. I am terrible upset with the way certain congressional representatives act including Senators. At the moment, it is the almost infantile behavior of Senators McCain (Arizona) Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), but especially Ted Cruz of Texas, in respect to Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Secretary of Defense. They are acting well below the expected dignity of the Senate. The frustration comes because I can no nothing about it. They are not from my state so I cannot vote for or against them, yet they are making decisions that affect the entire nation and not just my state. This is to be expected and is OK when the senate acts as a collective body. The final decision is the collective will of the entire nation—that is republicanism at work. However, their extremely bad conduct reflects poorly on our entire government. In my mind, this is not OK. However, the major point I want to make is that the rules of the Senate are such that they can prevent the working of the will of the nation and, as things stand, I can do nothing about it. I want to see these people removed from the Senate and replaced by reasonable people who will represent their constituents according to the politics of their districts but do it with some dignity.

To complicate the situation, the e-mail thing does not work; at least as I found out after an hour or so of frustrations. Several years ago, I was upset with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. She was chairperson of a Senate Committee. When I tried to reach her e-mail, it asked for a zip code. If the zip code were not from Maine, her web site would not accept my message. I could have lied but that would serve no purpose. Unlike in matters of bad personal conduct, legislative matters are home state issues. I should not have been complaining.  At the time, I thought I was right. I felt she, as committee chair, was making decisions that affected the nation; hence, my home state but I had no way of even trying to influencing her. That is republicanism. However, all citizens should chastise bad personal conduct regardless of state of origin of the representative even if we cannot do it by e-mail. Thus, there seems to be no way to restore civility to government.

If people every state, who were interested in good government, set up two agencies, panels, or groups of some kind, one for each political party, with a bank account to receive donations, I would be willing to donate to the campaign of the opposition of the anomalous senator irrespective of the party affiliation of the challenger. It wouldn’t be much but it would be something. At least, I would feel better, just like I feel better after writing this post.