October 06, 2009

This is what's going to be the final straw

There's been a lot of discussion about how the voters are angry and much speculation by The Punditry over why those teabagging racist bitter clinging assassins the citizenry is ticked off. Well, I think this sums it up quite well:

While most Americans normally ignore parliamentary detail, with health care looming, voters are suddenly paying attention. The Senate is expected to vote on a health bill in the weeks to come, representing months of work and stretching to hundreds of pages. And as of now, there is no assurance that members of the public, or even the senators themselves, will be given the chance to read the legislation before a vote.

From here (emphasis mine).

As others around this here Moron Blog have noted (which I do sometimes read in direct violation of the Moron Blogging Code), there is a societal contract that permits the American version of representative democracy to work.  The citizenry elects a representative to represent their interests.  In return for being given that power, the representative agrees not to abuse that trust too much.  Look, let's be blunt, everyone expects the reps to get their beaks wet at least a little bit.   The only point of being on, say, the sewer authority, is to get your idiot nephew a job.  The public is aware of this and will put up with some wink wink nudge nudge type deals.

But there is a line over which the elected officials aren't supposed to go.  Voting on bills that they haven't read, hell, that haven't even been written yet is one of them.  The public isn't completely idiotic, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.  The bare minimum that a Senator should do is, at the very least, be physically able to read the bill before voting on it.  Having 1,000+ page bills not even finished until 13 hours before a vote is insane.

I submit that this open and blatant violation of the most basic trust is what is fueling the rage.  The political class isn't even pretending that the concerns of the citizenry are important.  That, in turn, will lead the citizenry to revolt.  As well it should. 

If our legislators won't deign to do their jobs, well, I'll be happy to assist them in finding new ones. 

Posted by: alexthechick at 12:24 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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