Our elected representatives act as if they have been elected to represent only those people who voted for them or who agree with them. Actually, they represent all the people within particular geographical entities, districts, or states. (The President and Vice President probably don't technically represent the nation in the same way, but they are responsible to and for all of us.) They represent people who did not vote for them, who do not approve of them, who do not like or agree with what they do just as surely as they represent their supporters. At the very least, they are accountable to them. But most now seem to operate as if they have only to please their own group and kind. That's called "the base," and to "the base" they must "appeal."
Those same representatives also seem limited to act in ways that benefit their own people in their own entity, district, or state. Local concern and interest is perfectly understandable, and few will stay in office long if they do not take care of things at home. But they are also to be responsible to the constitution of the United States, and through it to all the people. It's hard work to look out for your own interests while keeping an eye on the greater good for the greater number, but that's the kind of work we need done today.
The reason our representatives act as they do is because it's how many of us act most of time: only I matter, and the only real question is "what's in it for me?"
I'd continue to support the people I've voted for even if they negotiated away some of the things that benefit me in an effort to reach compromises with others that would solve our common problems. I'm thinking of Social Security and Medicare, from which I benefit greatly. Of course, they'll say they can't find anyone on "the other side" to negotiate with because no one "over there" will compromise their positions. I can't believe that. We need courageous leaders of both parties and all persuasions to do the work of governing together.
Shame on all who take pleasure in the premature conclusion that Obama's is a failed presidency. A failed presidency means a failed nation, a failed people, a failed government, especially when the legislative branch has also failed and the judicial branch (represented by the Supreme Court) is politicized and compromised. There's no joy in any of that...unless you want the US to be a failed state.
If Obama's presidency proves to have been a failure (and I don't agree with the conclusion, not yet), there's blame all around. He's contributed more than his share of his own failings, but at the same time many set out from the very beginning to make sure his administration failed. There's more than enough blame to go around, none of it helpful.
The members of the Supreme Court should all be required to read and absorb Reinhold Niebuhr's 1932 classic, "Moral Man and Immoral Society." If I recall correctly, Niebuhr's point is that while individuals may be moral and ethical on their own, when they band together into a "society" (any kind of grouping) that has its own interests, that society inevitably tends toward doing things those very same individuals consider immoral and unethical. Therefore, it seems to me, the freedoms allowed to and restrictions placed upon societies must be different from the freedoms allowed to and the restrictions placed upon individuals. Example: Hobby Lobby's owners may be fine folks as individuals, but their society (Hobby Lobby, Inc, or whatever) is not the same as they are, will inevitably tend toward acting in ways they would not act personally, and requires different understandings of its rights and responsibilities.
States charter corporations. States grant corporations permission to exist in order to carry out activities and businesses the state does not or cannot take on for itself and to minimize risk to the individuals who invest time and money in them. Therefore, corporations bear responsibility not only to their particular stakeholders, but also for the common good. I am not able to work my way though the thicket of laws and regulations and precedents around all this, but at the very least it seems to me that the state is not doing its job if it allows corporations to do whatever the hell they want. Somehow we the people are allowing the tables to be turned upon the government that Lincoln said is to be of, by, and for us.
Hobby Lobby's "ministries" has a full page ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer this morning that contains a bunch of quotes (all from the 19th century or earlier, I believe) intending to prove ours is a Christian nation, and inviting folks to come to Jesus. Perhaps emboldened by the Supreme Court, they are pushing the envelope further, and this is what they are saying: "Sorry about you Jews, Muslims, atheists, Wiccans, whatever: not only are you not wanted in Hobby Lobby, you are not welcome in this nation." Makes me want to burn my own Christian credentials.
Are we on our way to becoming armed camps of religious fanatics who cannot bear the idea of living with and working with and being friends with people who are not just like us? Is that what some want us to become: a failed state, individuals armed to the teeth, fearful of diversity and difference, on the march in the name of Jesus or whomever. Our world is not a better place because of such fundamentalist theocracies.
I want to do more than complain, than to express my distress about our state of affairs. But when I consider becoming active in movements and organizations that believe in the things I believe in, I fear contributing to the disfunction and gridlock that paralyze us. I distrust quick and dirty and predictable responses to everything that happens the moment it happens, even when they come from people and organizations with which I basically agree. What can I do that will really help? Distress!
