Our actual and possible leaders are insulated from questions from actual citizens by a phalanx of hoplite infantry (whose services are not needed on any Greek frontier at this juncture).
How can this be healthy for the republic and aren't we seeing in this very sad fact all the proof we need that America is anything but a constitutional republic?
We have lost control of our government.
Politicians are not accountable to voters in the electoral process, they are safe from annoying citizens with hard questions, they are served by a press corps who would rather have sex-change surgery than ask a question about a serious issue (or report the truth), and they can finesse any inquiry from any citizen phoning or writing to ask specific questions. "Dear Valued Constituent: Thank you for your thoughtful letter. You and many others have asked similar questions that I have taken the liberty of answering in this letter . . . ."
H/t: Linda Fox.
Dear Valued Constituent: Thank you for your thoughtful letter. You and many others have asked similar questions that I have taken the liberty of answering in this letter ... ."
ReplyDeleteI endured several years of such responses from my FORMER (love that word) Congresscritter Eric Cantor, in all of which it would be easier to nail Jello to a tree than to find a real "answer" in such letters. The last response received in essence said, "Thanks for contacting us." No mention of the matter about which I wrote, much less any even vague hint as to his stand on the matter.
I am going to put this up as a separate post but this video, The Tiny Dot, sums up how deluded we are to think that we have any real influence. I know that Congressmen figure that X number of letters, calls, faxes translate into supposed actual numbers of constituents who think the same way but, even then, you're only part of a metric, if that's the right word. Your letter might be multiplied by 10 in their mind but if you're not a big donor your substantive views don't matter.
ReplyDeleteI gather from reading stuff recently about the electoral process that the real weakness for the base in any party is that it doesn't turn out in the primaries. The party apparatchiki are the ones who turn out and so skew the result. It seems the most effect one can have is that point, a la Cantor.