Posted by
Grumpy Ol' Man on Wednesday, October 04, 2006 3:42:12 PM
Who Can You Trust?
American politics and the Lamp of Diogenes
How many offensive politicians does it take to shake the credibility of a nation?
Just one. But the overpowering number of scandalous, criminal, immoral and just plain wrong office-holders in government today is causing an earthquake of mistrust among American citizens. Who can we rely on in our government? Apparently, not many.
I’m not saying there aren’t patriotic people who want to guide our nation down the right path. But there doesn’t seem to be a lot of them in elected positions of power.
What drives a person to seek public office? Surely patriotism and a desire to do good come into play. But the influence of the Me Generation is, I believe, a stronger force and brings out the qualities of Greed, Lust for Power, Immorality and Egotism in many candidates.
Once in office, the crafting of just laws and guidance of our nation in paths of democracy become less than secondary in importance to these rotten apples who find that they have free license to do almost anything they please. How can they get away with this? Because they are now protected by the Cosa Nostra-like silence of political colleagues who don’t want to point fingers or rock the boat for fear of jeopardizing their own gravy train. Only when one public rat thinks his or her position might be advanced by “outing” another public rat, does America get a whiff of the stench inside the Beltway.
When the transgressions come to public light, the body politic displays great shock and outrage that such things can happen at the sacrosanct seat of government. Believe me when I tell you that Hollywood has never seen such outstanding performances as those on Capitol Hill… and the Oscar for Righteous Anger goes to…
Then the pointless, career-wrecking witch-hunts begin and continue until a scapegoat is found or public indignation fades. But very little changes and soon all returns to the status quo.
How pathetic!
Now I will tell you who’s to blame for this political disaster. It’s you and me! It’s the American public. It’s the voter who doesn’t bother to learn about the issues or candidates because it’s too hard to wade through all of the vicious mud slinging and smear tactics. So the voter sits at home on Election Day because it’s just too much trouble to find out where the polling place is, or there isn’t time, or you have a headache, or the dog ate your voter registration. Woefully, a very low percentage of the eligible voters in America even bother to get off their duffs and cast ballots.
Now, you tell me… who’s the criminal in American politics?