I keep seeing the same phrase in thread after thread on various internet political sites. It's a phrase meant to confuse us, one designed specifically to influence us unduly, and one crafted specifically by an entity whose goals are NOT those best suited to our communal task of 'making a more perfect union'.
There are two kinds of people who will tell you to "Vote them all out". The first are Republicans, whether they call themselves Republicans, libertarians, independents, Tea Partiers or whatever. Some will even tell you they are disenchanted democrats, a lie they believe gives them credibility. They tell you 'Vote them all out" because they KNOW if they can convince us to vote all the incumbents out of office, it's to their advantage. After all, since there are more Democrats in congress than republicans, if everyone is voted out, the net result is Republicans will control congress 'after' the election. BTW, that phrase comes straight out of the Republican playbook. I'm not kidding at all. Republican political consultants created the 'vote them all out' talking point exactly because they know it's an election changer in their favor. This group concerns me quite a bit. It demonstrates Republican leadership's ever present intention to continue to trick the American public into believing things or doing things for their own political benefit rather than what might be good for America. They fooled us into believing the lies that got us into an unnecessary and deadly and costly war in Iraq. They fooled us into believing that deregulating Wall Street was good for the country. They fooled us into believing bail outs of banks and Wall Street and corporations with tax money with no accountability was completely in our interest, even though it was our money they gambled with. They fooled us into believing we shouldn't address immigration reform. The fooled us into believing it was a great idea to cut the taxes of the obscenely rich, which along with the financial sector collapse and the costly wars, drove our country into the worst fiscal abyss since the Great Depression. I worry about a political party who has demonstrated for decades they'd rather use politics against 'we the people' than use statesmanship FOR 'we the people'. It's always my hope Americans have gotten too smart to fall for this sort of thing, but we all know there are some who continue to surrender to their own fear and ignorance to the detriment of our great nation.
This then is second group mentione, easily swayed and easily duped people. They don't seem to have the capacity to figure out they're being taken for fools by Republicans. They cannot or will not make the elementary deduction that getting rid of everyone will serve only to swap control of both houses from Democrat to Republican. This group saddens me more then the first. The first is of course easy to dislike because they are actually doing something proactively evil simply to further their own political and power agenda. Feeling sad for them isn't even a consideration. The second group though is more than ample reason for sorrow. I don't like the fact they are lemmings being led to the edge of the cliff and then pushed over by those intent on misleading them. I don't like they surrender to their own ignorance or fear or laziness or lack of responsibility to educate themselves about the issues of the day, and instead simply spit out the canned speeches fed to them by their masters. But, I can't dislike them. While I believe many of them are fully capable of making better decisions if they would face their own emotional and intellectual failings, it's impossible for me to know why they do not do so as I've not walked in their shoes. Fear is an insidious emotion, and all negative emotions are offspring of it. Fear is the parent of hatred, bigotry, bitterness and all things destructive. It is an incredibly difficult emotion to overcome, and at some time or another, all of us have been beaten by it. Most of us get up and try again, but 'some' of us don't. And perhaps environment or culture or even physiological or psychological challenges make this even more difficult for this group than it is for most of us. The truth is, this group is even more dangerous than the first. After all, if they weren't so gullible or filled with fear, the first group wouldn't be able to leverage them to their own benefit. Without this second group, the first would be irrelevant, unable to influence America's social and fiscal structures. Still, I can't help feeling sorrow for them. After all, what must it be like to be them?
We are targeting the wrong devil. Yes, we are all sick of government not operating the way we want, and in some cases not operating at all as is their job, and why we put elected officials in office in the first place. However, there is something we forget. WE are the goverment. Our representatives and officials are 'vested' by us, 'we the people' with the 'privilege of serving us. We are the ones who 'grant' them the power to make laws, execute them, and define them through our three branches of government. To wit:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Preamble does not grant any particular authority to the federal government and it does not prohibit any particular authority. It establishes the fact that the federal government has no authority outside of what follows the preamble, as amended. "We the people", is one of the most-quoted sections of the Constitution. It was thought by the Federalists during this time that there was no need for a bill of rights as they thought that the preamble explained the people's rights.
There are dozens of places in the Constitution that reference the 'fact' that government serves at the pleasure and 'for' the citizens of this nation. It (along with the Declaration of Indepence) vests us, 'we the people' with the responsibility to be an 'informed electorate', participating actively in the political process with an educated manner, in order that we are able to inform and advise our government's operatives. If our government isn't operating properly, it is no one's fault but our own. If we allow our government to favor Wall Street, or health insurance companies, or big pharma or corporations, or unions, or lawyers, or any of a myriad of special interest groups to hold more sway than 'we the people', it's our own fault. If laws are passed that allow special interests to leverage their power and money to buy legislation for their own ends, it's no one's fault but our own. 'We the people' ARE the power behind government, we are at the top of the food chain in government, we are the 'bosses' in government. If we don't use our power as the master in charge, we are doomed to be enslaved by those who, under our constitution do NOT have the right to encumber us with exactly what is bad for our nation.
It's obvious I come from a position left of center, although fiscally I tend to be what we used to be called conservative. I believe in social and financial justice, but only if legislation provides at least as much value as the cost. Given a choice between two programs, one of which provides obvious and quantifiable advantages, both socially and fiscally, to the largest number of Americans, while the other plan may be beneficial and advantageous to a lesser amount, or perhaps not work as well as the first, I'll opt for the former over the latter every time. And if a program fails to provide us with the benefits we expect, then I favor changing it to meet our needs better, or to eliminate it altogether. However, as the 'liberal' I am, I truly do not care who you vote for, republican, democrat, independent, libertarian, green party, tea party, socialist, or any designation, as long as you vote FOR someone, rather than AGAINST someone. What is the point of simply putting someone in office who may well be worse than the person who is already there, and perhaps doing a better job for their individual constituencies than his or her opponent would do if elected? We all have the ability to study the candidates' records, to discover the way they are likely to legislate, to understand if they are truly interested in helping our government work the way we want, or if they want the job for their own agenda instead of ours. They all have histories, they all have resumes, and we all have the ability to educate ourselves with a depth of understanding if we wish to do so. I appeal to those among us who think 'Vote them all out', might be an appropriate reaction to our current environment to look at each of their potential choices individually, and as the old saying goes, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". Please take your responsibility as an American, as our most precious documents charge us to do, very seriously, as adults, with consideration for our own principles and opinions, and always with the unshakable foundation of doing what is right for ALL our citizens, and in the best interest of our nation, even if it's not in our own 'personal' interest! Democracy is a 'messy' thing, but it becomes much less messy when we pay attention and actively participate. That's our job! We indeed are the government, and it's in our interest to govern wisely!
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