Posted by
flagwaver on Thursday, July 12, 2007 7:34:49 PM
When Thomas Jefferson, Ben
Franklin, James Madison, John Adams and the like founded this nation and
created the bicameral legislature, they could never have foreseen the situation
that this government finds itself in today. The aforementioned men waged their
lives, liberty, and all they had to create a nation that was not ruled by a
monarchy, an aristocracy, or a political oligarchy but was governed by
representatives of the people of the nation.
Look back at the history that
these great men have as public servants, and you will see a group of men that
were serious about their service, but were also men who did not lust after
power. George Washington served as President, helped to shape the course of the
country and the office for all time, and then retired to his beloved Mount
Vernon; content to go back to his life as a planter. Likewise, Thomas Jefferson
served the country as a Cabinet member, and later as President, but when his
term was over he retired willingly to his Monticello plantation, happy to be
the scholar and planter he had always been.
These men realized that they
were more than politicians, that they were first and foremost family men,
scholars, or soldiers; even as they served in various capacities in our
government they never forgot who, and what, they were. And it is safe to say
that the vast majority of these men did not view themselves as professional
politicians. So they never thought to place limits to the amount of time that
people could serve as President, Senator, or Representative; they seem to have
assumed that men would serve their term and go home to their real lives, just
as the early leaders of the country did.
They could not have
anticipated the state of the Congress today that is populated with professional
politicians who have no desire to “go home” as it were, because this life is
all they really know.
The rise of the professional
politician has, in my opinion, been as dangerous as anything else to the proper
functioning of our system. Professional politicians become involved in politics
not out of a desire to bring needed change to the country, or to do the will of
the people, or with the intention of representing the voice of their
constituents in the halls of Congress. Professional politicians seem more
interested in grasping, consolidating, and holding on to power simply for the
sake of having that power. They spend more time getting themselves reelected
than actually governing or legislating, because their longevity translates into
power and influence.
Let’s take a look at a small
sampling of the longest serving members of the Senate:
Ø Strom Thurmond served from 1954-56 and 1956-2003 when he died
in office!
Ø Robert C. Byrd has served from 1959 to the present.
Ø Edward Kennedy has served from 1962-present.
Ø Daniel Inouye from 1963-present.
Ø Ted Stevens from 1968-present.
Ø Joe Biden from 1972-present.
Among the six men I have
listed, they have served a combined 260 years in the Senate, have served
an average of 43.33 years, and every one of them has been in the Senate for longer than I have been alive! Ted
Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and Daniel Inouye have been around longer than any of my
siblings…and I have three older siblings!
It is this type of unchecked
longevity that allows politicians to ignore their constituents and do as they
please. Take the current immigration fiasco as a prime example; without the
assurance that they are almost guaranteed a return to the Senate every 6 years,
do you think the politicians would be so deaf to voter concerns? If they
thought they were going to be turned out, or better yet, if they considered
themselves to truly be servants of the public they would not ignore our voices.
They would listen and see that the vast majority of the public, for whatever
reasons, sees this current immigration bill as worse than no bill at all!
The Founding Fathers created
a truly groundbreaking system of government and turned it over to us to keep as
we could. We can find fault in their not mandating term limits for Congress or
the President, but no too much. Those men, those historic titans, saw
themselves as real “public servants”, elected to do the will of the people and
to do whatever was in the best interests of the nation.
Too bad so many of our
politicians today see “service” only as a road to power and glory for
themselves. They have violated our trust on many occasions, and have ignored us
when it suited their own narrow purposes, only to continue to serve. And for
that, the blame lies squarely with one group.
We the people.