Letter to The Wall Street Journal Congress Must Change or Be Changed

I have a simple but pessimistic philosophy but it makes situations like this one understandable: Politicians are unethical, dishonest, and immoral. They take care of themselves first, those who give them money second, and last if it is convenient, those who voted for them.   

 

To paraphrase Obama's preacher, a politician says what politicians have to say.

 

One other point, when a politician accuses another politician of doing something dishonest, immoral or unethical, the accuser does the same thing and maybe worse.

 

Look only at what a politician does.

 

Senator Stevens proves the rule "absolute power corrupts absolutely"  but he is not alone.

 

While he personifies arrogance and bad judgment it takes more than Stevens to explain Congress's abysmally low approval rating (14% in a Gallup Poll this summer) as well as the perception the public has that once politicians go to Washington they join an elite that believes the rules don't apply to them.

 

Senator Stevens may be a very likable man. He may be more intelligent than the average but as we know as with Bill Clinton being likable and intelligent does not transfer to ethics, honesty, morality, character. 

 

Members of congress voted themselves a better retirement, and better health care than the people who elected them. How did they do that? They did it because they could. Stevens and his fellow senators and house members have assigned to themselves perks most of their constituents can only dream of. They really do live beyond the rules and they make the rules.

 

Members of congress stonewall investigations and protect their fellow members. They do that: because they expect their fellow members to protect them. Protect them from whom: their constituents, the people who trust them, who voted for them. Congress needs to look at West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy and many universities and develop an honor code that has teeth.    

 

Congress is a fraternity or a union and seniority means privileges and power. That must be stopped. Assignments should be for no longer than one year with no member permitted to serve more than one time and on no more than one committee during a congressional term. Members of congress do not vote the way their constituents prefer, they do not even vote their conscience, they vote the way their leaders tell them to vote.  When they must choose between their party leaders and their constituents they choose their party leaders. Like a herd of water buffalo they circle to protect the vulnerable from public scrutiny. That is they circle to protect the criminal from the media and the law.

 

Congress must cancel their retirement package and their health care plans and live under the same rules the rest of us live under, maybe then they will understand.

 

Power does not make character power allows individuals to display character. That there are so many members of Congress violating basic morals, ethics, and honesty and the fact that the rest protect them and that members of congress such as Biden, McCain, and Obama can run for another job and at the same time be paid for not doing the job to which they were elected, that they can vote 'present' when a 'yes' or 'no' is required, is evidence congress is corrupt and must change or be changed.

 

Martin Luther King said something about good people who do nothing. Good people doing nothing means they are no longer good people