Dear Senator/Representative;
I am unsure if you ever read my missives, I mean really read them in the sense of understanding my concerns and being brave enough to give an honest reply instead of a political ass covering list of things you think will sound good to the voters and various corporate backers. I am fairly certain someone on your staff* dutifully checks my name and address, looks for key phrases or words, and possibly enters the information into a database on "letters from cranks and kooks".
Or not.
Possibly all that really happens is that your staff notes my name and address for the purpose of sending out a tax payer funded form letter which says very little and often states the wonderful things you have done which are often 180 degrees out from what I would prefer for you to have done.
And then they round file my letter.......without ever allowing time to smile over my prose.
It saddens me that more and more your replies seem as if coming from a strange land that even Alice would not understand or recognize, a land where people are to be manipulated with clever words and catchy public relations phrases. As a lifelong native of the state I grew up with both those who spoke rationally and cared a great deal about both our local community and our nation; I also saw those who were somewhat, well nut job would be too kind of a description and would not paint a vivid enough portrait of these colorful characters. Yet overall even the logic (twisted though it was) of those who espoused radical anarchism and ranted of government evils I could understand.
Today though I do not in any manner recognize the Republican Party which claims to represent my state, or at least the part of the population that voted for them and funded their rise to power. When did our political system become a winner take all and revenge in ways small and large upon those who dissent happen? When did we decide that a bare majority was a mandate and license to not only ignore those across the aisle but to blame them for all evils and ills irregardless of the facts. Who do you represent today, the majority, the minority, the wealthy, the corporate.......the public?
Perhaps you sense a common thread here......I and quite a number of voters (and sadly no longer voters) no longer feel our elected representatives, especially within the GOP, actually give a horses fundament about the voters. The control of power, the ability to wield power, even to rule seems the goal, not to govern but to rule. Power is a heady thing it seems and to retain it these days it seems to requires large amounts of money, money that more and more comes from large corporations and a few wealthy families who of course will demand their due in ways that harm the body politic all too often. Can you or any other "public servant" truly claim that title today or should you more accurately claim to be nothing but a business which sells its votes to the highest bidder.
My father was a lifelong public servant who tried his best to serve the best interests of all the public, not the wealthiest, or the loudest, or the most pious; what he attempted was to do his job as best he could while keeping in mind the best interests of all the public. Never easy, often at odds both with policy he had not written and demands of those who saw the public domain as a chance to profit not as a trust.
This is both a old fashioned and a naïve view today; I hold this quaint idea dear, both in memory of my father and also as a personal compass point to guide me in my life in the public positions I volunteer for and in the work I do each day. A public position be it Pastor, Senator, or even a simple citizen doing volunteer service requires that we represent not just those of power but also those without it.
The mark of our nation's willingness to support Democracy is not displayed in our ability to project power overseas, nor in our decisions to alter long standing rules of debate in the legislature, nor in the placement of "righteous judicial activists" on the bench to please religious ideologues. It is in the willingness to both trust the public with the real facts (all of them) so it can do the correct thing and at the same time in our willingness to protect those without power in our society from the majority when they do the wrong thing.
Lately the Republican Party has been changing long standing rules to favor themselves heedless of the potential of backlash when they lose the majority (which they will, time changes all things), they contemplate abandoning social contracts allowing debate, of compromise, of the normal "Horse trading" which allows us to work together. This is not in the publics best interest or the even in the long term best interest of the Party of Lincoln, it only serves to highlight the gulf which has opened between those in power and the publics more common sense approach to resolving conflicts in this nation with many views.
This nation is ill served by the present Republican Party which attempts to create one party rule and seems to view those of dissenting viewpoints and opinion as being both unworthy of common courtesy or representation.
As I stated at the beginning of this letter I do not recognize this Republican Party, the thoughtful conservatives, the fiscal realists, the caring conservationists, the demanding Constitutionalists are gone. Replaced by a parody of "public servants" who serve few.
Perhaps all should read the first three words in the Constitution and ponder who it referred to.
Sincerely,
md
*Dear Staff member if you are taking time to actually read this missive I both applaud your good work habits and also your caring about "We The People".