I love American politics. I love it because it mirrors the way I think and live as a typical college student. Congressmen and college students alike sit in large lecture rooms and ignore what the speaker is saying. Both Congressmen and college students fail to complete crucial readings, forcing themselves to bullshit their way through the relevant sessions. And the most powerful legislative body in the entire world follows the same philosophy that we do: that the best way to complete a task is to deal with it later. Because essentially, completing a task right now would take work—and who would want to do that?
On Sept. 21, the United States Senate took one of those huge leaps forward by voting to stall the resolution to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell due to a Republican filibuster. Five days later, in an even greater show of purpose, the White House and Democrats announced their decision to wait to vote on the repeal of the Bush tax cuts. In spite of Harry Reid’s election-motivated push, comprehensive immigration reforms took a backseat in the gasless Congressional GM SUV that the U.S. government now helps produce. And recently, new Congressional etiquette made it acceptable for congressmen to fight with each other as in an endless, unyielding Ultimate Fighting Championship-like cage match where Congressional procedure is used in place of a roundhouse kick to the crotch.
Now why would Congress do all this hard work? To appease the people. But in an attempt to avoid angering the American voter by making progress on essential issues, Congressional members have angered the American voter by delaying and postponing these crucial votes.
All of these very carefully calculated political moves are but a pre-game for the fiesta that is the midterm elections. This means that by the time candidates get to the actual party, many are already too drunk with incompetence to muster any semblance of credibility. Yet representatives still forge ahead with what they believe the American people want. Politicians use the phrase “It’s what the American people want” over and over again.
Apparently, the American people want Congress to cut taxes in order to balance the budget, bailout banks to help out poor, needy bankers, and promote bipartisanship by yelling at each other to get their message of cooperation across the aisle. In fact, if Congress’s behavior is any indication, the American people want everything without consequences and are nothing but a bunch of whining, pampered children who cannot take care of themselves. And just like Steve Jobs, Congress makes the public want things that the public doesn’t even know it wants.
But discussing illusionary wants are not enough to solve the problems that face our society. We need a Congress that is willing to deliberate the issues that are most pressing. The congresspersons who have sacrificed deliberation to ensure their own reelection have impeded the democratic process, and they’ve also hurt themselves. The purpose of elections is to promote democracy, not to cause a legislative hiccup. Party agendas now overshadow the true problems that need to be debated. Our country needs to insert prioritization back into its operation so that the most pressing problems can be solved.
Let Joe the Plumber run this country—he wants what Americans truly want: change and hope. Only Joe can unclog the B.S. in our nation’s plumbing and turn these illusionary wants into actual legislation. We need deliberation. We need initiative. We need action.
Congress needs to realize that unlike us common college students, they represent and affect the lives of everyone in the United States of America. So grow up.
