One of the Gang

If we citizens are truly serious about reforming government at all levels, then we must implement “reverse affirmative action” for all elected officials. Historically, elected public servants have been treated with a high level of respect and decorum. People treat them with respect and deference. When politicians attend a function, they get the best seats and are escorted to the head of the line. Citizens often clamor for the opportunity to have their pictures snapped with elected officials. They cherish the little hand-signed notes that they receive from the purveyors of power.


We often rail at how imperial our career politicians have become, but do we not treat them as our betters? We act as if someone who has a lust for the exercise of power, who has the ego to stand before a constituency and laud his/her own talents, and who has the unmitigated gall to continually ask others for money is a better person than any of us. If you carefully examine the attributes necessary for a successful politician in today’s environment, you will see someone with whom you typically wouldn’t associate. Do you enjoy the company of people who are always asking for money? Do you relish the opportunity to bask in the glow of someone who thirsts for power over you?

If the people are ever to regain the power to govern ourselves, then we must stop investing our politicians with exalted positions over us in our every day encounters. We must remove the curtain and expose the wizard as just another human being who has been chosen to serve. Our attitudes can be instrumental as we elect new people going forward. Today’s officeholders may be too far gone…too far under the spells of deference and privilege. To end the sense of entitlement that elected officials seem to embrace, we must cease our treating them as if they were special.

Comments: earl4sos@gmail.com or cnpearl@woh.rr.com