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logo    Democracy in America


I am past the sixth decade of life in America, and I have done all the conventionally right things: I went to public schools, served in the military, graduated from two universities, and have been gainfully employed all of my adult life, contributing to the federal treasury during all of those years. I have also been a close observer of Congressional action for more than half a century, even having worked on Capitol Hill as a senatorial staffer for a short time. And I have come away with one salient observation--The Congress has not solved or even ameliorated a single social problem it has addressed, many numerous times. The consequence, of course, is that many Americans have lost all confidence in their government.

In December of 2006, just 11% of American voters give the outgoing Congress good or excellent marks. Voter dissatisfaction with Congress is apparent.  Just 14% says that Congress has passed legislation that improved the quality of American life, and 61 percent says Congress hasn't done a thing to improve the lives of most Americans. Fifty-one percent, says serious Congressional action addressing important problems is not likely, and seventy-four percent believes that most members of Congress are more interested in advancing their own careers than helping people. In 2005, a Rasmussen Reports survey found that Americans were more likely to trust a used-car salesman than a member of Congress. Not a pretty picture, is it?

More than 50% of registered voters have voted in national elections only eleven times in the last 23 elections (almost half a century), and in eight of those elections, fewer than 40 % have voted.

The conclusions are obvious--democracy in America is a failure. Our Congressional representatives do not govern with the consent of the people. In reality, our democracy is nominal; in reality we are governed by an oligarchy of special interests.

The amount of money contributed by special interests to politicians and spent on lobbying them is obscene. No congressman admits to being corrupted by this money, but the people are not fooled. They know what classical wisdom has taught--Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere! (To accept a favor is to sell freedom.) They know that, Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody. And although Congressmen deny that their votes have been bought, we all remember Emerson's, What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

There is one absolutely irrefutable proof of this corruption: No Congressman exhibits any shame for the low esteem  in which the Congress stands in the minds of the people.  And surely, this corruption has played a huge role in the Congress' inability to solve the social problems it has attempted to address. But it is not the sole reason.

Legislatures in America are dominated by lawyers, often mediocre lawyers. In addition to the fact that the legal profession has never had a pristine reputation for either a devotion to the truth or justice, the American legal system is adversarial in nature. Lawyers are not taught to seek the truth or even seek justice. Prosecutors seek convictions and defense attorneys seek the best outcome for their clients that they can get, regardless of whether the defendant is guilty or not. Consequently this adversity is not conducive to searching for the truth or solutions to social problems. Legislators adopt points of view that they seek to enact into law for the benefit of those groups whose point of view they represent. Just as in a courtroom, these legislators become advocates of special interests. The good of the country or of the people is replaced by the good of the interests the legislators represent, and although legislators are nominally representatives of their constituents, in reality they are mere mouthpieces for those whose money put them in office.

Furthermore, the adversarial aspect of our legal system causes legal educators to emphasize the techniques of winning, and misrepresentation of the truth is one of those techniques. Logic, on the other hand, is not a core part of a legal education; neither is problem solving. It would be interesting to know how many members of Congress have ever heard of, no less know, Descartes Rules for the Direction of the Mind , his Discourse on Method, or Mill's Methods. The mere fact that the Congress produces legislation hundreds of pages long is irrefutable proof that Congressmen lack this problem-solving knowledge. No one, no Congressman or anyone else, can read a proposed piece of legislation hundreds of pages long and be certain that what was stated on an earlier page has not been altered or even contradicted on a later page. The result is legislation that is, for the most part, ineffective.

So our democracy is a sham, the Congress does not govern with the consent of the people, and Congressmen do not represent the people who are their constituents. The government envisioned by our Founding Fathers has been corrupted and, given the people who are attracted to politics, most likely beyond reform. What is often referred to as a Great and Noble Experiment has become an Ignoble Cabal, and history will not view us kindly. (4/7/2007)