Is it the people’s fault?
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Vivian Paige makes me think, but as usual, I disagree with her conclusions.
Vivian tells the story of people who were unaware who their representatives were and whom to contact about a tax penalty.
“Neither of these people are dumb. One is a lawyer, the other a dentist. Yet they both demonstrate what I consider to be a fundamental problem in America today: a lack of understanding of how government works. And it’s a shame. Because come November, they will be voting.”
I look at the problem, which I think Vivian identified well, totally differently. If government is needlessly complex, overly burdensome and confusing, I don’t think the problem is with the people. The people are fine. The government is the problem.
“But it really is possible to see the big picture and still be able to see the “trees.”…I think tx2vadem hit it on the head: apathy.”
Apathy about government is a truly fantastic thing. Do we really want to live in a nation where it is so vitally important that all Americans need to understand the ins and outs of this monstrosity we call American Government? Is the answer to try to change the people to match the government?
Honestly, I don’t think it’s very American to have Government be that central to our everyday lives.
Vivian is a CPA. Complexity in government is her friend. While she may bemoan how some otherwise intelligent citizens don’t have a clue or even an interest in how government works, her career practically depends on it.
But I think the people are right. If people lack the interest or insight to understand all the levels of government bureaucracy, maybe the problem is with the government, and the people are actually closer to the American ideal than our government, especially our tax system, has become.
So rather than take Americans who rightly would rather spend their time with family, friends, careers, philanthropy, community, and fellowship and turn them into campaign volunteers, maybe - just maybe - the people have it right, and it’s the government that is wrong.
Government too complex for the people to bother caring about should be addressed, not by criticizing the people, but by more closely aligning government operations with the limited spirit on which it was founded.
The intricacies of government only the most entrenched bureaucrats understand. Most electeds, at any level, understand either.
It does rest with voters who do not show up. They have the ability to affect change, but do not do so because of apathy and ignorance.
At minimum, voting adults should be able to tell the difference between a national or state/local issue and ought to know who their elected officials are at those levels. This information is hardly a secret, especially with tools like Google to help the uninformed.
I don’t buy the excuse that they are too busy with other pressures in life. We make time for what is important and too many Americans do not take government service seriously or make understanding it a part of their lives. Of course, the media and popular culture has only added to the problem by making the term “politician” a bad name.
And then there are the political parties and candidates that insist on running against “Washington” or “Richmond”, making the case that a strong government is a bad thing and that governmnet’s sole role is to attack “the people”. Cue the flags and film of families with happy children listening intently to a candidate trash “big goverment”…
I used to think that everyone had a duty to vote in every election. After years of working on campaigns and serving as an election officer, I’m now convinced that those who choose to ignore current events and are too lazy to research the issues and candidates should just stay home and watch their favorite reality show instead. It’s people like that who have given us the likes of George Bush and the current republican party hacks in government.
The source of liberal power over the people is to promise the people gifts from government — exactly why Vivian and Ian…and predictably, Ragnar (he’ll chime in on this one) want a more democratic system.
On the contrary, the conservative school is that government is bloated, inefficient, and trends towards authoritarianism over time. And that the only way to fix it (save revolution), is for the leaders themselves to create limits and for the people to have more personal responsibility for their lives.
It’s interesting how liberals are only for personal responsibility when it means more power for them and conservatives are for more government action only when it means imposing limits on their power.
This post is seriously misguided. Vivian’s post did not describe a citizen’s inability to penetrate some opaque government bureaucracy. Rather, it described citizens’ disquieting ignorance of federalism, which is clearly embraced by the Founders’ vision of the United States. Vivian’s friends weren’t ask to name obscure bureaucrats, like the State Comptroller for the tax issue, who can and perhaps should be purged from the teat of the taxpayers’ beneficence. They were asked to name their elected representatives, and to know the difference between federal and state government.
Accepting your premise that the numbers of elected officials should be cut in order to reduce voters’ confusion, which level of government would you prefer become authoritatian? State? Or federal? Should we eliminate members of Congress, or the General Assembly?
Thank you, Not AE Dick. You said what I was going to say.
Whatever happened to property owners only voting?
I never said anything about the numbers of elected officials, Not AE (which must stand for “not adequately educated”). - and before you get snide, I know who Howard is.
I acknowledged the situation. People don’t want to be so interested in government. I just don’t think it’s such a bad thing to have a country where government isn’t central to our very lives that ever y elected official has a Q-rating.
The problem with understand the intrusion of the federal government is the many areas where the federal government has become involved with state, regional, and local governments. Distinguishing which level of government a citizen needs to deal with to get something done is often no longer cut and dried.
Take our region’s transportation issues. The federal government created the MPO, the General Assembly created the HRPDC, TDCHR, and the HRTA. The state has VDOT and the CTB, along with a host of other agencies. LOCAL elected representatives are appointed to the MPO, HRPDC, and TDCHR. State elected representatives are appointed to the HRTA. Non elected business interests are appointed to the CTB and VDOT is a state government agency. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) representatives are appointed to our local MPO. The federal Americans with disabilities act (ADA) dictates many decisions made by the state, the region, and our local governments.
Thus, when we need to get our transportation “fixed” we have to learn who is serving on what government committees – at the Federal, State, Regional, and Local levels.
While I know who my state Delegate is and who my State Senator’s are, along with my federal Congressperson and my state Senators that really doesn’t help me to find the right “representatives’ to “fix” our LOCAL transportation problems.
And of course, missing from all of this are the names of the key staffers at every level of Government, the key political party leaders, and the key lobbyists that actually WRITE the bills and actually take care of the details.
Don’t blame citizens for their inability to deal with our government bureaucracies; let’s be honest here, simply knowing the names of the “figure heads” placed on the ballot for us to vote for that are supposed to ‘represent” us in Congress, the Senate of the United States, the Virginia General Assembly (house and senate), the confusing labyrinth of “regional” government we now have (in the case of the MPO, federally mandated and controlled), and within our local governments isn’t really going to help us when we attempt to help improve our government. The lines between what are local, regional, state, and federal matters have become very blurred and the real power is often found within the business lobbies that “donate” substantial sums to political parties.
This is a really great topic. The structure of our government as it was designed was fine. It has been allowed to evolve into a complex, bureaucratic, multi-purposed, statist reinforcing cancer.
This cancerous “monstrosity called American Government” as Brian referred to it, was not intended to turn out this way. The Constitutional checks and balances in our government’s design were ignored and thus the “cellular mutations” of government offices and their associated powers began to take hold and spread. This malignancy has spread to all levels and branches.
Principled leaders serving as a chemotherapy agent, injecting doses of the Constitution into the widespread metastatic tumors that afflict our current government will make it (government) more useful to restoring and hopefully sustaining the freedoms we should be able to enjoy well into the future.
This turning back of the cancer in American Government that is killing our freedoms won’t happen without involvement of interested and impassioned citizens who can defeat those who would like to turn our freedom loving country into the world’s greatest welfare state.