First and foremost, let’s stop yelling, period.
As Congress returned to
The issue at hand was health care reform. The debate revealed something else. The American people have discovered that the government has lost touch with the people.
Sadly, much of the yelling and screaming was done by Americans at other Americans. When they weren’t tearing each other’s protest signs away.
It’s no wonder. They’re both angry and confused. There really is no reform bill per se, just about 1,100 plus pages of hastily prepared and unfocused legislation floating around various committees and subcommittees.
Special interest groups bombarded the airwaves with their various versions of what reform should be. Town hall meetings became shouting matches.
Americans who dared oppose reform were called “anti-American,” “vile” and much worse. They were accused of being “organized.”
So let’s dispel a couple of myths. What is more American than raising your voice in protest against that which you disagree? It’s how the nation was founded. As for being organized, so was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington. So was the bus boycott in Alabama. Both landmarks in racial equality.
It’s about as silly as when now-President Obama was accused by some of not being patriotic because he didn’t wear an American Flag lapel pin. What is more patriotic than running for president of the
One became term-limited, the executive branch. It was a reaction to FDR’s almost four terms as president. Now, just like a badly balanced wheel on a car, our system of governing shimmies and shakes.
Write your congressman? Forget it. Send an e-mail and you’ll eventually get a generic response.
So what’s a citizen to do?
The answer next week.
John
John W. Scherer
John is CEO & Founder of Video Professor, Inc.
