Rather Than Working: A Well Written Essay on the Hypocrisy of the Ruling Class

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Curmudgeon said...: Your link didn't work.

This link may.

I did read it.

I don't know that this shows "hypocrisy." It does show a depressing sort of politics as usual. Hypocrisy is Congress exempting itself from the Civil Rights Laws, from the ADA, from... well, you get the idea.

The idea that elected representatives must reflect their constituents' views has always been around -- and regularly ignored when expedient. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Remember Edmund Burke: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

Here, the validity of public opinion polls is particularly suspect -- inasmuch as the "final" language of the statute (that is, the Senate bill as "reconciled" -- or, in other words, the bill that is not yet law) was not released until the middle of last week. Specialists -- and, I continue to believe, most of our elected representatives, those for and those against -- did not have time to read and understand the massive bill, and certainly the general public did not.

This is why it galls me so terribly that President Obama kept trumpeting that 'the time for debate is over' -- how could it be over when the specific subject of the debate was still under wraps?; 11:23 AM, March 25, 2010

Rather Than Working