I was just as excited as anybody when I heard that major websites such as Wikipedia and Google would be protesting the widely unpopular SOPA and PIPA bills. The idea of starting a grassroots movement and publicly shaming our government into behaving itself is an inherently attractive concept. In the aftermath, however, I began to contemplate the ramifications of this particular political movement. What caused it? What could have been done to avoid the situation that spurred it? And what kind of a precedent have we set for the future?
Ideally, I hope this situation serves as a kind of slap in the face – not to Congress, but to voters in our generation.
See, the unfortunate truth is that Wikipedia won’t always be able to protect our civil rights – excuse me – remind US to protect our civil rights. Honestly, would you, or anyone, have actually petitioned their congressmen if websites like Wikipedia and Google hadn’t included links to the petition form on their home pages? I know I certainly wouldn’t have. So in defense of the federal government, we haven’t exactly given them a reason NOT to treat us like drooling infants. It’s absolutely true that Washington is out of touch with the rest of America. But unfortunately – the rest of America doesn’t write federal legislation, so the burden rests on us to make our voices heard.
I know it’s easy to see the current political climate as incurably bleak. The hotly debated issues of ten years ago are rapidly becoming utterly irrelevant to voters who are sick of seeing their tax dollars poured into redundant government agencies and ludicrous corporate bailouts, not to mention military vendettas that are as obsolete as they are crushingly expensive. We might try to elect smart people for President, but in general, no candidate with a brain in their head can survive the inane primary election process, which appears to be controlled mostly by network television corporations – the same people who brought you American Idol. And don’t get me wrong, it’s all very entertaining, but only until we get to the polls in November, and are given the choice to vote for either the Communists or the Fascists. So many options! Makes you feel just like a six-year-old at Baskin Robbins – if they had Baskin Robbins in 1930’s Spain. For those of you who are not history buffs, that was a joke. 1930’s Spain is what is happening in between all the cool, magical parts in Pan’s Labyrinth.
Obviously cynicism and hyperbole are both easy to arrive at when viewing politics. It’s much harder to take a critical view of what needs to be done on an individual level for any degree of genuine change to take place.
The issue to address is hardly a problem unique to this generation – it’s more of a massive misperception by pretty much everyone about the nature of the power structure in America. To put it really simply, we can’t make significant changes to the government by simply electing a good President – a good President will be a President who does his job, and according to the constitution, that job does not include making or changing laws.
Huh?
Exactly. The dude is part of the executive branch. He doesn’t make laws, he enforces them, and he’s not even really supposed to have a political agenda. With the notable exception of military and foreign policy, our President is a secretary in charge of other secretaries. And when it comes to foreign policy – the majority of armed conflicts the United States has been involved in over the last 40 years have been technically illegal. Not that anybody really cares anymore - I’m just making the point. The President only has as much power as he can get away with. American citizens are wasting entirely too much time, effort and campaign money obsessing over who gets to be mayor-for-a-day, when the thing we should actually be focusing on is not only more relevant to our daily lives, but also more accessible to us as voters.
We need to pay attention to which people we are putting in Congress. The legislative branch writes the laws, the legislative branch passes the laws, and currently, the legislative branch is the branch – presumably – attempting to bring about the downfall of the free world, and from the looks of it, is doing a much better job than Soviet Russia or Al Qaeda did.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. I realize that in light of bilious pieces of garbage legislation like SOPA and PIPA, it’s fun and popular to be hateful towards Congress, however, we have ourselves to blame to a large extent. The political layout of Congress is actually much easier to change than that of the White House. Congress has more frequent elections, more variety in candidates and less bias against third parties. The smaller scale of elections is also important; as an opinionated voter in Arkansas, you don’t have to compete with voters on the east coast in choosing which person best represents your party. Also, if you take the time to send your local congressman a letter detailing your opinions, there’s a decent chance somebody will actually read it. I believe that we feel ignored and marginalized as voters primarily because we fail to grasp a basic principle of representative democracy. Simply, that we as citizens wield most of our power through our representatives, not through our ability to come out of hiding once every four years and fight each other over which buffoon gets to be our national figurehead.
