Thoughts on Our form of Representative Government

"Congressmen (and women), with due apologies to F. Scott Fitzgerald, are different from you and me. Privilege makes them soft where life teaches the prudent to be hard, cynical where their constituents must be trustful. The congressional entitlement to privilege, wrought not by talent or inheritance but by legislation, explains the typical congressman's blindness to tint and deafness to tone, revealed in the angry 'town hall' confrontations over health care legislation. Instead of reassuring frightened constituents, Democratic congressmen (and women) denounce the voters who sent them to Washington as Nazis, Brown Shirts and the 'un-American.' Harry Reid, the leader of the Senate Democrats, calls the critics 'evil-mongers.' Congress is dead to anything outside the bubble it has created for itself. ... The rage at the town halls is particularly irksome because congressmen are not accustomed to anyone talking back to them." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

These Town Hall meetings are exactly how our republic is supposed to function, and the reaction by some representatives to passionate opposition should make it clear they are out of touch. If they were so opposed by well-connected lobbyist groups, I'm sure the reaction would be different.

Regardless of your stance on Universal Health Care, you should be concerned, if not appalled, at the behaviour of some of your elected officials. I am.