Politicians and Americans' value system June 27, 2009   There are multiple aspects of the American political system that frustrate me. I would even consider running myself to attempt to change some of these, but I suspect my religious views make me not a viable candidate. In the words of George Bush #1 "I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."   Politicians' background:   I always hoped - and I suspect the founding fathers also envisioned - that our politicians would be a sample of our population. This is sadly not even close to the truth. For the most part, our politicians are all very wealthy, white christian males who are almost all Lawyers. This last aspect (all lawyers) is the most upsetting for me (perhaps I say that because the other attributes are not that foreign to me). Regardless, it upsets me that people with such a narrow background are making decisions on things that are so far outside of their area of expertise. How are they at all qualified to make decisions about science, medicine, education, agriculture, or really anything for that matter? I think our system would be better run if our senators were more like jurors - a random sampling of citizens who served a term. If this is too much of a stretch, at least we could start by voting in more diversified people into politics - scientists, doctors, farmers, manual laborers, etc. This doesn't seem so difficult to me.   Style of brainstorming I am appalled whenever I watch congressmen speak to their fellow congressmen. Again, I won't even bother with making this gender neutral, since it's essentially a gentleman's club. I digress. Anyhow - the way in which they debate - one man standing in front of a podium and droning on for 30 minutes is ridiculous. They use statistics that are taken entirely out of context, and in my opinion are essentially just untruths when used in the way the politicians are using them. In general, nobody listens to each other, and nothing really gets done. They really just need some people in a room with a whiteboard hashing out individual aspects. Perhaps this is closer to what happens in breakout sessions of congress that I do not see. I can hope at least.   Scandals and influence   I find it appalling and ridiculous that Americans take politicians' personal lives so seriously, but don't care at all about which lobbyists are paying off which politicians. Except for in rare cases, a politician's personal life has essentially no effect on the decisions that will be made, where as which corporate lobby group is paying a politician millions of dollars has an enormous effect on the decisions being made. It's amazing to me that our priorities are so wrong and backwards in this regard. I very much hope that this aspect changes in the near future - it's just a matter of making more public who is receiving money from which lobby, and a matter of the American people actually caring. It is inexcusable that a politician who has received even $1 from an oil company should be able to vote on anything to do with oil. As of the time of this writing, I'm seeing it with health care companies paying unfathomable amounts of money to people on both sides of the isle. If this was in the judicial system, the judge or juror would have to excuse themselves - why is it not the case in the legislative or executive branches? Send Comments