Our Part of the Bargain

Above Average Jane asked other than voting, what is our part of the bargain?

I can't get past the voting thing. I know many people who just won't vote. Why? When I ask I get a myriad of reasons. The excuses I get seem to boil down to one thing. People are lazy. It takes time and effort to be an informed voter. Most of us that write political blogs do it as a hobby. Politics is our thing and find it hard to understand that many people just aren't as interested. But voter or not everybody has an opinion about the government. It's frustrating to try to figure it out.

The problem politicians run into was summed up by Edmund Burke; "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion." Our responsibility is to hold their feet to the fire but respect them when they make a principled decision that you don't agree with. You have to remember that our system of government is designed in a way that no one person or group of people should get their way all of the time. You have to make a deal. When our representatives settle for something less than the ideal, that's when all hell breaks loose. And it should. We have to constantly remind them why we sent them there.