Holding Elected Officials To A Higher Standard-- An Elizabeth Warren Standard

No one in the Senate is better at articulating relatively complicated ideas in a way that anyone-- or at least anyone who isn't brainwashed by Hate Talk Radio and Fox-- can comprehend. Thursday she was on the Senate floor explaining the shutdown and why the Republicans who are just shrugging it off are wrong when they say government doesn't matter anyway. "For years now," she began with a veiled swipe at Grover Norquist, "we've heard a small minority in this country rail against government. When I hear the latest tirades from some of the extremists in the House, Im struck by how vague these complaints are. The anarchy gang is quick to malign government, but when was the last time anyone called for regulators to go easier on companies that put lead in children's toys? Or for food inspectors to stop checking whether the meat in our grocery stores is crawling with deadly bacteria? Or for the FDA to ignore whether morning sickness drugs will cause horrible deformities in little babies?

"We never hear that. Not from political leaders in Washington and not from the American people. In fact, whenever the anarchy gang makes headway in their efforts to damage our government, the opposite happens. After the sequester kicked in, Republicans immediately turned around and called on us to protect funding for our national defense and to keep the air traffic controllers on the job.

"And now that the House Republicans have shut down the government, holding the country hostage because of some imaginary health care boogey man, Republicans almost immediately turned around and called on us to start reopening parts of our government.

"Why did they do this? Because the boogey man government is like the boogey man under the bed. It is not real. It doesn't exist. What is real and what does exist are all the specific important things we as Americans have chosen to do together through our government.

"In our democracy, government is not some make believe thing that has an independent will of its own. In our democracy, government is just how we describe the things that ‘we the people' have already decided to do together.

"It is not complicated. Our government has three basic functions: provide for the national defense; put in place rules of the road, such as speed limits, and bank regulations that are fair and transparent; and build the things together that none of us can build alone--roads, power grids, schools—the things that give everyone a chance to succeed.

"We are a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs, growing small businesses and thriving big businesses. But our people succeed, our country succeeds because we have all come together to put public institutions and infrastructure together. We all decided to pass laws and put cops on the beat so that no one steals your purse on Main Street or your pension on Wall Street. We all decided to invest in public education so that businesses have skilled workers and a kid with an idea can create the next breakthrough company. We all decided to invest in basic science so there is a great pipeline of ideas to create our future.

"These achievements aren't magic. They didn't simply occur on their own or through dumb luck. In each instance we made a choice as a people to come together.

"The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that the white pills we take are antibiotics and not baking soda. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration oversees crash tests to make sure all new cars have effective brakes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission makes sure that babies' car seats don't collapse in a crash and that toasters don't explode.

…"You can do your best to make the government look like it doesn't work when you stop it from working.  You can do your best to make government look paralyzed when you paralyze it. You can do your best to make the government look incompetent through your own incompetence and ineffective through your own ineffectiveness.



"But sooner or later, this government will re-open. Because this is a democracy, and this democracy has already rejected your views. We have already chosen to do these things together, because we all know that we are stronger when we come together. And when this government re-opens, when our markets are again safe, when our scientists can return to their research, when our small businesses can borrow, when our veterans can be respected for their service, when our flu shots resume and our Head Start programs get back to teaching our kids, we will have rejected your views once again.



"We are not a country of anarchists.  We are not a country of pessimists and ideologues whose motto is, ‘I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own.' We are not a country that tolerates dangerous drugs, unsafe meat, dirty air, or toxic mortgages. We are not that nation. We have never been that nation. And we never will be that nation."

It's worth watching the whole six-minute video and thinking about why we don't hold all our elected public servants to the kind of standard that Elizabeth Warren represents. I'm never voting for a lesser of two evils candidate again, not for any office.