This past week, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was awarded the Profiles in Courage Award; an honor bestowed each May by the John F. Kennedy Library, to a person who has shown extraordinary political courage. Gabby Giffords, as we all know, was nearly assassinated outside a neighborhood grocery store as she was hosting an event in which she could listen and talk to her constituents in January of 2011. Since being shot, Congresswoman Giffords has worked very hard at her physical and emotional rehabilitation, including a major effort just to regain her ability to speak, albeit somewhat haltingly.
More recently, Congresswoman Giffords has been very outspoken in encouraging her compatriots in congress to pass legislation restricting the sale and use of military style weapons and ammo clips, as well as requiring background checks for all public sales. However, her efforts, as well as those of all of us who continue to be shocked and saddened at the rising death count of Americans by local firearms, were insufficient to persuade lawmakers to pass any legislation; not even a common sense requirement for background checks for all guns purchased publicly, including the internet and gun shows. This in spite of the fact that the American public overwhelmingly supports background checks by a ratio of 9 to 1.
This suggests to me that perhaps we should designate a new category for spotlighting political cowardice; the kind we see every day in our congress, and seem to have come to accept. We cannot accept the unacceptable. Cowardice in leadership is unacceptable and we must start paying closer attention to the acts and omissions of our legislators, at all levels. And when we find it, we must shine a light upon the darkness of this cowardice and expose it to our fellow citizens.
Those who took the coward's way were Republicans and Democrats, although the no votes were overwhelmingly (90%) Republican. Oddly enough, the same percentage of Americans who supported background checks. Howerever, the cowardice of doing what gets you re-elected, instead of doing what's right, is everpresent in both parties.
I've been a political junkie all my life, and I understand that making laws is a lot like making sausage, and is something most Americans may be unable to stomach. There is horse-trading and compromise, as well as honoring the voices of one's constituency, that goes on in legislating. And most lawmakers want to keep getting re-elected, and so the delicate dance of legislation is often wrought with peril. However, more and more lately, the only really important thing for too many of lawmakers is just getting re-elected. It is no longer a part of the equation, it is the whole problem and answer, in and of itself. And at the very root of it all, is money. Campaign contributions get legislators re-elected, and that seems to be the end of the line.
So, it appears that our congressional representatives believe that their only job is to get re-elected. And as long as they do what those with the purse-strings want them to do, they will be given money to pay for their re-election campaigns. And so it goes. And all this time, I thought the job of a congressional representative was to do the bidding of their constituents, i.e., voters. Silly me.
Campaigns cost money and somebody has to pay for them. But if those who can afford to fund campaigns are the only ones with any real power to influence our policies, then our democracy is surely dead. Or at least on life-support.
A courageous legislator forges an allegiance with her constituents, and acts on their behalf, regardless of the political consequences. A coward is true to nothing except saving his own skin from being turned out of office.
How about you? Do you have a nomination for the Profiles in Cowardice Award? I realize that, in such a crowded field, it may be difficult to choose just one. So how about the whole damned lot of them?
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