Is It Still ‘Our’ Government?

By Lee Duigon

November 11, 2021

I have to ask: in our coast-to-coast system of representative government… is anybody representing us?

The elections were last week—right? And they’re over now, there are winners and losers, and there won’t be more elections till next year.

So how come we’re getting bombarded with emails from various Congressional campaigns, pleading for more money? And they’re all coming from out of state. Contribute to this guy in Virginia, this woman in who-knows-where: they have, they say, a “desperate need” for funding.

Does this mean that political campaigns now go on forever? And why am I being asked to donate to campaigns for Congressional candidates in states other than my own?

I don’t like this whole idea of perpetual campaigning funded by out-of-state contributors. Things got bad enough when the 17^th Amendment was passed. Originally, U.S. senators represented their states and were chosen by their own state legislatures. The amendment turned them into water-carriers for nationwide special interests. Direct election of senators turned the senators into agents for whoever dumped the most money into their campaigns.

Now it looks like the House of Representatives is about to go the same way. Are they going to continue to represent their districts, or will the avalanche of out-of-state funding turn them into Votes ‘R’ Us?

But let’s look at local politics. At local school boards, in particular. Whom are our local school boards representing?

Not us!

In Chandler, Arizona, leaked emails reveal the school board huddling with the cops to arrest parents who protest the board’s mask “mandates.” The board has also been cooperating with the police to “monitor” groups of parents who protest the board’s Far Left curriculum. Parents don’t like Critical Race Theory (“All whites are born racists, and all non-whites are sad sacks who can’t tie their shoes without help from Big Brother”). They don’t like it when the public schools push “transgender,” either.

Stop and think: are you getting this? The Chandler school board is coming down on the undefended citizens who elected them as their representatives! And who pay for the freakin’ schools, to boot. Those six-figure salaries for school administrators, those lavish pensions for the teachers—it all comes out of the public’s hide. And what do they get for it?

Their elected school board wants to sic the cops on them. And the police, as if they were Herod’s men, seem well inclined to do the school board’s bidding.

How is it that sane and normal law-abiding citizens wind up getting “represented” by Far Left wackos who want to lock them up in jail? With that kind of representation, you don’t need enemies.

Yeahbut, yeahbut! The teachers’ unions want Critical Race Theory! The teachers’ unions want transgender. I wonder how many of them, in running for their office, stood up in front of a crowd of citizens and said “Vote for me, and I’ll give you a bellyful of Critical Race Theory—and all the transgender you can handle!”

It’s not hard to go through an entire election season without ever hearing what your school board candidates intend to do, if elected. In one school board election that I covered as a reporter, a man who most emphatically wasn’t running was elected on five write-in votes his buddies cast as a prank.

Yeah, well, the joke’s on us, isn’t it?

We have to take a much closer look at the characters who are supposed to represent us, from Congress right on down to the smallest local board of education. Because I don’t think they’re representing us.

Remember when elected officials of all kinds were known as “public servants”? Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum to that! If they’re going to sic the cops on you because you object to their asinine policies, they’re not your servants anymore.

As for the school boards—well, what else can we do but take our children out of those schools? Nothing else will work.

I have discussed these and other topics throughout the week on my blog, http://leeduigon.com/ . My articles can also be found at www.chalcedon.edu/ .

E-Mail Lee Duigon: leeduigon@verizon.net