Monday, August 27, 2012

Who represents me?


I have tons of elected representatives.  A President, two Senators, a member of the House, a State Senator, a State Assembly member, city council members, school board members and so on.  But do any of them represent me?

I'm in favor of smaller government.  Not eliminating the social safety net that must be there to provide for those who can't provide for themselves, but not spending tons of money we don't have.  When government employees are able to not use their sick time and vacation time for decades and then apply the unused time off to boost their pensions, whoever is representing us, isn't really representing us.  Not me anyway.

I'm in favor of removing religion from the issue of marriage by making all unions civil unions, and then empowering licensed members of the clergy to fulfill the requirement that a ceremony be performed to make such unions official.  In the eyes of government, "marriage" is nothing more than a legal contract under which a couple is granted certain rights and responsibilities.  If all unions were civil unions, and those who wanted the benefit of clergy could get that in the church/temple/mosque/ashram of their choice, that would represent my beliefs.  That would represent me.

I'm of the mind that a fetus isn't a person until it is clearly viable outside the womb.  I won't argue if someone wants to make that 23 weeks versus 25 weeks or 26 weeks, or whatever.  Draw a line and say "before this point, it's a fetus and after that point, it's an unborn child and abortion is no longer proper".  No one represents my view.  No one represents me on this issue.

I think there's something fundamentally flawed about a system where a corporation the size of GE can not only pay no corporate income tax, but it qualifies for billions of dollars in tax credits, while Warren Buffet's secretary pays a higher percentage of her income in taxes than he does.  Where are those who want to make changes in that system to resolve these inequities?  No one represents me on this topic.

I hate the political apathy that we have in this country.  59% of the registered voters returned Ronald Reagan to the Presidency in 1984, in what was considered a landslide victory.  59% of those who cared enough to take time to register to vote.  What percentage didn't bother registering?  What percentage of the 18 and over population actually voted?  I guess I shouldn't be surprised, that no one represents me.