Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 30, 1994 TAG: 9411120037
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Once you get to junior high, you know, it just isn't cool any more to dress up and go out begging for candy. But this year, one last time, she'll create some kind of costume and head out with her friends.
She's definitely too old, her mother and I were informed, to be accompanied by her parents. Way too embarrassing.
So we'll let her go out alone. We'll worry a little about her being out of our protective, if suffocating, grasp, but she's a responsible kid. We know she'll be careful. We know she'll be considerate. We trust that she won't gorge herself on candy before she gets home. We're confident she won't pull some harmful prank because some other kid prods her or dares her.
It's a shame so many of us don't have that kind of confidence in the adults we elect to represent us in government.
In this election season, one of the key questions we ask ourselves about the candidates we support should be: "Are they responsible?"
Think about the last term of Congress. There was no debate that I know of on the contention that our health-care system needs reform. Everybody agreed on that.
The debate is over how to reform.
The problem is that our representatives were not willing to debate in good faith. We can argue about who is most at fault, but the fact is that both political parties let us down and must share the blame.
It would have been unrealistic to expect one session of Congress to solve all our health-care problems. But one session was enough at least to have gotten started.
The heart of representative government is in compromise. We all know that. Nobody gets everything he or she wants. But every congressman and senator knows that to make progress, you make compromises.
But not on health care. Another political consideration came to play - power.
Some Republican senators boasted in the last weeks of the session that they would - and did - block anything and everything just to make the Democrats lose votes in the election. And it could just as easily have been the other way around.
I know what some of you are saying. "Well, that's just politics." "What a naive fool to make a big deal of political maneuvering." "What idiot thinks those guys and gals are in Washington out of the goodness of their hearts instead of the real goal of wielding power for power's sake?"
This kind of politics as usual is what incited the current anti-incumbency riot.
Despite the justifications to feel otherwise, I think we have to believe there are yet some people who want to fulfill duty as well as fulfill ego in political office.
Sometimes we must choose "lesser evils" in elections. A number of people I know - some who will vote for Chuck Robb, some who will vote for Ollie North, some who will vote for Marshall Coleman - feel that way.
That is the first compromise in the political process, perhaps.
That doesn't mean, however, that we have to accept irresponsible behavior from our politicians once they take office. And we have to let incumbents know - by voting them out of office, if necessary - if we believe they have behaved irresponsibly.
Maybe in a system that - theoretically, at least - involves government by our peers, we cannot reasonably expect exemplary behavior from our representatives. That is a sad compromise.
But at the very least, we must require them to act reasonably, rationally, responsibly.
by CNB