Matthew 15:14, Jesus: "Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
Unfortunately, as Jeff Pope points out, we're in a worse spot: the blind are leading the sighted.
In reality, the only generally held expertise in Congress or the White House is politics — the gaining and using of power through the political process. This requires skills in public speaking, image building, press manipulation, and fundraising, among other things. The important matters of the country, however — the economic, social, and environmental issues so pressing in America today — require experience and knowledge of complicated and technical areas they as a group have no experience in. Experience in military tactics, leadership, logistics, and battlefield strategy: low. Experience in or exposure to day-to-day business management: none. Medical experience or education: none. Health care services, hospital administration, drug development, and approval experience: none. Experience or training in energy production and refining: none. Engineering education or experience, as in engine mechanics, fuel usage, electrical generation and transmission, and structural design: none. Knowledge, education, or direct experience in ecology, conservation, animal biology, ecosystem dynamics, oceanography, or atmospherics: none. Experience in farming, crop determination, animal husbandry, dairy or meat production, animal health, and hormone usage: none. Hands-on experience in manufacturing management, union negotiations, labor contract detail, OSHA laws and regulation, and safety issues at the factory level: none. Finance, banking, international trade, and currencies, none. Driving a truck: none.Collectively, the American populace possesses great expertise in all these areas and is increasingly disapproving of the government’s interventions. They see a need for prudence and extreme caution in deciding complex and potentially dangerous issues. Yet Congress commits trillions in a headlong rush despite knowing the waste and corruption the spending contains. Without a thorough examination and debate. And without any apparent comprehensive plan. ...
The act of voting itself has been degraded not only because incumbents are rarely defeated, but more because arrogant people in government act with impunity even when the will of the majority is both clear and overwhelming in its disapproval. There is simply no effective way to stop them at this time.
I hope Mr. Pope is wrong and that voting is still effective. If it's not, then at some point the "governed" will withdraw their consent.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
