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Everybody Promises Change, It’s Up To US To Make Sure They Deliver…
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” - Plato 429-347 B.C.
They are all for change, but what does that mean once they are really in there. Every election starts out and ends the same way. They promise changes and to make things better but does that really happen? If there was ever a reason for voter apathy, that is it. The lack of follow through on the part of the candidates once they get into office.
But the reality is that the lack of follow through on the part of the voters is the real problem. Why not turn the tables and focus on making the candidates put their money where their mouths are. What usually happens is that candidates promise us the blue skies, we tentatively vote for them because we yearn for change and we maintain a glimmer of hope in us. But because we have been burned by them so many times, when they don’t follow through with their promises we just give up. Our response is to not bother to vote on the next round, which doesn’t really accomplish much.
Politicians have become so used to voter apathy that they know how to play us. They know that they can say one thing while they are running for office so that they get the vote and then come up with some excuse as to why they cannot fulfill their promises.
Why not stay more involved in the process and follow through with making the candidates responsible for what they have promised us during the run for the presidency or any other public office. It really doesn’t matter who wins, what matters is that they follow through with what we want them to do for us.
The best thing we can do is to insist that there are term limits, especially in Congress. That way nobody gets too cushy. The president has term limits, some local positions also have them, why not Congress.
Want to see things get done? Give them term limits. Once they realize that it is not a job for life, then they might be more apt to show what they can do, so that when they leave they’ll have a reputation for performance, not for empty promises.
Now since the president already has term limits, how can we help them keep their promises? By staying politically active.
Keeping a checklist of candidate promises on the issues that are important to us is a good start. A checklist to help us figure out who to vote for, but also to remember what they promised to do for us down the line a couple years later, when they usually start faltering. We can periodically go back to that checklist and when a president starts swaying from their path, we can remind them of the “error of their ways” through e-mail, letters, phonecalls, petitions, blogs, online discussion forums, protests, etc,etc,etc. There are many ways to keep politicians in line, we just have to do our part which is to remain part of the political system.
No one else will do it for us, we each have to take back that responsibility. Too many people have given up their say. But it’s not difficult to get it back, it just takes determination to stay in the process. If we really want the change these candidates are promising us, then we have to hold them to their word or call them to the mat when they falter
Getting the country back is a matter holding our public officials responsible for their actions, and that means staying involved in the political process.
CNN has a page outlining the candidates’ views on all issues. It’s is a great place to start your checklist. If you are leaning more on the Independent candidates, here is a place to get their views.
on September 18th, 2008 at 10:34 am
It’s misleading to suggest that McCain’s so-called “change” is similar to Obama’s.
If you believe what you’ve written here, there’s no way you could conceivably vote for McCain. Indeed, you’d have to be completely apathetic to give the same party and a man that has been in political office for 30 years another 4 years to try to make something happen. He may have started to cling to the “change” thing because they were desperate to distance themselves from this failure of an administration as much as possible. However, just because the figurehead changes doesn’t not mean the decision-makers and interests behind them will.
It’s naive (and frankly, asinine) to think otherwise.