NRypelOpenLetterDraft1

Dear Congress, What has the political process come to? All the major stories anymore are how one party did this or how the other party did that. Names of people are said but you get the feeling that the names never actually matter. What seems to matter is whether they are conservative or liberal. It’s just one big competition between two parties. There are other parties but who are you kidding if you think they have any say in anything. It’s understandable that a significant portion of the population would fall into these worthless attachments to parties but the people of congress are supposed to be some of the brightest people in the country. A person’s political affiliation should have no bearing on a decision. If I was to take a little more of a severe stance I would say there shouldn’t even be political affiliations. There should be no competition in Congress.

Don’t get me wrong though, competition itself is good. Being an accounting major, I wouldn’t dare argue with my professors otherwise. You would be hard pressed to find an aspect of life that it didn’t improve. Sports analyst all of the time are saying players are faster and stronger today than they were when they played. The only way that is achievable is through competition. The same applies most of the time to businesses. Competition helps the consumer by offering variety and driving down prices. It forces people to achieve great things. There is a bad side that is never talked about though. It’s never really talked about in school or ever mentioned by your parents growing up. Competition causes a lot of good things but it also causes feuds, intolerances, and, even on the extreme end of the spectrum, warfare. The problem is that politicians seem to embody only the unhealthy side to competition when they should be setting a better example for citizens.

It’s not like this is a new phenomenon. It has been a problem throughout history. If you think about it you could probably just simplify everything in history to the need for one group of people to be better than another group of people. Sovereign states would have never expanded and technology would have never improved if it wasn’t that way. Religious intolerance wouldn’t have even been a problem. The holy wars would have had no reason to occur. This of course is a gross oversimplification of things but it shows that competition is human nature and that there is no real getting away from it. Just look at how nasty sports fans get at fans from rival teams or the riots that have occurred because of a team winning or losing. Soccer alone has the stigma of a riot starter. Except these extreme cases though competition in sports is rather harmless to society. Same can be said for patriotism. Patriotism is pretty much just a competition between countries and there are some pretty bad views about one country to another out there. Those views though are mainly on the citizen level and don’t really affect a society as a whole. These last two examples aren’t really to show the inherent evil in competition but more show an understanding that of course politics would also be split into a competition; people do it in everything else. The main difference though is that the competition in Congress is harmful to society.

In a democracy debate is important, more so than in other types of governments. In fact back in the time of monarchies debate was almost useless. One guy or small group of people had a say in all affairs of the state. Not so nowadays. In theory everyone has a say in how this country is ran and that is why intelligent debate is key. When this country first started the George Washington was unanimously elected president. It wasn’t the unanimous part that was extraordinary though, it was that he was elected on merit and not based on his party. I remember hearing that Washington said parties were no good for the country and that it would only create a divide between the people. I’m not a hundred percent sure if that is a real quote but if it isn’t it might be the best thing that was never said. Political parties would soon emerge after his presidency and would soon be the cause of great turmoil. There would be many different parties before the two main ones today, but they all worked the same way. They pitted one side against another and that is the main problem. It’s not the different opinions that causes problems, it’s the you against me philosophy that does. Once you take up the stance that you’re already right debate becomes useless. That is why Congress is failing the people.

It has gotten so bad to the point where all of the country’s problems get blamed on the majority party which in a way makes sense because people of the same party usually vote along party lines or face being shunned. As said earlier a person’s party should never be brought into the equation. Congress needs to start voting along the lines of each individual’s opinion, nothing more. Individual debate needs to make a comeback. No more saying what the party wants you to say and no more filibustering to avoid the issue completely. I know that is asking for a lot with it being so engrained in our culture now but it’s for the good of society. It looks like we are moving in another direction though. With the emergence of the Tea Party another divide in between people has been made; this one being a little more preposterous. If you read an official statement about them you might think they aren’t so bad, but then you see the interviews and listen to family members. They are just a blame group that wants to blame all of the economic problems on either Obama or the Democrats. They are not a debate group. If they crack into Congress then things will most likely get worse.

Congress and the president need to lead by example. Party titles need to be removed. It’s okay to agree with a group of people but it’s important to make the distinction that you are not that group of people just because you agree with them. The arguing turns people off from politics. I for one don’t want much to do with voting with how the system is set up right now. If Congress can become a large body of debaters, not politicians, then hopefully voters will start to follow and we can start voting again based on merit.