by Effie Moore Salem

Created on: August 19, 2009   Last Updated: December 01, 2009

Why not another tactic? Simply allow them to do the best job they know how to do. That would be real first. Cannot politicians have the choice to change their minds now and then? Congressional politicians are first of all men and women who sign on to help guide and direct their country. Even though they are in their elected positions because hometown voters put them there, their first duty is to vote their conscience. Sometimes this will force them to against what the back home guys want and vote for what they see is right. A good representative or senator will keep their voters informed of their actions and will invite comments and grudges and disagreements.

However, politicians whether of the executive, judicial or the congressional variety, are human beings firsts and are subject to change their minds. There are no ways to bind them to actions they have taken in the past when in the process of learning and becoming the best representative of those who elected them to be their voice, learns better ways. Time changes everything and opinions are no exception.

Democracies are built on change; dictatorships are destroyed by change. Which of the two is sufficient to lead hopeful new congressmen and women toward the light? Changing attitudes that emerge as a country struggles to get back on its feet after too much covertness has lead it astray, or change that finds new truth in the word democracy and forces it to continually evaluate and change as new evidence is made known.

Of course knowing that certain members of congress voted one way when an issue or an impending legislative work came up to be voted on and then a few months on down the road they are now flagrantly opposed to that choice does invite comment. They do have a choice and that is why they were asked to vote; they also have the right to change their minds, as I think I have already said in a few paragraphs above. However disturbing and how much comment and back biting and outright hostility this sometimes causes, I am sure this happens fairly frequently.

What can anyone do about this possible unforeseen event? Voters have no more right to attempt to force their choices for congress into binds where they promise to be forever on one side or another than potential politicians have in insisting that voters stay tuned to whatever they will do in the future. Honor is what it is all about and the honor belongs to the holder of it who listens first to their conscience speaking. A well run country deals in this kind of honor.

As one possible example to how honor plays a role in politics or does not play a role, think of the dishonorable and disgusting act known as vote buying. A less than capable candidate wants to get elected so badly, that he sanctions vote buying. They must rely on unreliable people to offer cash for votes; no reliable person would be approached because they no only would not sell their vote, they would report the crime. The question here is what kind of loyalty can one criminal expect from another? How does the fraudulent politician that gets elected, or does not get elected, know for sure whether the voter actually voted for them.

In a roundabout way, holding a congressman's feet to the fire and trying to force him to stay true to his past voting record is denying them the right to work in the honorable way they were chosen to work. Ideas and opinions are like people, they grow as new circumstances present themselves. Could this not be true of the issue up for vote? A biblical quote comes to mind here. When I was a child I thought as a child, now that I am grown, I think as a grown up. This slightly changed quote comes from Corinthians 13:11.

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