I am happy to report that I’ve never seen a dead horse, so suffice it to say I haven’t beaten one either but when it comes to politics and the folks getting along and working together, there seems to be an abundance of dead horses waiting to be beaten.
The other night on a call when we got stuck on a topic we’d been over a thousand times, one woman held up a sheet of paper that read DEAD HORSE. After we recovered from laughter, we moved on, which brings me to today’s topic: “filibuster.”
If we’ve heard this “progress-stopping” phrase once, we’ve heard it a million times and we still haven’t figured out how to move forward and protect everyone’s right to vote. New and restrictive laws, gerrymandering, posturing for the cameras, elected officials forgetting why they were sent to the U. S. Senate and the House of Representatives—enough already!
I admire and respect those who stand on principle and defend what is right. This helps us live peacefully in a civil society, so when/if someone opposes what is being proposed, it makes sense that they figure out how to work harmoniously with their peers so we all win at the end of the day.
As more and more folks decide they don’t like the atmosphere in Congress, new folks will step up to fill their space, however, I pray that as Election 2022 looms, we, the people, step up too.
We must ask candidates why they’re running? What is their agenda–is it theirs/ours/the party’s? If anything about the answer seems problematic, we must keep asking until we get answers that make sense.
We must be better informed. Most of us don’t go around filibustering every day—most of us don’t have time to “talk” an issue to death, so when we see this happening, drop a dime. OK, there are no phone booths, and a dime won’t buy much, but the concept—make a call or drop an email is the same.
A recent article about the impact of constituent correspondence said most congressional aides and staffers are overworked, underpaid, and taking calls and indexing emails isn’t fun. Even if this is true, letting them know my thoughts makes me feel involved in the process.
Former Tennessee Senator Bob Corker and I were rarely on the same page, but he always answered and explained how/why he voted the way he did. Working across the aisle seems to be a bad thing these days yet every time our icons—Bob Dole, John McCain, John Lewis, and others die, the news stories tout how they put their differences aside.
I am dreading midterm elections because lies, half-truths, vicious sound bites, mudslinging, negative campaigning, and jockeying for position are already being planned. Though we say we hate all of it, we can’t seem to rise above it.
Friends, Romans, countrymen and women, and everybody in between, we know there are no perfect candidates, nor do we live in a perfect world. Thankfully perfection is not the goal today. Harmony and doing what’s right are. Too many have fought and died for voting rights for this sacred entity to be held hostage by people who are where they are because of them.
When it comes to voting, it’s fundamentally fundamental. Everything should be done to get people to the polls—extending registration and voting hours, mail-in ballots, improved processes and machines, convenient polling places—whatever it takes, we must do it if we want to keep calling ourselves protectors of human rights. End of Story.
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