Personal beliefs should have no place
Dear Citizens,
Can you help me understand this current caricature of a Democratic government that we have today? I’m watching all this political debate, mudslung character assassination propaganda, and reading the stuff in the papers (yup, I still read papers, although I’m seriously thinking of going on a news fast at the insistence of Dr. Andrew Weil) since newspapers seem to have hired data-entry clerks who simply enter press releases by the organizations they’re reporting on, and the investigative reporter (with the exception, perhaps, of Chuck Goudie) has gone the way of the Dodo.
I have one confusion:
Why are we concerned with what the candidates believe? If they’re left or right? If they’re gay or straight? Whether they support pro-life issues or pro-choice?
None of that is relevant to what they are supposed to do. Aren’t elected officials supposed to vote according to what their whole constituency wants?
Ethical professionalism in a politician is polling his whole constituency on any particular issue and analyzing the data to determine how he should vote. Basing his vote on his beliefs and values is unethical.
As a therapist, I’m ethically bound to not let my personal issues dictate my clinical service to a client. Most professions have ethical guidelines around that issue. It would appear government doesn’t. And somehow we’re going along with it.
This is an information age. It’s not rocket science to create a polling mechanism, and an analysis position or committee to check the data and hand the politician his voting obligations of the day.
So help me out. Why are you putting up with this unethical crap? In the words of the renowned philosopher Pepsi-Cola:
“Wake up, people!”
Frank G. Salvatini
Elgin