It's Hard to Participate, I Know All to Well (Post 10 of a Series of Posts)

The following is my tenth post in a series of posts that shows my letter to those members of Congress who voted for ACA.  If you have not read the first post then I encourage you to do so by clicking here and then reading each successive post until you arrive at this one.  Please note that interspersed between these successive posts are posts on distinctly different issues.

The following portion of the letter explains why I distributed my letter via the USPS:

Obviously, I value freedom of choice, but I readily acknowledge that requires personal responsibility on my part.  I think most Americans value freedom, but sadly fail to know that personal responsibility is also required. As anecdotal evidence, very few people actively participate in our elected government and if they do, it is to invest just an hour or so of their time on the first Tuesday in November on alternating years.

Thomas Jefferson once stated, “We do not have a government of the majority, we have a government of the majority that participate.” Those that participate are the well-heeled interests that call upon you daily, which leaves me to wonder, who did you help if your vote for ACA failed to achieve the publicly stated objectives? I am left to believe as I suspect millions more Americans believe that those helped were the well-heeled special interests.

As anecdotal evidence, I write this personal letter because I cannot send some members of Congress, such as Congresswoman Pelosi, Senator Durbin and possibly many others, an email for the simple reason I live outside their state/district.  Yet, I have high confidence that these same representatives do not block emails from lobbyists and sizeable campaign donors that live outside their state/district.

OxFam recently published a study that highlights the income disparity between the poor and wealthy and stated the cause of this effect was that wealthy interests had greater access to those in government.  It does not matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. It is extremely hard not to be influenced by special interests because they actively participate much more so than individual citizens to help you and others in Washington to win elections. We are as much to blame for this mess as you.