Words of Wisdom, or The Z-Team

Not every day does the anointing descend upon me and empower me to proclaim prophetic wisdom to the masses. But such a day has now arrived. So listen to the knowledge that I bring:  

If you are arrested in a foreign country for a crime you didn't commit, and the local authorities ask you to sign a document written in language you can't understand, don't do it. The very sentence you think means “I swear to God I have no idea how that heroin got in my messenger bag” may actually translate as “not only did I pack that skag into my carry-on, I packed some into my rectum too.”  With your signature on the dotted line, what grounds would you have (after the cavity search) to protest before the judge?

This truth has a corollary:  If you serve in the legislature of a country facing dire domestic challenges, and the president asks you to vote for a bill that you don't have time to read and couldn't understand even if you did, don't do that either.  After the legislation passes, and all its unintended (but eminently foreseeable) consequences come to pass, you won’t get a pass from your constituents come the next election.

Consider the recently passed health care overhaul. The final monstrosity ran to approximately 2,309 pages, exceeding in length the Bible and even Atlas Shrugged. Prior to its passage, its size had prompted concern that the congresspeople voting on it wouldn’t have adequate time to read it first. However, several members of the House of Representatives stepped forward to allay the public’s fears. “You'd have to have hours and hours and hours to be able to do all that,” observed Neil Abercrombie (D-HI). John Conyers (D-MI) commented, “I love these members that get up and say, ‘Read the bill!’ Well, what good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you've read the bill?” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) went so far as to declare, “We need to pass the health care bill to find out what's in it.” This rare display of candor allowed concerned citizens to stop fretting over trivial issues, like whether or not their representatives would vote for a bill they hadn’t read, and start fretting over more profound ones, like their representatives’ flagrant intention to do so.

Consider as well the just-passed financial reform package, also about 2,300 pages long. Immediately upon the bill’s passage, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT), described in one source as “teary-eyed,” pronounced, “It’s a great moment. I’m proud to have been here.” Then, to fully mark the momentousness of the occasion, he added, “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.” Such confidence-inspiring action and oratory is just all in a day’s work for the proud men and women of the United States Congress.

This brazen lunacy tempts the philosopher in me to argue that these politicians either don’t understand what they're doing and are stupid or do understand what they're doing and are corrupt.  But the psychologist in me sees another option: they’re ill.  These poor officeholders have in all likelihood succumbed to the Do-Something Disease, that dreaded syndrome which compels well-meaning legislators to believe that, when faced with a crisis, doing anything, no matter what it is, is always better than doing nothing. Doing the right thing tragically proves impossible for them: since they have no idea what the bills they support actually say, they have no adequate basis for their “yes” votes and thus no grounds for claiming that they voted correctly even if the bills, once implemented, somehow produce desirable results.

With enough wealth and power to protect themselves from the consequences of their behavior, the afflicted of the 111th Congress stand in little danger of self-harm. Yet in their wanton abuse of the public trust, they pose an imminent threat to society at large. As such, the responsibility falls upon us, the well, to intervene. We must use the ballot box this November to ensure that these pitiable invalids lose office and find the help they so desperately need.