Main Entry: blame

Part of Speech: noun
Definition: responsibility
Synonyms: accountability, answerability, burden, culpability, fault, guilt, incrimination, liability, onus, rap


Surely you have been paying some attention to our most recent national “crisis”. Our country’s credit card has reached its limit, and our elected officials in both parties have just paved the way to another $2.4 trillion increase on that limit regardless of whether we can afford the bill. Isn’t that the kind of budgeting that has gotten many of us in trouble these last few years?

The career politicians seem to have the narrative down pat. They fill our ears with an array of indistinguishable plans and scenarios of cutting this expense or allowing that tax increase while employing triggers, contingencies and bipartisan “super committees”. They unashamedly throw numbers around that end with 9 to 18 zeros like they’re poker chips at a game night with the boys. Those chips are our tax dollars, our lives, our savings, and our futures… our hard earned money, NOT THEIRS! Yet it seems, for them, that the money and the amounts are not the real important issue, but are a means to an end. No, there is something else that is paramount to their agreements and/or disagreements.

In our media today there is an almost never-ending supply of opinions and commentary to behold and not a lot of fact based news, and lately my attention has been drawn to an increasingly repetitive defense from both Democrats and Republicans, and that is their refusal to take any of the blame for “letting our country default on its debts”. While most of you may focus on the misleading term “default”, the word that gets my attention is “blame”. Now, in my little world the word blame is attached to a deed that is considered to be wrong.

In our broken political system, there is nothing that is by definition “wrong” in the classical sense …just inconvenient. Their fear of blame is not founded on the fact they may be hurting our republic. To them, blame is not attributed to ones own fault per se, instead it is a tool or weapon to be used against a foe. It’s interesting to see how blame can be used to the career politician’s advantage when it is aimed across the aisle, or in The President’s case, behind him towards his predecessor. Blame allows them to avoid accountability. Again, blaming your opponents doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not the charge is true. Of course they are betting on you and me not being smart, or attentive enough to know what the truth is. Avoiding accountability to their constituents is one of the core reasons that the system is broken.

Their end game is protecting their prospects for reelection, and keeping their power.


At some point we must ask ourselves a few questions:

How do I govern myself and my own behavior?

Should I expect my representatives to govern the nation and themselves in a like manner?

Is what we have now true representative government?

If I am one who is concerned about my own household finances, in that I do not overspend, pay my bills, and manage to save for a rainy day, then representation for me would be someone who is committed to governing in that same manner. Yet, what do I get when a party picks, and lobbyist pays for the candidate from my district? I would probably get a congressman that represents them, and doesn’t reflect his constituents (me). He is more concerned about balancing our national budget with accounting tricks in an attempt to compromise with other career politicians, and avoid blame, than he is for the long term health of the country. They are only concerned for my opinion when election season comes near, and with the prospect that I might “blame” them.

It seems simple enough for a representative to avoid blame:

Campaign on a set of stated positions and govern that way when after arriving in Washington D.C. If he want to change his mind and thus his vote, then ask me (the constituent) what I think about it first. GOOOH candidates pledge to contact their district before changing a documented position.

Do you think it would be easier for him to vote on the difficult issues if he didn’t have to worry about blame, because he wouldn’t have to worry about reelection? If there is one plank that exists in the platform on which any GOOOH candidate will have to run on, it is term limits.

Do you think it would be easier for him to break from traditional party ranks and be accountable to his constituents if he didn’t take any campaign funds from the major parties, or special interest groups? GOOOH candidates are forbidden to take money from any party or lobbyists.

Do you think that he would better represent your district if he were chosen as a candidate by the people, like you and me, who actually live and work in the district, and he was chosen out of a process that allowed one on one discussion with us about the issues that he might be voting on? GOOOH candidates are chosen through a systematic process that allows everyday people to choose their candidate and bypasses the party system.

This would be the kind of representation that we could expect by electing GOOOH candidates to the House of Representatives. Please check GOOOH out, and join for free @ www.goooh.com and find a GOOOH chapter for your congressional district or one near you.