Would Big Dog favor withdrawal?

The depressingly ignorant Big Dog has decided to share his great political wisdom with the masses. This time, he’s arguing that politicians must never substitute their judgment for The Will Of The People:

Don’t question the judgment of your constituency, look who they voted into office.

This is the problem with politicians. They believe that being elected to office makes them smarter than everyone else and they they know what is best. How dare we peons tell them how we want them to vote? Remember when more than 80% of the country wanted the amnesty bill shot down they still voted for it and called us racists. They do not listen because they think they know more than we do or that they know what is best for us. The amazing thing is they won’t trust our judgment during their term until they run for office and then they trust us to put them back and they pander to us. Liberals act more liberal, conservatives act more conservative and when they go back they screw us.

Wayne Gilchrest of the 1st Congressional District in Maryland found out what happens when he votes his conscience and not the will of his constituents. He will be watching the general election from home this year. We need to vote all these people out of office. If they go against the majority of the people they represent then we need to get rid of them.

Anyone who says what Cleaver did should be out of office. The last thing I will ever need is a dim witted politician deciding for me. They can’t get their own stuff in order so I will be damned if I need them trying to get mine in order for me.

Apparently, any time a politician dares to think about an issue rather than blindly follow the current whims of the electorate, he is “screwing” the people who voted him into office. Big Dog doesn’t want people in office — he wants robots.

Okay, let’s pursue this logic: According to recent polls conducted by Pew, ABC News-Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal-NBC News [PDF], between 53% and 57% of Americans surveyed are in favor of a withdrawal from Iraq in the very near future. Big Dog’s prescription for well-behaved politicians would therefore demand that Bush begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. Who wants to bet that Big Dog sees the matter in this way?

Somehow, I suspect that Big Dog’s anger at politicians who use their own judgment extends only to those politicians who disagree with him. One does not expect logical consistency from a wingnut of Big Dog’s stripe.

UPDATE 02/15/08 11:32 AM EST: In a follow-up comment, Big Dog descends further into Ludicrous City...

To answer an earlier trackback, the people of this country decided with an overwhelming margin to send troops into battle. The Congress did that and the troops are fighting a war. Once we have decided to use force we should let the military run the war.

Ah. The theory here seems to be that when “the people” favor starting a war, politicians should start the war. But when “the people” later decide the war was a mistake and we should get out, politicians should ignore “the people”.

Inconsistent much, dogmeat?

(And excuse me, but when and how exactly was the will of “the people” ascertained in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq?)

However, I am willing to bet that if we did a district by district poll there would be more votes in favor of winning than in favor of leaving. Members of Congress should vote the way their constituents want, that is why we send them there.

No, that’s why Big Dog votes for his choice of representatives. He wants a mindless robot that does what it is told, and applies not thought to the task of representing its constituency. Some of his fellow citizens might choose to vote for a candidate that they believe will represent their interests with intelligence and conscience. Would Big Dog deny his fellow citizens the right to make that choice?

Do we continue the war on the strength of nothing more than Big Dog’s “bet”? Kinda sounds like Big Dog is assuming that his views must be those of the majority of Americans — when we have very convincing evidence that his views are, in fact, in the minority.

In fact, it sounds more and more like Big Dog’s true belief might be best summed up as: Do what the people want, unless Big Dog wants otherwise.

The Flag burning amendment has about 87% support and the rejection of gay marriage is well over 50% nationally so if we use national polls they should be law.

But we don’t use national polls to decide our laws. The Constitutionally-mandated system of governance we have now sees to that, and it was written by some pretty smart folks. Why do you suppose they wrote it that way, muttboy?

A withdrawal from Iraq has over 50% support. If we use national polls, a withdrawal from Iraq should be written into law. Why would Big Dog not support such a law, given his belief that national polls should determine our laws?

That is why we allow the states to decide these issues, so that areas of huge population do not decide for the rest of the country (a reason the Electoral College is so important). Each state and the districts in the state get to decide.

That’s not feasible in the case of an action being taken by the nation as a whole, such as a war.

Does the word Representative mean something different to others?

Yes, apparently it does. To Big Dog, it seems to mean ‘slave to the polls’.

UPDATE 02/16/08 6:18 AM EST: It took just over twenty-four hours for Big Dog to start backpedaling:

I wrote yesterday that the people who are elected to represent us should vote in accordance with the wishes of the majority of their constituents. I realize that there are many issues that come up that do not require this or that a district is about evenly split so a politician needs to use good judgment (there is a contradiction in terms) but for the most part, they should follow the wishes of those who put them in office.

(Emphasis mine.)

Big Dog is right. He is directly contradicting his statement of the day before:

Members of Congress should vote the way their constituents want, that is why we send them there.

I suspect that Big Dog’s actual views would be better expressed as: representatives should do what the majority wants until the majority wants something that Big Dog doesn’t like — and then they should do what Big Dog wants.

Hilarious.