Honorable service and integrity are requirements for good government

The anniversary of the United States Constitution passed by relatively unnoticed last week, but politics as usual went along apace. That marvelous document – born of discontent that sparked revolution, and which was followed by discord, debate, trial and error, and ultimately yielded triumph – set forth a form of government unheard of in human history. It created a government empowered by the people, a government that expects and depends upon people of integrity following the rules, because doing so benefits the whole of the American people. It is a form of government designed to operate above the muck and mire of petty politics.

A nation so constituted is obligated to the people that empower it to operate efficiently, responsibly, honestly, and to identify its mistakes, own up to and bear responsibility for those mistakes and take steps to assure that those mistakes are not repeated. This element is never more important than when government failure results in the unnecessary loss of life of Americans serving their country.

Such a government and the people of integrity that operate it do not allow political considerations to prevent the truth from being found. It requires people in government, whether put there as an act of faith through the electoral process, or whether put there as hired hands, all work for the people, and all owe a duty to the people to act lawfully and with integrity. Anything less is treasonous, perhaps not by the letter of the law, but certainly in the spirit of the law.

As that revered date passed by, so did another: a date marking the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, and the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.

We well remember the first of those dates, when Muslim terrorists hijacked four airliners and crashed two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and passengers scuttled the fourth before it could reach its target, but these acts resulted in killing nearly 3,000 innocent people. Not since Pearl Harbor had the United States seen an attack of such magnitude.

On the latter date, Islamic militants attacked the Benghazi consulate. In that attack U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, a Foreign Service information officer, and Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty, two former Navy SEALs working as security personnel at the consulate died. This is an event many want simply to forget, and move on. “Dude, that was two whole years ago!”

The Benghazi attack occurred on the watch of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, neither of whom has any appetite for providing answers to the several serious questions about security failures that they are obligated to provide to their bosses, the American people.

The tragedy of Benghazi resulted from a grossly failed episode of government that puts some public servants in a very, very bad light. But people who put good government above sordid political concerns understand that the many unanswered questions of Benghazi deserve –require – answers. Honest and complete answers.  Mrs. Clinton’s shameful response to a Congressional committee, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” simply does not cut it.

And the longer Americans are left wondering which of the public servants in our government made decisions, or failed to make decisions, that led to the murder of four brave Americans serving their country, the more tawdry details leak out.

In a lengthy story for the Daily Signal online, Emmy award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson reported that as the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepared for its first hearing on the scandal last week, former State Department diplomat Raymond Maxwell alleged that confidants of Hillary Clinton took part in removing some damaging documents before they were turned over to the Accountability Review Board investigating the security lapses prior to and during the terrorist attacks on the consulate.

As Ms. Attkisson reported: “Maxwell says the weekend document session was held in the basement of the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters in a room underneath the ‘jogger’s entrance.’ He describes it as a large space, outfitted with computers and big screen monitors, intended for emergency planning, and with small offices on the periphery.”

Mr. Maxwell said that he observed boxes and stacks of documents, and that a State Department office director, whom he said was a close advisor to Mrs. Clinton was there. The office director actually worked for Mr. Maxwell, but he said he was not consulted about her working on this weekend assignment.

The office director explained that the assembled staff were to go through the stacks of documents “and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs office] or seventh floor [where the Secretary of State and top advisers are] in a bad light.

 “I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ he said. “She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’”

These State Department employees were more concerned with following orders than with acting honorably and legally, something that should concern everyone. 

For that reason, and for the memory of those four brave Americans that died needlessly, we must pursue the truth about Benghazi.

We must take a serious look at our laws and how they are enforced

Most people are for law and order, and most obey the laws that keep society functioning. And most have great respect for the men and women who have the sometimes-dangerous job of enforcing those laws.

That said, some laws are just plain dumb and should be done away with, and what is more important, there are so many laws, rules and regulations today that no one can know all the decrees from the federal, state and local governments that affect him or her, and therefore it is impossible to obey them all. This over-regulated environment puts each of us in the position of likely being in violation of one or more of them at any given moment.

What's worse than so many decrees from so many sources, however, is what seems to be a growing tendency of law enforcement agencies at all levels to imagine that even tiny infractions warrant the most dramatic responses.

Case in point: After making a purchase at a Charlottesville, Va. grocery store one night, a 20-year-old University of Virginia student and two roommates were approached in their car by a group of six men and one woman in street clothes. "They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," she recalled in a written account of the incident.

Police say one of the group jumped on the hood of her car. The girl said one drew a gun, and they tried to break out car windows. Unsure who they were, the girl tried to flee the dark parking lot and called 911. Given the circumstances and stories of people being assaulted by phony police officers, who could blame her?

It turned out to be a squad of plainclothes state Alcoholic Beverage Control officers who suspected the girl had purchased beer in the store – she hadn’t – and was under-age. She spent the night in jail as a result.

Question: Who at the ABC thought this procedure actually made sense? Is it reasonable for a squad of plainclothes agents to approach three female college students in a dark parking lot, fail to adequately identify themselves, point a gun at them, jump on their car and try to break out the windows because they think one of them had bought beer that she might not be old enough to purchase?

Prosecutors dropped charges against the young woman, describing her as having panicked at the sight of plainclothes agents who approached her and her roommates.

Case 2: When the Leander, Texas police wanted to serve a warrant on Bradly Simpson, they sent officers to his home. When no one responded to the knock on the front door, a couple of officers walked around the side of the house toward the back yard whereupon they saw two German Shepards coming toward them. One officer pulled his gun and fired three shots. The police said the dog was growling and aggressively coming at them. Fortunately, the officer’s aim was not good and only one of the dogs was hit, but only wounded.

After that spectacle, the police were unable to serve the warrant because they were at the wrong address, and in the wrong neighborhood. Worse than that, not far from where the dog was shot the home owners’ terminally-ill six year-old grandchild was playing.

Worse, yet, the home owners said neither dog was aggressive, that they were merely curious about who was visiting their home, and had never behaved the way the police claimed. And, as it turns out, the lady of the house is a professional dog trainer, and therefore knows about dog behavior, and furthermore noted that there are routinely customers visiting her home, so strangers don’t spook her dogs.

And what heinous crime prompted the police to go to Mr. Simpson’s home to serve the warrant? He had an expired vehicle registration.

Leander police officials say what happened was "an unfortunate accident." Wrong: What happened is that the police screwed up.

The number of rogue law enforcement personnel that intentionally abuse their authority and position is surely very small. Nevertheless, instances of over-aggressive law enforcement action and plain dumb mistakes like these are indefensible and intolerable, and there appears to be a growing attitude toward over-aggressive behavior.  

To maintain the public trust and respect government and law enforcement are going to have to stop doing stupid and dangerous things like these examples, and even worse incidents that have caused serious injury and even death for innocent citizens.

Solutions? Do we really need so many law enforcement officers that seven of them can spend nights sitting around in one store parking lot waiting to catch an under-age person buying beer? Does an expired registration really justify armed police visiting the vehicle owner’s home?

What about accountability? Officials that exercise bad judgment or act rashly must be disciplined, encouraging them to carefully consider how to properly and safely do their jobs, and also demonstrating that public officials really take seriously their duty to adequately serve the people they work for.

Something must be done, and the sooner, the better.

Make Congress less remote by implementing remote working methods

That Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing is beyond debate. A set of polls from five different polling organizations running from June 1 through July 1 show an approval rate ranging from 9 percent to 17 percent, an indictment of current members and what they are doing if ever there was one.

There is little agreement between Democrats and Republicans in both houses on any subject, and Congress stooped to using the most devious process in recent years to ram through the highly partisan Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, which was opposed by a majority of the American people when it was being considered, and is even more strongly opposed today. Congress acted in opposition to the will of the people, a serious breach of trust.

It has long been the practice for Members of Congress to essentially become residents of the DC area when they are elected and spend scant time in their home states and districts, and despite their best intentions cannot avoid becoming Washington insiders to some degree, and thus residents of their home states in name only.

Furthermore, many members of Congress fancy themselves as "special," part of an elite group, and all of them benefit from job-related perks the rest of us don't have access to, like gold-plated health and retirement programs that ought to be illegal, a big salary and staff, being treated like queens and kings, and who often make decisions that are aimed at satisfying special interests rather than making the best decisions for their constituents and for the nation.

What we see today is a fulfilling of Thomas Jefferson's prophecy: "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild (Jefferson's spelling), and government to gain ground," which he wrote in a letter to Edward Carrington in 1788.

Power corrupts, they say, and the lure of power partially accounts for the increasing domination of the federal government over the citizens. Another reason is that it is much easier for special interests to access our Senators and Representatives than for the voters that elected them. That statement is not necessarily a slam at elected officials or their staffs, who may work diligently to serve the citizenry, but a criticism of the geographic distance from the official's home state or district and the small amount of time available to spend back home.

A popular concept about responsive government is that the most responsive leaders are those that can most easily be reached; it's easier to communicate your ideas to members of the city council and county supervisors than to your Congressional representatives. A trip across the street, downtown or to the next town is far more satisfactory than a trip to Washington.

In the beginning, those serving in Congress spent a few weeks in Washington each year and the rest of the time at home working at their jobs as farmers, business owners, doctors and lawyers. Perhaps despite its strong appeal it isn't realistic to return completely to that arrangement, but two Congressmen have suggested a change to the way the House of Representatives works that is a step in that direction.

California Democrat Representative Eric Swalwell recently introduced a proposal to amend House rules to enable lawmakers to take care of business from their district offices, instead of having to be in Washington so much of the time. His idea involves using the latest technologies like video conferencing for hearings, committee meetings and the like, and a secure remote voting system. As of last weekend, two others had signed on as cosponsors, Republicans Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming and New Mexico’s Steve Pearce, who had previously introduced a similar measure that would require representatives to appear in person for certain required or essential House activities.

This idea has great appeal. Wouldn't it be terrific for our elected representatives to be able to attend local events regularly? Wouldn't it be great to find yourself in line at the grocery store in front of your senator or representative, or to run into him or her at a sporting event or a restaurant, and when you visited one of the district offices to find them working there?

Undoubtedly, our officials would have a much better sense of what their constituents think about the pressing issues of the day when they interact with them on a daily basis than when they rarely see them face to face. And it would make more difficult the special interest lobbying that now poisons the legislative process.

Currently, Congress meets only three or four days a week for most of the year, due to holidays and allowances for members to travel to and from home to spend a little time with their families and constituents. Such an arrangement might also result in lower spending for Congressional operations, given the need for fewer flights home and back, and in this day of repeated trillion-dollar budget deficits, that would be a plus, even if the savings were relatively small.

It can't be a bad thing for elected officials to be more available for contact by their constituents. Both accountability and performance would improve.