“I don’t really pay attention to the news.”
It wasn’t the fact that the teenager said it that bothered me, in fact, it seems like I hear that sentence more often than not anymore.
No, it was more the way he said it, the pride in his face, like ignorance of one’s surroundings is a sign of coolness that should be hoisted like some badge of honor.
Just who should shoulder the blame for lawmakers passing themselves massive pay raises in the middle of the night?
Should the blame be placed solely on the thief or should some go to the shopkeeper who turned off the lights and left the door wide open?
What my fine young ignorant buck doesn’t understand is that living in a republic makes all of us responsible for the actions of our leaders.
They are, after all, our public servants, or at least that’s how the plan was intended.
Those lawmakers knew that only a fraction of the voting public goes to the polls, and fewer still get riled up over anything happening in Harrisburg.
Most representatives believed that any uproar would be a tempest in a teapot, an issue that would rancor for only minutes and then fade in the face of more pressing news like the name of Katie and Tom’s baby.
Fortunately, the pay raises actually woke up the great sleeping electoral giant, who proceeded to give 17 incumbents the heave-ho.
That might have been the end of it, just another money-grab-gone-bad, had it not been for the nifty maneuverings of the State Supreme Court, which last week used a little-known provision of the law to reinstate the pay raises for more than 1000 members of the judiciary.
Seems the law says that the pay of judges can not be diminished unless other branches of government are cut as well (do you think a lawyer drew that one up?).
Now, to my tiny, unwashed, never-went-to-law-school mind, that’s a classic misread.
If the pay raise wasn’t constitutional, rescinding it only returns the judges to their last legal pay scale.
That’s quite a bit different in my mind from an actual “pay cut” that the law would seem to be addressing.
What’s the bottom line here?
It’s easier to justify stealing an apple when you know that no one is watching.
People will always find ways to benefit from their situation unless vigilance is maintained.
That part of the future doesn’t look too bright when you talk to the disconnected who believe that cool means not even paying attention.