Donald G. Lee

Sir,

Your June editorial reminds me of two themes that I want to hammer in my campaign for the Minnesota House of Representatives, district 39a this summer. One is that of the responsibility of the voters, and the other is my insistence that nothing should be considered malice that can be adequately explained by incompetence.

In the first place, I think it is somewhat misplaced to consider the choices as being exclusively in the hands of politicians. Our democracy is nothing if not efficient and effective in reflecting the wishes of the public. The finger of blame belongs not on the politicians, but on the people who elected them. This is one of my themes -- that voters need to stand up and take responsibility for the behavior of their representatives.

We elected them. We supervise them, and in some cases we can recall them. Politicians make many promises to get the enthusiastic support of voters. No politician is going to voluntarily surrender the power that he and his constituents believe he needs to fulfill those promises. Whether he is altruistic or corrupt, the power must be wrested from him by citizens who insist on running their own affairs. We the voters must say with a single voice: -- "Butt Out."

To the contrary, politicians face a constant stream of demands to use the power of the state to enact the innumerable agendas of various constituencies.

We cannot have it both ways. We cannot condemn politicians for being interventionist AND for not being "responsive." We vote for "responsive." We demand "responsive." We can't blame politicians for giving us "responsive."

In the second place, I do not believe that politicians as a group are so much corrupt and conniving as they are misguided and gullible.

Politics, as far as I can tell, is a game that is played by two types of people. The first type is the altruist who really believes that he is doing something for "society." The second type is the power-hungry type. I believe that the latter is rare, and tend to be found out.

The first type is thrown into the lion's den, and unless his character is made of the purest and strongest steel, he is soon subtly corrupted, and in time ends up doing and saying things inconsistent with good character.

In the case of debt and finance, the problem is less that politicians know better and are choosing to keep their positions, as that the general understanding of economics is so politicized and corrupted by self-interest that rational decision making is very difficult.

In short, voters demand that government "create jobs" because they believe that that is the right things to do. Very few economists stand up and say "TARP was a big mistake" because their institutions often depend heavily on the political good graces of the feds.

With conventional wisdom firmly on the side of the misguided policies being followed, I don't blame politicians for "going along." We don't vote for people who are domain experts in economics, physics and medicine. We elect politicians. Politicians do what the voters ask them to do. They cannot be expected to be more competent than the experts in the relevant fields who are advising them.

The heavy lifting is to convince the public that the conventional wisdom is wrong. That is a job for leaders -- not politicians.