So the other night on on The Daily Show (Oct. 30, 2013), Jon Stewart was discussing the inability of Congress to figure out how the NSA could have possibly wandered so far from the straight and narrow. He suggested that Congress-critters pleading ignorance was equivalent to saying, "I can't believe you stayed out all night and got drunk just because I left you with a keg of beer and a note that said, 'Do whatever the f--- you want for as long as you want.'" There's an element of truth to that; they wrote the laws, then skived off when it came time to watch the metaphorical hen-house. But here's a further observation, this time from P. J. O'Rourke, "Giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car-keys to teenage boys." Alternately, as Pogo Possum famously said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
We did this to ourselves. You, me, everyone who votes, everyone who doesn't vote. We elected these people and gave them the power and left them alone to do as they would.
