Jul 2, 2014 3 min read

You have heard the war cry to “vote the bums out” from the tea parties and rallies around the country. I am completely in favor of this sentiment, however for maybe other reasons. I believe that it would be good to replace all sitting political representatives in all local, state and national office. The Constitution allows us to do this and provides for an orderly process to do so, as only certain numbers of seats become open for replacement each year.

The reason I wish this to occur is to demonstrate to all politicians that the people have the power and are willing to use the power to replace all of them. Right now most politicians believe that the power rests with them and not with the people. Government officials serve at the pleasure of the people; I think they have forgotten that little principal. When politicians have served in a capacity for so long they begin to believe they have been “ordained” in that position and it is theirs to do with what they want. They have even stacked the deck in fund raising to make it difficult for a newcomer to defeat them.

So, I say we send them a message of “people power”. Vote every incumbent out of office in the next race. We may lose some very good people in the process, but we have many, many, good citizens who can serve just as well if not better than those currently in charge. In fact, service to the government was never to be a professional position, but was to be a calling of citizens to assist in the function of government and return to private life and live with those laws that were past under their watch. How easy it is to pass laws that you will never have to live under, but the poor fellow down the road will have to toil under for years. This is the arrogance of power that must be curtailed. We must send the politicians a message that they work for us and we have the power to make them private citizens once more.

So, starting with the next election, local, state, or federal, we must vote the incumbent out, replace one party for another, vote independent, write in your own name if you have to. Let us send these arrogant politicians a message from the people “don’t tread on me”.