RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/michael-cutler/congress-needs-its-own-hippocratic-oath/print/

Congress is now in recess. We can now all exhale.

While the media makes much of how members of both the Senate and House of Representatives have left Washington without accomplishing anything, I would offer a different perspective.

Let’s be fair: everyone who works is entitled to vacation — even members of Congress.

Here are some additional things to consider. When Congress is not in session they cannot do harm to America or Americans at the behest of their respective political party bosses or their deep-pocketed contributors or special interest groups and their lobbyist who promise to deliver blocks of votes.

When members of Congress go home they will hopefully, take some time out to meet with their constituents. This is at least as important as having them convene hearings which, having testified before so many of those hearings, myself, I have often lamented that perhaps instead of hearings they should conduct “listenings.”

I often wonder how many people who are disdainful and contemptuous of Congress have ever actually met with, or attempted to set up a meeting with, his (her) elected representative. In all fairness, not unlike other people, members of Congress cannot read minds. Also, human nature being what it is, when politicians don’t hear from their constituents they may presume that their constituents are not particularly displeased with how they are being represented. In any event, the slogan “Out of sight-out of mind” certainly does apply.

Therefore a significant part of the blame for the mess America is in today can be traced back to lazy and uninformed citizens, who not only are likely to not vote, and do not make an effort to truly understand the issues. This is exacerbated by Americans who likely don’t even know the names of the politicians who are supposed to represent them on the city, state or federal levels, let alone contacted them to discuss their concerns and ideas.

When we go to a restaurant we are generally very specific about the meal we want to eat and how we want it prepared. No one would walk into a restaurant and tell the waiter or waitress, “Just throw some crap on my plate you think I should eat, and I will gladly eat it!”

If the meal that is served is not to our liking we will most probably send it back. If that doesn’t work, we are likely to “vote with our feet” and walk out the door of that restaurant and never return.

We must be no less specific or demanding in articulating our concerns with our elected representatives as we are when placing an order with those waiters and waitresses.

Let’s now contemplate the accusation that the Congress has not accomplished much. I, for one, would actually take issue with this charge. Voting down bad legislation is not a failure to accomplish something, it is an example of using proper discretion to save us from some terrible legislation and the damage it would do to America and Americans.

The pressure is on for passage of Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Journalists on virtually every news program have been beating the drum for this legislative train wreck making all sorts of extravagant and wrong-headed claims about the wonders Comprehensive Immigration Reform and how much America needs it.

To quote my late parents, “We need Comprehensive Immigration Reform like we need a hole in the head!”

There are many who would profit from that legislation, but they are not the average American workers or their families. Indeed, American workers would be harmed by this legislation that would provide corporations with a virtually inexhaustible supply of cheap and compliant labor. While most people focus on how this program would provide unknown millions of heretofore illegal foreign workers with lawful status and official identity documents so that they could compete with tens of millions of unemployed or underemployed American and lawful immigrant workers — mostly for low paying jobs — Comprehensive Immigration Reform would also provide for many more H-1B visas which would apply downward pressure on wages and working conditions for highly educated and highly skilled American professionals such as computer programmers, engineers and technicians.

I have addressed the issue about the profiteers of immigration in several articles I have written for a number of websites and publications including my previous article for FrontPage Magazine, “Immigration ‘Reform’: Engineered Destruction of the Middle Class” (The real reason high-tech titans are lining up behind the amnesty effort) which was published on July 22, 2014.

Additionally, the winter 2014 edition of the quarterly journal, “The Social Contract” included my article: “American Dream Being Sold at Auction – America’s Middle Class to Be Put on Endangered Species List”

Congress acted wisely and did not accede to the demands of the “President who would be king.”

He has bullied and threatened to once again use his pen to write more executive orders and policy memoranda to circumvent the legislative process that is an integral part of how our democratic republic is to conduct business as per that document Obama taught his students when he was a college instructor, the Constitution of the United States.

On June 17, 2012 Fox News posted my Op-Ed, “Obama Invokes Prosecutorial Discretion to Circumvent Constitution and Congress.” I wrote it in response to the speech the president made two days earlier in the White House Rose Garden when he addressed a press conference and claimed “prosecutorial discretion” to justify essentially enacting a temporary version of the DREAM Act without the benefit of legislation. In my article I stated that he had not used prosecutorial discretion but “prosecutorial deception.”

Perhaps he needs to be reminded that our government is a democratic republic and not a thugocracy.

In any event, a sufficient number of members in the House of Representatives refused to be bullied and resisted the extreme pressure applied by so many to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Most medical doctors take the “Hippocratic Oath” when they graduate from medical school, to provide them with a moral compass to guide them in their practice of medicine, concerning how they will treat their patients.

“I will keep them from harm and injustice.”

The classic version of that oath contains a sentence that should be added to the oaths of office for all of our elected officials, but rather than apply to patients, as it does for medical practitioners, it should apply to the constituents, the American citizens our politicians are elected to represent.

Moreover, that elegant phrase also eloquently describes what must be the goals of all of our laws, especially our immigration laws where the citizens of this great nation are concerned.