Why have we allowed our governments (plural because I’m referring to all levels) get so big and out of control? Citizens, for the most part, are powerless against the governmental machine.

Lawmakers seem to do as they please and break the backs of their constituents. We elect politicians of modest means and after a few years in DC they’re suddenly millionaires and billionaires. I have my own theory as to how this transformation occurs, but it must not bother us too badly. They just keep getting reelected. At least in Oklahoma we have term limits.

At the local levels (I’m not singling any particular entity out, I’m talking in general terms), we fuss about this and that, but voter turnout is generally pitiful when we have the chance to make a difference. If you really want to affect change, you have to vote. Then you have to tell those in power what needs to be done, and if they don’t listen, VOTE THEM OUT.

I really believe we’re too far down the road to undo the damage that we’ve allowed to be done over the last century. I don’t have any easy answers, other than we’ve got to find a way to remind our “public servants” that they work for us and not the other way around. I’ve been around plenty of elected officials to know what I’m talking about. Some are genuinely humble people, but I’ve had more than one treat me as if I were a second class citizen.

Our public servants shouldn’t be jetting all over the place and getting chauffeured around on our dime. Let them drive across the country in an old beater with questionable tires that overheats and grab something to eat in the car from McDonalds and Taco Bell like the rest of us have had to do at one time or another. Let them struggle to pay their insanely high taxes, mortgages and utilities like 90% of the general population. Let them sweat to death on a hot summer day because they won’t invest in the infrastructure. Make them drink the brown water that comes out of the tap in many cities.

Get the point? I doubt my generation will be able to do anything about it, but maybe the next generation can…if they’re still around.