Congress’ political zombies oblivious to daily hardships

There are no real people on Capitol Hill. The men and women who sit in seats of power at our nation’s center look like the people whose best interests they’re suppose to watch over, but they aren’t.

Many of them are millionaires several times over, others well-to-do or holding their own in their lives of so-called public service. Some began in poverty, worked hard to achieve, are proud of their status and influence.

If they were once real people, they are no longer. They are political zombies, ghosts oblivious to daily hardships of most Americans, who see the rest of us as pawns on their reelection chess boards, pieces in a game to portray in a manner that suits their purposes.

So we become “the American people” who hate “Obamacare,” the program that will bring the nation to its economic knees.

We are the Americans who want to pare government functions to basic duties. We are the people who would block aid for lazy, good-for-nothings without jobs so they can’t buy food, clothing and shelter, for men who father too many children without the means to support them, for women who choose not to have children because they are without the means to support them.

We are the people who would take pistols and assault rifles from mothers and fathers who only want the weapons to defend their families against other people with pistols and assault rifles. We are the people who refuse to acknowledge that firearms don’t belong in the hands of the mentally unstable.

We are the people who want to shut down government as kind of an experiment, to see what this country can do without, to make a point about excessive spending and excessive taxation.

No matter that in the process important things don’t get done, like research to cure debilitating and fatal diseases. Political ghosts and their soulless allies don’t mind endangering the financial well-being of hundreds of thousands of workers whose jobs and livelihood are tied to government operations from national parks to military contractors. They smugly ignore that closing the doors of federal agencies doesn’t really save any money, but in fact ramps up costs when all the work that’s not being done will have to be done when the government gets back in business.

None of this hyperbole is totally true, but it is being expressed repeatedly in a crazy, childish argument engendered by House Republicans to please a very small minority of its membership who somehow feel it deserves an outsized influence over the rest of us. It is being exploited by Senate Democrats, previously known as legislative adults, who see a way to break the GOP hold on the lower assembly.

Meanwhile, real people shake their heads in frustration, exasperated by the imprudent behavior that could take down their country. But the idea they are powerless to stop the madness is wrong. It is time for the real people to say enough with the nonsense, get back to work, get real.