Our Representatives or the New Royalty?

By The Colonel

I am motivated to write by a recent news story revealing Congressional representatives are leasing luxury cars for as much as $1900 month at our taxpayer expense.  On a Fox & Friends morning show there was a panel discussion on this Congressional luxury car-leasing story and a professor from Columbia suggested the extra expense was not even round-off error compared to the Iraq war expenses?  If you can’t really answer the question asked, then redirect with the answer to another question that you want?  This is a typical tactic of the political left and I doubt the professor even realized he changed the topic to answer a different question; it was simply reflex from long years of training and indoctrination in leftist ideology.

The real question is how can elected representatives take advantage of taxpayers who are financially distressed already by leasing a luxury car?  For example a recent news report found, “Congressman Gregory Meeks of Queens, New York makes the rounds in his home district in a Lexus 450 hybrid which costs a whopping $1,289 a month.  But that's no problem for Congressman Meeks because he's not paying for it,”[i] taxpayers are.  The answer is really simple, Congressional representatives “feel” entitled to such luxury.  The evidence to support this answer is abundant.  In 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiments[ii] that demonstrated what Lord Acton stated many years before, "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"[iii] The young college students in Zimbardo’s experiment were randomly assigned to be either prison guards or prisoners and then placed into a mock prison; they all knew they were role-playing but in only six days the experiment had to be stopped because it had spiraled out of control endangering the students. The results of this experiment showed that normal people could behave in extraordinarily evil ways if the situation or context were shaped to produce bad behavior (i.e., total power over others).[iv]

The Stanford experiment should lead us to wonder how seemingly normal people will behave when they are elected to Congressional office.  These are positions of power and authority where Senators and Representatives are often treated like royalty…young staffers waiting on them hand and foot, opening doors; reporters seeking their opinion on all matter of important subjects.  By virtue of their own vote, Congress awards themselves (and their union and political cronies) with luxury health care and retirement programs that few of their tax paying constituents can afford.  Members of Congress win these prize luxuries by convincing the public they will best represent their constituents’’ (i.e., voters) interests in Washington D.C.  I do not doubt that many “freshmen” in Congress truly believe what they tell their constituents and want to do the right thing.  However, I fear we have “set the stage” (i.e., created a situational context) for a much larger and real-life version of the Stanford Prison experiment of 1971.  And this experiment will have a similar outcome, but with real-life dire consequences for us all.  Professor Zimbardo was able to stop the Stanford experiment when it got out of control, but I am not sure how we can stop this real-life version before it too is completely out of control.

Our elected officials can only take so much public adoration, praise and special treatment before they too come to believe such great privileges are justified.  Surely the public is telling these Congressional representatives (e.g., the elite among us) that they are smarter, much more intelligent than the average voter and thus they are entitled.  A lifetime of political power is certainly a real world context similar to the infamous Stanford prison experiment in design and unfortunately in outcome.  We should heed Lord Action’s time-tested warning, "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”[v]

We should initiate strict term limits for elected officials to protect them from the usual human reaction to extended time in such powerful positions over others…and to protect us, and the nation, from the effects suffered at the hands of powerful government officials convinced of their entitlement to rule over us…instead of represent us.  Serving in high public office should be a citizen responsibility not a life-time career. 

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[i] Inside Edition, May1, 2012, Retrieved May 4, 2012 from: http://www.insideedition.com/news/8119/inside-edition-investigates-congressional-cars.aspx

[ii] Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect; Understanding how good people turn evil  (New York: Random House, 2008).

[iii] Lord Acton John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Historical Essays and Studies, ed. J.N. Figgins and R.V. Laurence, Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887 (London: Macmillian, 1907).

[iv] Zimbardo, 2008.

[v] John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton".  Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 04 May. 2012
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/4647/John-Emerich-Edward-Dalberg-Acton-1st-Baron-Acton/4647suppinfo/Supplemental-Information>.