Maher On the Loose

Usually Real Time with Bill Maher is a beating the conservatives session. But this week was a little different.

Bill went on his show with a round table destined for trouble. It featured Andrew Breitbart, conservative blow hard blogger who likes to change little things like facts to better represent his opinions. On the other side of the spectrum was cartoonist and comedian, who oddly enough had two season debuts, The Cleveland Show and Family Guy, coming up the following weekend.

In the middle of the table was Amy Holmes, a centrist pretending to be liberal but who really owns the center-conservative block of the talk radio airwaves.

What ensued was pure comedy gold... And was incredibly interesting to watch. Bill pulled strong to the center, dehumanizing democrats for having no spine, and swiping at Republicans for getting in the way. But his leniency to a guy like Breitbart, who is a notable social pariah, was particularly surprising.

Which brings me to my topic for the day, the representative democracy. Voters elect representatives to lead them forward, protect their rights, and be their functional arm in the government, local, federal and state. But at what point do voters rights of control over said official begin, and at what point do they end. At what point do voters have the ability to demand of their elected leaders to do their will, the beck and call of a community, regardless of validity or proper legality. At what point do elected officials have the ability to ignore these voices and instead lead from their own perspective, right or wrong. This is the predominant issue in our modern society. Look at a figure like Sarah Palin, she was an elected governor of Alaska, whose followers asked her to resign so she could connect with the country. At what point is that going to far? Look at somebody like President Obama, he ignores a good about of his base and governed from a fundamentally different mindset, a philosophy of whats best for the country is whats best for everyone, and not necessarily in the long term. At what point should his opinions reflect the voters more?

These issues are not small. They are serious road blocks in our civil discourse. And we must find a way to work around them. Or certainly, with them.