Gumdrops and Lollipops

     Professor Reynolds writes, “While scientists are innovating and creating, politicians aren't doing much of anything”.  Glen Harlan Reynolds a professor of law at the University of Tennessee, who recently wrote an article titled “Washington isn't working: Column”.  The article begins by splitting America into two types of people the “people” and the “politicians". Stating that in the “other America”, we the people are working hard in the world, creating and inventing, and on the other side of the spectrum, Washington is sitting around twirling their thumbs with no penalty while the government is shut down.

     Reynolds makes some interesting implications, comparing America to The Hunger Games. He implies that our government is Capital City where everything is gumdrops and lollipops and they are watching the “poor”, the American people, suffer while doing nothing about it. I find that implication to be a bit harsh and over the top, but he is making an overall statement that while the parties of the government are sitting trying to make decisions and agreements the world is still turning. We as Americans still have to provide for our families, go to work, and for lack of better words “get ‘er done”.

     His audience in this article is pretty broad but at the same time pinpointing “we the people”. Through the article you see him make some pretty hefty comparisons about what everyone else is getting done and what the government is not getting done. His evidence is very one sided, he writes about the advances of space and the Internet, but only being able to state what the government is doing from what is happening in the news which looks to be nothing.

     His conclusion mentions that we need to think long and hard about what resources we are letting the government have control over. While that may be true, we are a democracy and we were the ones that voted these individuals to make our decisions, fair or unfair. At the end of the day we shouldn't be looking at the resources themselves, but the people we have put in place to take care of them. Although, there is much of his argument that I do agree with, “we the people” really have no idea what is going on, on the other side of the curtain. Ultimately the world has to keep turning and life as we know it has to go on, decisions need to be made and politicians need to come to an agreement.