Elected officials: shut up and sit down.

  What IS it with these little Hitler politicians who decide they want something and then, regardless of the will of the people, RULE as if they are kings?
  We've had a highly unpopular and destructive health care plan initiated. We've had billions of dollars printed and then dispensed to wasteful projects. We've been accused ourselves of being irresponsible and not sacrificing enough between the politicians' jaunts to exotic and expensive vacations, much of it funded by the taxpayers.
  Now we have Mayor Bloomberg doubling down that no FDNY representatives and no clergy will be allowed to speak at the 10 year anniversary of 9/11.
  It's about the families of the victims, Bloomberg claims, even though many want those representatives at the ceremony.
  And even though many of the victims were FDNY.
  And many of the victims were religious folk.
  No religious representation because our government isn't religious.
  Of course, it's a ceremony and 90% of people in this country bear allegiance to some religion.
  The Anchoress, always eloquent, expresses contempt and outrage for this mentality: the elitist decreeing this or that for the rabble, using his distant and exclusive outlook on the situation, which bears little resemblance to what the majority of citizens think, both left and right:

I don’t know why I should be surprised. Priests and First Responders are, like our troops, front-line folk. They’re like heroes in the cowboy flicks; they ride in, shoulder the burden, help put things to rights, and then — while the elite get on with assuming their power and asserting their primacy –they recede into the background. Only the very few stick around to say ‘thank you’ and wave them off. Sometimes children ask them to come back, or to stay. 

Bloomberg’s priorities are all wrong. He’s thinking like a Baron — or no, he’s not really thinking at all; he’s being pragmatic: mustn’t let the help get get too much recognition, get too full of themselves — they might start getting uppity and making demands on milords purse and time. Mustn’t let the damn clergy murmur their vulgar prayers, or next we’ll have tent-revivalists cluttering up the fairgrounds and making such spectacles of themselves. 

The big crowds for New Years Eve, or for the big parades, are alright, he thinks, but this is not for the riff-raff. Let’s just keep the invite list confined to those who know how to dress and how to behave, and which fork to use, and when. 

You know…all those consequential (and so very, very smart) people who — ten years into this — have not managed to fill the still-exposed, gaping holes in the downtown ground. 

Perhaps that’s because of the increasingly exposed, gaping holes in their own heads and hearts — from which pours out so much that is mediocre, bleak and unhelpful.

  There's a scene in the musical 1776 where a politician struggles with what to do: to sign on to independence or not. The people had sent him as a representative of themselves. Was he to make decisions based on what the majority of people wanted him to do? 
  Or was he to make decisions based on the information he himself had acquired by being a representative of the people, using his own ethos and brain to decide what was best in the formation of a country. 
  We understand this conflict. We understand that our representatives in Washington will not always do what we want.
  But these decisions--health care, taxes, profligate spending, classism, avoidance of any religious reference--are contrary to the will of the people and the decisions aren't made for the betterment for the country.
  They're about what's best for the politician. About their own personal and selfish visions of what they themselves want.
  But we'd better not speak too loudly in disagreement with them.
  They might come for us, with guns.