To the editor:

Here’s a new twist on the issue of the moment: dysfunctional government. Though it’s easy (and popular) to blame the “bums” in Washington for the gridlock, it is my belief we need to blame the real perpetrators: those of us who choose to vote and those who choose not to vote.

We’re the ones who sent the present crop of politicians to Washington. What were we thinking? It appears we were not thinking and elected people whose main objective is to place endless roadblocks in the way of an orderly, functioning government so that it will simply cease to function. As for those who couldn’t find the time to vote, quit whining. You gave up your right to complain when you neglected to exercise your patriotic duty at the ballot box.

It’s time for all of us to take responsibility for the malaise gripping our nation. We, as consumers, could have used our buying power to support manufacturing jobs in the United States, but we chose not to do so. We were much more interested in buying cheap foreign products. Did it ever occur to us that when we chose to buy foreign goods, we were putting another American out of work?

Pogo was right when he said, “We have met the enemy and they is us.” The government is also us, but we don’t seem to appreciate its implications.  Instead of working to tear it down, we’d better learn to work together, not as divisive ideologues, but as the true American patriots we were meant to be.