When television first came out there were so few shows that they didn’t start broadcasting until 9:00 in the morning, and by 10:00 p.m. they would go off the air. As more shows were produced they began broadcasting at 8:00 in the morning and would go off at midnight, but just before they would sign off an announcer would say: “Parents, do you know where your children are?”
Many people who were born in the late 40s and early 50s, when they got to be teenagers and wanted to stay out late, were given a certain time by their parents of when to be back home. Back then, it was common for the teenager to come home to find that at least one of their parents was still sitting up waiting for them. If they came home long past the appointed hour, the child had to give an explanation for why they were late and, if the excuse was not acceptable, there was a punishment assigned.
When a person gets a job, they are told what their duties are and if they don’t perform their assigned duties to the satisfaction of their employer, they are terminated. As citizens, we hire people to represent us in government for the sole purpose of protecting our interests. Unfortunately, too many citizens don’t bother to find out if their representative is performing their duties to our satisfaction. Instead of staying alert, they figuratively go to sleep and don’t seem to care much if their representative comes in late instead of following the rules we set down for them.
As any parent knows, if a child realizes they can get away with disobeying the rules, they will do so every chance they get. As every employer knows, if an employee ‘s performance is not monitored, they will slack off every chance they can. But, for some reason, most citizens don’t pay much attention to what their representatives are doing. They neither check to see if they are following our rules nor do they monitor their performance.
Perhaps it is time to modernize an old slogan to say: “Citizens, do you know what your representatives are doing?”