On July 22, Anders Breivik killed eight people using homemade explosives in Oslo, Norway, before going on to personally shoot 69 youths on the island of Utoya. Yet Oslo’s mayor, Fabian Stang, informed the world that while Breivik will be prosecuted, he will be punished “with love and democracy.” Stang is the kind of politician the world needs. More specifically, this is the kind of upstanding political integrity Wisconsin needs.
Stang teaches an important lesson with his words – while we may not agree with someone, we must not stoop to their level of ignorant malice. Instead, we ought to tolerate and work with them, not shut them out. In the political process, this is something known as compromise, something our current governor can’t seem to grasp, despite it being the most basic, fundamental building block of our system.
Wisconsin is replete with examples of this lack of political integrity. Just look to Rep. Peter Barca’s, D-Kenosha, attempt to simply read part of the Wisconsin constitution in a Senate hearing regarding Walker’s infamous bill: Barca was blatantly ignored, disrespected and shut out by Republicans.
Why are so many campaigns run on attacking an opponent? Are today’s politicians just not able to defend their positions well enough to the public that they need to move the spotlight to the other candidate? We’ve lost upstanding trendsetters like former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and replaced them with people who don’t acknowledge the existence of the other side.
Don’t get me wrong – lack of integrity can be found in politicians on both sides. The previous examples show only Republicans as the culprits who lack political integrity, but Democrats definitely do as well. Have the people in our state simply become intolerant? That’s hard to believe, considering the Midwest is known to be an “oh-ja-don’tchya-know-everybody-gets-along” place. Does this Midwest trait simply disappear when someone assumes a political office?
Our state’s system, and perhaps our country’s system, needs revamping. And I’m not talking “recall Walker!” I’m talking about a revision of the structure established in our state constitution. The basic tenets of our state government’s structure were established during a much different time, but even then politicians understood the need for checks and balances.
James Madison understood their necessity by noting that “all men having power ought to be distrusted.” This notion is still very true today, but the risk of a politician losing his or her integrity is now much higher. The world isn’t friendly to the na?ve, idealistic politician anymore, so today’s politicians fight to keep their seats. Job security is the name of the game now.
More checks on power. Less isolated politicians. More political parties represented. We need these as barriers against power mongers. Our state constitution has been around for 163 years – plenty of time for loopholes to be found. We need a constitution based on the ideas Oslo’s mayor posited. We need love and democracy, not hostility and unilateralism.
I’m going to be honest: I miss having Feingold to look up to. He was a politician who knew how to work with the other side and upheld all those idealistic notions that every freshman majoring in political science still believes in. It’s not about winning for your side; it’s about winning for the people. It’s not about taking care of a business; it’s about taking care of the people. Wisconsin’s politics should function for the people, but somewhere along the way it began to function only for the two respective parties.
So how could we tweak the system? We need politicians in power that are able to instigate the needed change, but we need the change before those politicians are able to claim their seats. It’s yet another catch-22 in the political world, leaving Wisconsinites under-, if not completely un-, represented.
Reggie Young ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in legal studies and Scandinavian studies.
