Ted the Penguin

The Aggregate Interest

Truer words are rarely spoken.

A delegate is bound to represent the true local interest of his constituents - to state it in its true light to the whole body - but when each provincial interest is thus stated, every member should act for the aggregate interest of the whole confederacy. The design of representation is to bring this collective interest into view - a delegate is not the legislator of a single state - he is as much the legislator of the whole confederacy as of the particular state where he is chosen; and if he ives his vote for a law which he believes to be beneficial to his own state only, and pernicious to the rest, he betrays his trust and violates his oath. It is indeed difficult for a man to divest himself of local attachments and act from an impartial regar to the general good; but he who cannot for the most part do this, is not a good legislator.

Noah Webster brought up a good point. If a legislator cannot hold the values of the people above his own local interests, or self gain, he’s not a good person to be in congress (Examples in point). Sadly, there seems little we can do about it, the irrational mob votes, not the rational individual.

The American people are so thirsty for whatever is shoved at them that they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage and drink the sand. And the mob drinks the sand because they don’t know the difference between it and water. (Thank you Michael Douglas.)

From “A Citizen of America,” An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution. Noah Webster. Philadelphia, October 17, 1787.