The long and short of it

Over the last week, I've become acutely aware of an odd paradox taking place in our communications.

On the one hand, individual communication is becoming increasingly clipped and shortened. Between such quick fire mediums as e-mail, texting, and Facebook updates, grammatically correct and complete written interchanges are becoming a thing of the past. The phenomenon has been kicked into warp speed by the massive and viral growth of Twitter as a communications medium. It is disconcerting to see the dwindling of written eloquence in everyday communication. Our entire culture seems to be shifting in this direction. It's been rehashed over and over, but the truth remains - we're becoming an ADD society. If you can't sell your idea in 10 seconds flat, you're likely to lose your audience altogether.

On the other end of the spectrum are the "big" ideas of government, and the absurdly complex legalese and verbosity coming from those who purport to be the champions of these ideas. Just take a look at a few big legislative items that have recently passed or are currently being debated. Stimulus was an 800? page bill. Cap and Trade was, I believe, around 1,600 pages, and that included "placeholders" where the legislation would be more fully fleshed out at a later date. Healthcare reform is another several thousand pages long, and seemingly growing by the day.

I reread a passage from Ecclesiastes a few nights ago that seems particularly apropos in this regard:

Ecc 6:11 - "The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?"

So why the disconnect? How has a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" evolved to the point where the way government thinks and operates is so antithetical to the lives and styles of the people it aims to represent? I have several theories, some conspiratorial, some innocuous, and some outlandish. But they don't matter a whole lot. The actual reasons for the disconnect are ultimately only marginally important. What is more important is how to bridge that gap and bring the two more closely in line.

I claim no feel-good answer to this. As I see it, there is no quick fix, only a difficult commitment. That commitment is to the task of reengaging and reining in our government. Of course, it would take more than a few activists, as small-scale activism combined with large-scale nonchalance is what has gotten us into this situation in the first place.

So I make this plea to everybody. Get involved. Take time to understand the issues. Demand honesty, trasnsparency, and simplicity. Question everything. Engage people about the issues. Discuss the problems, not the soundbites. Forget about the D, R, L, I, or whatever next to somebody's name. We need to pay more attention to what people believe, and less to whose side they're on.