It Warms the Cockles of My Heart

It turns out that people really care about what happens to Terry Schiavo. This is astonishing, and truly heartwarming. The fact that all these people, all over this great nation, will put aside whatever it is they're doing and turn to with messages of hope and giving, all for the sake of one woman in one hospital bed in Florida, just makes me glow with newfound appreciation of the human capacity to care for others.

Two days ago, I wrote about how it was too bad that Congress, our august legislative body, was spending its time worrying about just one woman. But this was wrong of me; I am guilty of having a closed mind.

I thought that, since Congress usually writes rules of broad application, like budgets and Constitutional Amendments, it should refrain from writing a law designed to help just one person. But now I see the error of my ways. One need only listen to the impassioned speeches made by Jeff Miller and Tom DeLay from the floor of the House to know that the passions of these men are inflamed by the continuing possibility that this poor woman might be allowed to simply starve to death.

And this got me to thinking: what if Congress has missed its calling? What if, for all these two hundred-odd years, Congress has been messing up by writing its rules that affect everyone, and look to some amorphous "Big Picture" that never materializes? What if, instead, Congress focused like a laser beam on the problems of individual Americans, and drafted its legislation to help them accordingly?

Think of the possibilities. If you don't like your mother-in-law, you could petition Congress to allow people to sue their mothers-in-law in federal court for emotional distress, using much less stringent standards for "emotional distress" than courts currently require. Or what about those of us who love those "mid-major" conference basketball teams, who are distressed that such teams never seem to make it to the Final Four? We could have Congress pass legislation that reserves one of those "final" four spots for someone other than snobby Duke or mammoth Michigan State. What, you think Congress couldn't force the NCAA to put Gonzaga in the Final Four because the NCAA is a private actor? Please. There is no privacy any more. I, personally, plan to ask Congress to force Hollywood stars to publish their phone numbers online, so that I can call whomever I want and ask them for money and free DVDs.

Wouldn't this be great? Congress, no longer a bunch of bureacrats in an impregnable Washington fortress, but rolling up its sleeves to help the common American. We could probably do it for six whole months before the government went bankrupt. But, thanks to Congress, we'd still have to pay off the debt.