Watching the slow motion crash of the U.S. Government is not as entertaining as vehicular calamity in the movies.  In the movies we know that everything will be cleaned up by the next scene. In Washington, we know that even when the crash is over and government restarts its engines, the same manic drivers will be behind the wheels.

In the good old days, we could expect our representatives to stop at intersections and observe right of way. If they suffered a fender bender or two, we would expect them to pull over and politely exchange papers, respecting the rules of engagement. Today “compromise” is a dirty word.  Representatives who take the charge of the voters as a call to arms have come to Washington with a mission that disdains negotiation. And why shouldn’t they take their mandate seriously?

The insanity comes when a few drivers are allowed to terrorize the roads, and that is what the House majority has sanctioned in the final debacle over the budget.  A vocal minority, sometimes identified as the voice of the Tea Party, has been allowed to drive the vehicle of state, taking out every obstacle in its way.  Ruthlessness of this kind is admirable when citizens and their representatives campaign and debate their convictions; it is not respectable when actual work has to be done.  It is the kind of mania we witness in parliamentary forms of government when the formation of a coalition depends on the appeasement of a few strident interest groups. We shouldn’t suffer this fate in the House of Representatives.

There is a higher mandate than the causes that inspire men and women to run for office. It is the mandate to govern. Ultimately they represent all of us, not just the vocal few that elected them.  Most Americans appreciate this distinction between conviction and partisanship, but there are some who can only see “my way or the highway.” Unfortunately many of those are careening around the halls of Congress, wreaking havoc instead of consensus. Maybe they should take the “high way.”

It’s time for the traffic cops in Congress to take back the roads.