We get the Congress we deserve

It's time for a little bit of a political rant. (Hey! I've been good lately, so I've earned this.)

Do you remember when reasonable conservatives looked at the fringe elements in their party and said, "Oh, no! We've got to do our best to keep these kooks marginalized so they don't take over our Grand Old Party and push us so far to the right that we cannot be mainstream." ?

Yeah. I don't remember that either.

 Sunday on Meet the Press, John McCain shook his old man fist at David Gregory because he's convinced that -I'm not sure, but I think- someone lied to him. Or us. Or those damn kids won't get off his lawn.
He's voting against the president's nominee for Secretary of Defense, former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel because he opposed (vocally) the war in Iraq. The war that we entered under the pretense of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and imminent threat to John McCain's lawn.
That war, which cost over 1200 American lives (not to mention the thousands of Iraqis), and which John McCain thought was a smashing success despite the lack of actual weapons of mass destruction existing, does not represent a "cover-up" in any way. While the four deaths in Libya and what the president knew when they happened are part of a huge conspiracy to somehow traffic arms through Turkey via John McCain's lawn.
I mention all of this because John McCain used to be reasonable. He used to be a relatively benign voice of compromise in the Republican party. Now he's deliberately obstructing the confirmation of a U.S. Secretary of Defense.

The complete disconnect between the rabid defense of the 2nd Amendment by some Representatives coupled with the self-destructive desire to eliminate all government to the point where they no longer have jobs, and these same elected officials' desire to do everything in their power to regulate the minutiae of my reproductive cycle never strikes them as odd. They can introduce a bill forbidding any branch of the government from questioning your need for an assault rifle and in nearly the same breath suggest that the government should regulate my uterus (But at my cost. Can't be putting that on the taxpayers.)
These fringe players managed to sweep into positions of power due to an uneducated/ill-informed electorate and the unwillingness of main-stream conservatives to say, "Wait a minute. You don't represent my views."
Up until recently, I was hoping that was because the center-right conservatives were bowled over and were still trying to regain their footing after this wave of Tea Partiers. It's looking more and more as if the ill-informed electorate is going to trump common sense. After a decade of eating the pablum of "climate change hoax" and "they're out to take your guns" and "Obama is a socialist" we have an entire segment of society who are accurately represented by paranoid old men who want you to get off their lawns.

The only thing that will fix this is a lack of apathy and real facts. Until then, we'd better just stay off the grass.