There is something seriously wrong with our elected officials. Despite the constant stream of examples demonstrating their inability to actually do their jobs, we keep electing the same type of person.

Perhaps some examples? The recent government shutdown scare comes to mind.

In the event of a shutdown, close to 600,000 workers would have been suspended or furloughed without pay.

The military would have required essential personnel, which is most of the military, to work without pay.

That also applies to those essential employees of the government who would not have been furloughed.

But the elected officials who created the problem by using the budget as a soapbox would continue to be paid their full $174,000 a year salary. Another example: same-sex marriage. The phrase conjures up mental images of vast controversy, images of religious leaders going head to head with civil rights leaders in an all out war.

This issue has arisen again and again in recent years.

California’s same-sex marriage laws have bounced back and forth for nearly seven years now, with no sure end in sight one way or another.

Earlier this year, Maryland and Rhode Island both took steps to legalize same-sex marriage. Maryland failed, but Rhode Island is still working through it.

Both bills, and similar bills across the nation, are almost always greeted with a storm of rhetoric and controversy.

But since March 2010 the District of Columbia, our nation’s capital, has had legalized same-sex marriage. What this amounts to is that those in power, our elected officials, have available to them a right that they claim the people do not want.

A right so controversial that it has given rise to amendments to state constitutions designed to suppress it. And while the average LGBT individual waits for this right to become available to them, those who work in the nation’s capitol have free access to it.

And though it was passed through congressional scrutiny into law, congressmen and women are still using same sex marriage as a hot button topic to gain quick political points one way or another. Why are we still electing these people?

Why do we continue to put people in office who seem to consider our wellbeing to be a bargaining ploy for more control? So once again: go research these people. Learn more about whom you’re electing.

Then get out there and shut the bad ones down. Because our nation is not a chess game, and the politicians and officials should not be allowed to treat it as such.