A friend of mine from the Border Patrol told me about a Congressional delegation showing up to inspect the station where he worked as part of an evaluation of border policy. He was surprised when one of the Representatives proved to be a friend from high school, who promptly invited him out for dinner. At first he was uncomfortable with the idea; he had a bad feeling she was going to be trying to ply him for insider information, but he was pleasantly surprised when she instead just acted like an old friend glad to see him.... and she expressed her horror at the realities of Washington. She'd been in Congress for all of 18 months and she couldn't wait to be done. Everything was corruption and backstabbing and compromising your most fundamental morals and ethics just to try and get anything to happen. She had determinedly stuck to the path she felt was the one of integrity... and she had been relegated to nothing committees doing nothing busywork and any initiative or proposal she had ran into brick walls of opposition even from her own party. She was actively opposed at every turn, simply because she wouldn't "play the game." She ultimately did not run for reelection and went back home disgusted and disillusioned. A onetime passionately liberal Democrat she became a political independent with a decidedly libertarian view that government power needed to be reined in and strongly restricted.