Mine does, when I try to make sense of all the stuff going on in the world. Fortunately for the world, I don’t need to make decisions about problems like stem-cell research and US-North Korean relations. But we expect congress to make many such decisions, and columnist Peggy Noonan says that we expect much too much of our merely mortal congressmen and women.

I am thinking about the huge and crushing number of issues we force politicians to understand and make decisions on. These are issues of great variety, complexity, and even in some cases, many cases in a way, unknowability.

…For politicians it is the same but more so. They not only have to try to understand complicated and demanding questions, they have to vote on them.

She lists dozens of such problems that congress had to decide on just last week. It is clearly an impossible task for anyone, let alone our inexpert but well-meaning politicians.

So, what is the answer? Noonan doesn’t know (and I certainly don’t), but she concludes with these observations:

I have only three thoughts. One: It is good to keep in mind, at such a time, that we must let as many questions devolve into the private sphere as possible. Not all can but many can, and on so many issues it’s better to err on the side of individual freedom than the authority of the state. Two, in making big decisions do not lose simple common sense, which is common human sense, which is, for instance: If you start to clone humans it will have an ugly end. Three: Do not let go of your faith. Do not lose it. In the age in which too much is demanded of the slim wisdom of politicians, it is our only hope, and theirs.

Faith is the key. God is truly sovereign and in control even of congress and all of the world’s leaders, even if His means are invisible to us. I believe this, if for no other reason that the alternative is utter despair and hopelessness.

Dave, trying to be hopeful.