It’s easy to see how the federal government can sometimes assume the role of our parental providers. They decide what’s moral or immoral for all and turn it into the law of the household. They allocate their budgets for things like school, healthcare, and the occasional binge-war. And neither liberal mom nor conservative dad ever seem to get along with each other when the kids are watching.

Appropriately, we get annoyed with both institutions for some of the same reasons, too. The frustration you felt when you realized your folks were exempt from their own rules (I don’t see you going to bed at 10, “dad”), for example, is the same frustration we should feel when we realize that Congress is rarely forced to abide by its own laws.

Take insider trading, for instance. When normal people use confidential knowledge to cheat the stock market, they get arrested – when a congressman does it, he gets to buy a nice car.  And while the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge act, or STOCK (real cute, guys) is a step in the right direction to ensuring that those on the Hill play by the same rules as those who are not, it’s interesting to note that the sudden and overwhelming support within Congress for the bill came not from some moral deliberation of their own, but through a scramble to save face in the wake of public outrage.

Or consider the deliciously ironic case of Jane Harman, a Democratic representative from California who was recently wiretapped by the government. The congresswoman was allegedly caught on tape trying to coerce then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi through an Israeli lobbyist group  (AIPAC) in exchange for political favors. Naturally outraged, Harman has fought furiously against these allegations, calling the wiretapping an egregious “abuse of power” – what makes this situation hysterical (or reasonably depressing, depending on your mood) is that Harman was one of the most outspoken supporters for the PATRIOT act, and advocated extensively in favor of the wiretapping of American citizens.

There are dozens of similar examples. A legislator in Indiana hastily withdraws a bill after the addition of an amendment that would place the same drug test requirements on himself and his colleagues that he fought to put on welfare recipients; certain SOPA sponsors host unlicensed copyrighted material right on their homepages; perhaps most tellingly, the legislative branch is still exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, which would require them to make public any and all records pertaining to their work as public servants.

With the increasing divide in this country between Washington and everyone else, it’s worth questioning whether the people creating our legislation are radically out of touch with the people who elected them – not only are they pulling relatively large salaries and even larger stock portfolios as fruits of their supposed public service, but they also operate under a sad and deleterious truth: the ivory tower from which they pass bills is often free from the laws created therein.

There is hope, though. While you’re stuck with your parents, you can choose your representatives – and election season is right around the corner.