I think that it is important for an elected official to listen. If he already has his mind made up, then he should share his reasons, but I believe that in this case, the rep actually was argumentative. I am not sure. I heard the story second-hand from my husband.

Ryan makes a great point, though, we are a representative democracy for a good reason and individual decisions are not made democratically.

Obviously, for all politicians, there will be people who disagree with whatever their positions are on any given issue. All one can hope is that they take the time to actually listen and think about dissenting points-of-view.

Well, I don’t know about the “try to convince those who disagree that they are wrong” part, but our representatives are there to support intiatives that are in the best interests of their constituents and the locality, state, or country that they were elected from.

Being a former representative of sorts myself, I would frequently, simply ask my “constituents” how they felt on a whole range of issues…especially if I didn’t know which way to go or didn’t personally care much about a certain issue. Many times, I would express their will at the same time that their will & my feelings were different on an issue. I’d always been honest when I did that as well. There were a few issues though that, if I cared deeply enough about them, I would express the opposite of what a majority of my “constituents” wanted because I felt very strongly that their wishes were not in their long-term interest. Sometimes representatives do this at their own risk, which most of them realize at the time.

Yes, on many matters, the representative should be primarily concerned with understanding and supporting the wishes of the majority of his constituents; in others, though, the representative may have to take a broader or longer-range view of the situation and vote the way he or she deems best even if the citizens (who aren’t necessarily as involved with or fully understanding of all the issues at play in any particular situation) in general prefer otherwise.

I think it is a representative’s duty to challenge his or her constituents to defend their opinions. Frankly, I’d be more disturbed by a representative who didn’t ask me to provide supporting arguments when I voiced an opinion, and to address the arguments made by other concerned constituents.

And Jay, saying “Sounds like this guy had already made up his mind, with no deep thought about the issue” is unfair; he might have heard from many constituents, argued the matter extensively, done lots of research, and then come to a conclusion, and when faced with someone with a differing opinion, wanted to challenge that opinion to see how it holds up.

Arguing one’s opinion is not a matter of blindly ignoring the other side; at its best, it’s a way to challenge your beliefs and see how they stand up against the arguments given by others. It’s how opinions should be formed, and how they change over time.